Main Cast: Robert Livingston, Bob Steele, Rufe Davis, Pauline Moore, Weldon Heyburn
Release Year: 1940
Country: US
Run Time: 54 minutes
Plot
An above-average entry in Republic Pictures' long-running "Three Mesqueteers" series, The Trail Blazers is something as unusual as a Christmas western that includes comic sidekick Rufe Davis' rendition of "Jingle Bells". The Mesqueteers -- who in addition to Davis' Lullaby Joslin also numbered Robert Livingston as Stony Brooke and Bob Steele as "Tucson" Smith -- come to the aid of Jim Chapman (Carroll Nye), an engineer assigned to build a telegraph for the army. But a group of powerful local businessmen, headed by crooked newspaper publisher Jeff Bradley (Weldon Heyburn), do their utmost to sabotage the project. Yet despite the inevitable setbacks, the Mesqueteers, aided by Army Major Kelton (Tom Chatterton) and his daughter Marcia (Pauline Moore), make sure that the life-saving telegraph is erected on time. In an effort to duplicate the success of the "Three Mesqueteers" films, small-scale Monogram begun their own trio series in 1943, confusingly entitled "The Trail Blazers," a moniker the studio most likely "stole" from this western. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
