Overland Stage Raiders

CinemaSerfJun 2022

3.0

There is something quite surreal about the start to this film.... The opening sequence features a gang of outlaws chasing a gold shipment, but it's being carried on a bus - an ordinary coach with passengers merrily trundling down the highway as the baddies give pursuit on horseback! At this point a charismatic and handsome John Wayne and the "Mesquiteers" hit on an idea to buy an aeroplane to fly said bullion in safety in future. Needless to say, the owner of the shipping company is none to pleased at the progress and so brings in some muscle to put the kibosh on their cunning plan. Silent film star Louise Brooks provides the glamour, and all told it's quite a jolly little adventure film with nothing much of note in the plot or the script aside from the slightly odd cross-over aspect that signalled the permanent decline of this genre as an appreciably relevant way of life for many who would still have actively recalled the ways of the old west.