Gold Raiders

The 56-minute Gold Raiders was economically filmed by director Edward Bernds, who directed many of the Stooges' comedy shorts. Bernds asked his colleague Elwood Ullman, who often wrote or co-wrote the Stooge shorts, to add comedy material to William Lively's straight western script. Bernds signed on for a 12-day filming schedule, brisk but feasible for a low-budget western. The director planned each day's work on paper, only to find that producer Bernard Glasser could not afford to keep the crew on salary for the full term. Glasser reduced the schedule twice before finally settling on a five-day schedule: December 26–30, 1950. Bernds, now faced with less than half the agreed-upon schedule, almost quit the project, but relented when Glasser pleaded with him to continue.[2] Bernds later commented, "I should have never made that picture. It was an ultra-quickie shot in five days at a cost of $50,000 ($608,160 today), which, even then, was ridiculously low. I'm afraid the picture shows it!"[1] Fortunately for Bernds, most of the cast members and cameraman Paul Ivano were industry veterans, who could be relied upon to film the required scenes with a minimum of takes.

Producer Glasser had very little money left to promote the finished picture, and had to skimp on the publicity materials: a thin pressbook of newspaper ads complemented posters and lobby cards printed in only two colors (as opposed to full color).

Independent producer Jack Schwarz released Gold Raiders through United Artists in 1951. Although the principals worked well together, plans for an O'Brien-Stooges series were abandoned when George O'Brien and Bernard Glasser joined forces to pursue independent production in Europe.

United Artists reissued Gold Raiders to theaters in 1958, and television distributor AAP issued two home-movie abridgments on 8mm film in the 1960s.[3]