. . . were making the Realistic Flicks that Blue Collar Americans yearned to see, such as THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, John Wayne was catering to the crowd peopling Tod Browning's classic film, FREAKS, with such fare as THEY DRIVE BY DAY (also released as RED RIVER RANGE). Wayne's show features a dude ranch owner who gets the bright idea of embedding his elderly bridge-playing lady clients amid a gang of ACTUAL cattle rustlers, so that they can steal and drive their Bovine Cownapees IN BROAD DAYLIGHT 5 or 10 miles to a refrigerator truck, where the purloined sirloin is slaughtered and dressed, again IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! Amazingly, it also turns out that the cooling semi-trucks tooling around America's rutty two-track back roads in the 1930s could freeze meat at minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (presumably so that it would stay fresh on ice in the event of a catastrophic Mad Cow Disease Outbreak in the 22nd Century, at which time the descendants of the rustlers--after paying 300 years of high electric bills--could fetch top dollar for their meat).

Good cast, great William Lava score, and generally high production values -- marred only slightly by an obviously fake riding scene with young Sammy McKim -- raise this Three Mesquiteers programmer from the routine.Bob Livingston had been replaced at this point in the series by a very good-looking John Wayne as Stony Brooke, but Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune continued as Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin.Veteran Polly Moran made a great lady dude visiting out West, and the bad guys -- a large number -- were very believable.Maybe this is just exactly what we expect from the pros at Republic (I like the sound of that word) Pictures, but George Sherman's directing was actually above the average. He used a moving camera to excellent benefit and got some superlative performances out of, perhaps especially, Crash Corrigan, who was in great shape, and looked handsome and heroic, and gave a very credible performance.Three Mesquiteers movies after the very earliest entries were programmers and probably were never expected to be considered classics, but they are. In part because of the unfailingly high quality of casts and in part because of the generally good quality of story.There was a lack of consistency in the settings, this one being set at about the time of the filming, with cars and trucks figuring as prominently as horses.But it all fits; there is no anachronistic feeling.This is good stuff, and I recommend "Red River Range," which you can find at YouTube.

AMC just premiered this film on their network. One can see that it came from a well cared for 35mm print. It appears the picture and sound were digitally mastered. It looked great in all its sweeping black and white glory. It is the best print I have ever seen of this film and compares very favorable to the other prints of this series shown on AMC.Personally, I like John Wayne as an actor in this series of films as Stony Brook then the A pictures he would soon start to make. Who cannot like that corny dummy Elmer. There is a kind of humor in these movies made by Republic that I have never seen from any other studio. My gut feeling is that it is a Americana feeling, and I like that. As in PALS OF THE SADDLE, Wayne's character as Killer Madigan is right on target while being slightly offbeat and wonderful at the same time.Great music, sound effects,humor and a rousing adventure make this a nifty film.

No matter what film John Wayne appears in he's always interesting to watch. Besides the fact that as an actor he was used by novelists and directors to reinvent the American west, as a personality he was endearing to watch, especially in this film where he is more important than the storyline.