Besides of course John Wayne, two other movie legends got parts in the B western series The Three Mesquiteers. One was Jennifer Jones and second in this film was Carole Landis. After whole bunch of bit roles, Carole got the female lead here in Three Texas Steers. Right after that she got signed for her breakthrough
role in One Million, BC with a 20th Century Fox contract to boot. Here Carole is the owner of a circus who all of a sudden runs into streak of horrible bad luck. Due to lot of accidents her circus has to fold and she retreats to her ranch. It's a pretty broken down place, but fortunately the one piece of good luck she has is the fact that The Three Mesquiteers own the neighboring ranch. The boys are bit oafish in this one and Max Terhune manages to get himself swindled which nearly puts them all down the toilet, both the Mesquiteers and the Landis spread. Of course things work out all right in the end as Carole finds out who's behind her bad luck and why her ranch is so valuable. Carole Landis had lot of beauty and lot of talent in one package. It's interesting to see her at this point in her career, before she went totally platinum blond. Too bad she and the Duke never got to work together again when both were A list stars.
January 14, 2007
