Purely Joyful Movie!

Perfect cast and a good story

Fantastic!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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.

Veteran western star George O'Brien teamed up with The Three Stooges in director Edward Bernds' "Gold Raiders" as an insurance agent determined to thwart a gang of trigger-happy bandits from hijacking gold shipments. The Stooges play second string to George as he tries to flush out the polecats preying on mine operators shipping their ore to Red Mesa. Not only did this 55-minute, black & white, comedy oater constitute O'Brien's last starring role, but it was the first and only time that Shemp Howard showed up for a Stooges' feature film. Primarily, Moe, Larry, and Shemp are con artists masquerading as itinerant peddlers who wind up working alongside O'Brien. Along the way, George and the Stooges get their spurs tangled up with elderly Doc Mason and his granddaughter Laura. Poor old Doc is an alcoholic sawbones who accidentally collaborates with the chief villain Taggart (Lyle Talbot) when he loses a piece of paper with O'Brien's strategy to dupe the outlaws. "Gold Raiders" amounts to a standard-issue, B-movie, horse opera, with the virtuous O'Brien battling it out with the wicked Taggart while the Stooges supply the kind of comic relief sidekicks ordinarily would in their service to the star. Fuzzy Knight makes a brief appearance as a pusillanimous town sheriff. The incomparable Clem Bevans is both believable and sympathetic as the whiskey besotted oldster. As Doc Mason, he creates chaos without realizing what he is doing until half-way through the action. If you enjoy formulaic B-movie sagebrushers with knock-down drag out fights, galloping horse chases, and shoot'em ups, this western should entertain you. The shenanigans of the Stooges and the complex Elwood Ullman and William Lively screenplay make this one tolerable enough to take.

Mediocre little comic western has George O'Brien playing a character named... George O'Brien. That's a sign of the imagination of this oater. But the Stooges are younger and more agile, seeing as this is a 1951 film, than their later outings in the sixties when they were re-discovered. This is also the only feature film with Shemp Howard in the team. All the later films featured the lamentable Joe DeRita. This is also O'Brien's final feature role.The story is about former marshal O'Brien investigating trouble in a western town involving a gold mine. The Stooges are hustlers selling useless gadgets. O'Brien uses the Stooges wagon to carry the gold out under the noses of the villains. Who would suspect those three idiots carting gold around, right? Pretty simple stuff and it only runs 56 minutes so it doesn't wear out its welcome. Yet it isn't particularly funny either. But if you like slapping, this is the slappingest movie ever. The Stooges slap each other, other men slap each other, and even women slap each other... and with all those Stooge sound effects included. Enjoy!