The Three Mesquiteers was the title for a low-budget western series between 1936 and 1943, including eight films starring John Wayne. The name Mesquiteers was a play on words, referring to mesquite, a plant common in the Western states.
The character of Stony Brooke (get it?) was played by Bob Livingston for 29 films and then replaced by John Wayne for eight movies. John Wayne said, "Each one got worse and worse until John Ford's Stagecoach saved me. We were making those four-day, western films where the hero hummed before he got angry and shot someone. And then they put words, to it.
"Then they had my other two partners playing instruments and singing. I faked playing a guitar. The southern distributors reported back that the kids like the singing, so for the next movie they added two songs, then three. And when it got up to four, I'd have to grab a guitar out of a tree to sing.
"Finally, I had enough of it. I went to the producer and said, 'I've had it. The kids have me sing songs when I meet them. And I can't do it anymore'."
"Well, what should I do?" the producer asked.
"Why don't you go find the biggest hillbilly singer you can and make a star out of him? So he did. It was Gene Autry."
Gene Autry had recorded many hillbilly-style records in 1930 and had a TV show. So he was hired for his first western, In Old Santa Fe. He racked up 99 movies including his five-year TV show starting in1950.
His singing cowboy films were the first vehicle to expose country music to a national audience. He ranked for many years in Forbes Magazine's list of the richest Americans with a net worth of $320 million dollars.
During World War 2 Autry didn't have to go to war, but he volunteered to go. He said, "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror shaving if I didn't go."
A fun note: Actor Glenn Strange, who played the Frankenstein monster three times and was the bartender on Gunsmoke, was the singing voice for John Wayne in those movies.
Strange was paid a dollar a song to write songs for Wayne and sing them. Strange was under contract to the studio, so he was only paid his weekly salary besides the extra dollar.
Strange played the Frankenstein monster in: House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
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Forbidden Power wins 28 first-place international awards, including:
Best Picture - BITB Hollywood Film Festival.
Best Science Fiction Film - Oklahoma BB Film Festival -
Best Thriller - London Flicks Festival -
Best Original Screenplay - Florence Film Awards Italy.
Best Feature Film - New York Cinematography Awards.
After a one-night affair with a mysterious woman, a young man wakes up with sexually transmitted powers and sexual power.
He searches for the woman to find out the source of her power and why he was chosen.
Roy Rogers once said, "It was great to walk out onto my front porch with the cameras set up for the first shot." I always envied that. But on my new movie, I slept in a bedroom that was used in the movie and right out the door was a living room where the first shot of the day was on one day. I could have gotten up one minute before and directed it in my Roy Rogers jamies.
I agree that some of the movies are like western sit-coms, but The Shootist, The Cowboys, Big Jake are great and Rio Bravo one of the most admired movies of all time.
As a kid, I didn't like Gene Autry. Probably because of his singing all the time and his fake cowboy movies. But Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, still remains a classic. I liked Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, probably because they genuinely were ranchers and helped many kids get adopted and have a wonderful home to live in.
Ron