Gold Raiders

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Gold Raiders is a 1951 comedy film, with a script by B-movie writer William Lively and veteran comedy writer Elwood Ullman. The film was an attempt by independent producer Bernard Glasser to inaugurate a new western series starring old favorite George O'Brien. Adding novelty value to the proceedings are The Three Stooges: Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, and Moe Howard. The 56-minute Gold Raiders was economically filmed in a record five days by director Edward Bernds.

The action is fairly divided between O'Brien, playing a frontier insurance investigator, and the Stooges, cast as itinerant peddlers. The star and his comic cohorts thwart a gang of thieves hijacking gold-mine shipments. The villain is local bigwig Sawyer (Lyle Talbot), but the plot sneaks in a few interesting twists, including a red-herring character who initially seems to be a spy for the baddies, but who turns out to be an agent for the good guys. The Stooges, despite their buffoonery, perform heroically during the climactic shootout.

Sheila Ryan co-stars as the granddaughter of tipster doctor Clem Bevans, while Monte Blue enjoys a larger part than usual as the local mine owner. Some of the stunts were performed by Hugh Hooker, who also plays a juvenile role.

Gold Raiders was originally released by independent producer Jack Schwarz through United Artists in 1951-52, and although the principals worked well together, plans to pursue an O'Brien-Stooges series were abandoned. The film was reissued to theaters in 1958, and television distributor AAP issued two home-movie abridgements on 8mm film in the 1960s. It remains the only full-length film featuring Shemp Howard as one of the Stooges. Extremely obscure for five decades, Gold Raiders was finally released to home video in 2006.