The Night Riders (1939)

The Three Mesquiteers was the umbrella title for a series of fifty-one B-westerns released between 1936 and 1943. The films featured the characters Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin or Rusty Joslin as the threesome; played by many B-western stars of that era. In 1938, John Wayne took over for Robert Livingston as Stony Brooke and starred in eight Mesquiteers films between 1938 and 1939, he was joined by Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin for the first six and Raymond Hatton as Rusty Joslin for the last two... all eight films were directed by George Sherman (Big Jake). John Ford's Stagecoach was perfectly sandwiched between the eight films and John Wayne portrayal of the outlaw gunfighter made him a superstar and ended Wayne's Stony Brooke run... Livingston was rehired as Brooke and went on to make fourteen more Mesquiteers films and for an incredible total of twenty-nine. In the Night Riders (the fifth of eight Wayne Mesquiteers films), a crooked gambler (George Douglas), impersonating Don Luis de Serrano, establishes himself as a dictator within the United States with a phony land grant dating back to Phillip of Spain. With an army of hired gunmen he evicts all the townspeople off his land who fail to meet his tax demands. After their appeal to President James Garfield in turned down, our evicted heroes become the masked avengers nicknamed the Night Riders; modern-day Robin Hoods, stealing from the land baron's goons and giving back to the oppressed farmers. Featuring Doreen McKay and Ruth Rogers.