Gold Raiders (1951)

You have to wonder what a western starring The Three Stooges nad George O'Brien would be. Well it's not a bad hour of entertainment. O'Brien plays it straight and the Stooges...well are the Stooges.George O'Brien paying himself, is riding to town to sell insurance protection to miners to protect their shipments, when he is attacked by a gang. He is wounded but The Three Stooges in their peddler's wagon arrive on the scene and scare the bandits off.Bad guy Clete (John Merton) reports to boss Taggart (Lyle Talbot) that he has killed O'Brien just as O'Brien and the Stooges ride into town. O'Brien meets mine owner John Sawyer (Monte Blue) and sells him on the insurance idea.Later, Sawyer is planning a large shipment. O'Brien has a plan. He will carry a fake shipment down a back road while the Stooges will carry the real gold in their wagon down the regular road. He draws the plan on the back of a wanted poster. Laura Mason (Sheila Ryan) is concerned over her grandfather's (Clem Bevans) drinking and convinces him to reform and gives him money to buy new clothes.Doc has other ideas and hits the bottle and O'Brien's map falls into Taggart's hands. Knowing the plan Taggart plans a false attack on O'Brien while sending his main force after the Stooges and.....................This was George O'Brien's return to the "B" western after eleven years. Always in great shape, he looked like no time had passed since the end of his series in 1940. Unfortunately, this would be his last "B" western. The Three Stooges perform many of their slap stick routines but are mainly supporting players here. They did have their own director, Edward Bernds though. Fuzzy Knight a seasoned western veteran is totally wasted as the sheriff. He hardly has anything of substance to do.This movie is better than advertised. It's a good little "B" western worth watching.

While by the time this movie was made, Shemp Howard had appeared with his brother Moe and Larry Fine in several shorts as The Three Stooges, this is only the second-and final, it turned out-time he appeared with them in a feature. The first time was in Soup to Nuts back in 1930 when they were teamed with Ted Healy before Shemp first split from them and was replaced by his brother Curly who he eventually replaced in 1946 when Curly had his stroke. Anyway, this was sorta a straight western starring George O'Brien with the Stooges providing comic relief. They're certainly funny enough whenever they appear on screen. By the way, if the leading lady Sheila Ryan seems familiar to you, you may have seen her with another familiar comedy team-namely Laurel & Hardy-in Great Guns and A-Haunting We Will Go. Anyway, Gold Raiders is a pretty enjoyable western/comedy if you don't take it too seriously. P.S. I had previously tried to watch this on the DVD that also had Meet the Baron but the first two shipments from Netflix had either no pic or it froze in several places. I had some of those same problems here from the third shipment but since I kept changing machines, it seemed to work fine...until it pixilated quite a bit near the end though I could still figure out what was going on almost to the very end. Update-8/4/16: Just watched the end on YouTube from a clear print. Rating stays.

GOLD RAIDERS (1951)A dull western/comedy feature with the Three Stooges (including Shemp Howard at this point, who I've always enjoyed as the "third Stooge") doing their usual schtick, and directed by the normally dependable Edward Bernds, who also did some of their funniest classic shorts -- so one has to wonder, just what went wrong this time? The most probable answer is that what worked pretty good as a 15-minute two-reeler comes up as too much for a 55-minute feature film. Unlike so many of their classic short subjects, GOLD RAIDERS is not worth revisiting.*1/2 out of ****

The Three Stooges save the day when the gold must go through in this amusing Western that will tickle the funny bone of any Three Stooges fan. Clem Bevans is hilarious as an old man with a few problems of his own. The film would have gained more had the Stooges been given a larger role. Director Ed Bernds was given a tiny budget and about one week to knock this picture out. Nevertheless, worth the price of admission for the Stooge in you.