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.

Gold Raiders finds B western star George O'Brien, a former US Marshal now in a new line of work. He's in the insurance game both in sales and protection. He's signing up mine owners for insurance, but in that corner of the west, the mine shipments have been regular prey to bandits. To make his insurance work or pay out big time, O'Brien's got to find the robbers.He could sure use some good help, but that's hard to find so instead he gets the Three Stooges. Moe, Larry, and Shemp are a trio of itinerant peddlers/con artists and none to good. So why O'Brien thinks they'll be of help to him is a mystery. Still they do their slapstick best.This was George O'Brien's final starring role, he did a comeback appearance in John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn in a much more serious film and part. He doesn't look like he minds too much playing second fiddle to Three Stooges.Not too much mystery here, we know right away who the bandits are. Some similarity in plot to Abbott&Costello's The Wistful Widow Of Wagon Gap. For Stooge fans everywhere.

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!

Great film suffers from not being seen often since it is very rare to find a video of it. I saw it at a film festival. Shemp and George do excellent jobs in this film which is both hilarious and very serious at the same time. An unusual work for the stooges definitely. See it if you have the chance!!!