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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. Three Texas Steers (the sixth of eight Wayne Mesquiteers films) co-stars Carole Landis as Nancy Evans, a lovely circus owner whose crooked manager, George Ward (Ralph Graves) sabotages her circus with a series of mysterious incidents, so she has no choice, but to sell the ranch her grandfather left her in Mesquite County. Bankrupted and broke, Nancy and her band of carnies decide to move to Mesquite and live on the ranch until they're back on their feet. Ward and is cohorts vow to drive Nancy off her ranch, but standing in their way are Nancy's new neighbors, the Three Mesquiteers. This was Max Terhune's twenty-first and final appearance as Lullaby Joslin.
John Wayne