Riders of the Rio Grande (1943)

• 69%
• 1943
• Western
• Howard Bretherton
• Bob Steele
• Tom Tyler
• Jimmie Dodd

Mayor Timothy "Pop" Owens (Edward Van Sloan) , also the highly respected town banker,has a problem. His useless son Tom (Rick Vallin) has aided henchmen of Sam Skelly (Harry Worth), a saloon owner , rob the bank in order to pay off Tom's gambling debts, and the bank examiners are coming in two days. "Pop" is facing imprisonment and disgrace and he decides to make the bank the beneficiary of a trust fund he created for his daughter, Janet (Lorraine Miller), and Tom, which will more than cover the stolen money. He then has Skelly hire a desperado to kill him. Skelly, never the one to under-staff a project, hires three ruthless outlaws, Sasaparilla Cherokee (Roy Barcroft), Thumber Cherokee (Charles King) and Butch Cherokee (Jack O'Shea). No one is faster on the draw than the Cherokee Brothers, except the Three Mesquiteers, Tucson Smith (Bob Steele), Story Brooke (Tom Tyler) and Lullaby Joslin (Jimmie Dodd) and they just happen to be in town. Stopping at a bar, they tangle with they tangle with the Cherokee brothers, win the fight , and run them out of town. "Pop" mistakes the Mesquiteers for the Cherokee boys and outlines his reasons for wanting to be murdered. THe Mesquiteers realize there is work here for them, humor Pop by agreeing to his plan, and work out a counter plot to save him, not correcting his belief about their identities.