Betrüger am Werk

"Sunset Trail" is a very entertaining entry in the long running Hopalong Cassidy series produced by Harry "Pop" Sherman in the 30's and 40s.

In this one Hoppy (William Boyd), Windy (George "Gabby" Hayes) and Lucky (Russell Hayden) come to the rescue of widow Ann Marsh (Charlotte Wynters) and her young Daughter Dorrie (Jan Clayton) whose husband and father have been murdered by gambler Monte Keller (Robert Fiske). Ann decides to open up a "Dude Ranch". Hoppy, and this is where Boyd gets to have some fun, goes undercover as a foppish Eastern dude named William H. Cassidy to get the goods on Keller and his gang.

Boyd camps it up in a tweed suit and derby hat and seems to have a lot of fun doing it. He is seen in his regular black outfit only at the beginning and end of the movie. Hayes meanwhile is pursued throughout the movie by Abigail Snodgrass (Kathryn Sheldon). Hayden competes with Keller's hench man Steve Dorman (Anthony Nace) for Clayton's affections. The whole thing is brought to a climax in a rousing finale shootout where Hoppy brings the bad guys to justice.

As in most of the "Hoppys", the photography, in this case by Russell Harlan, is outstanding. The direction by Leslie Selander is crisp and keeps the story moving. Watch for veterans Glenn Strange and Tom London in minor roles.

Great fun.

In the 1950s, many B-westerns by a variety of cowboy favorites were trimmed and shown on TV. This was done with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy films, and probably a few others. But William Boyd (Cassidy) was smart...he retained original copies of these movies...and today you can watch the entire film instead of a truncated version. Fortunately, some time ago, these original movies were posted to YouTube...and they are the best copies you can find anywhere. The version of "Sunset Trail" I watched was one of these originals.

The film begins with John Marsh selling his ranch to Keller and moving out of town. However, the scum-bag who bought it has no intention of letting John keep the money...and soon his bandit buddies attack the stage and rob everyone aboard. And, in the process, John is murdered. Fortunately for the widow,, a kind man helps set her up in business AND contacts Hopalong Cassidy to look into the murder and robbery.

As you'd expect, Hoppy arrives soon after...with his two sidekicks in tow. In this case, it's Windy (Gabby Hayes) and Lucky (Russell Hayden). Hoppy always seemed to have two sidekicks--one a lover and occasional singer, the other a crusty old guy like Hayes or Andy Clyde. And in this case, he tells his friends to go to Silver City* and wait to hear from him, as Hopalong often liked to investigate on his own.

When Hoppy arrives in town on the stage, he's dressed like an eastern dude....and plays a very funny version of himself. It's actually pretty cute seeing Boyd playing a nervous hypochondriacal coward. But this enables him to look about without attracting too much attention from the baddies.

I love seeing cowboy heroes going undercover in their films. It provided a nice change of pace and it was fun seeing Boyd playing the dude...just like it's fun seeing Tim McCoy (another famous western star) playing Mexican bandits in a few of his films. This is especially true since B-westerns in general have a real sameness to most of their plots....and variety is nice. Overall, it's one of the best of the Hopalong Cassidy films...fun and clever and quite original.

*I checked. There are MANY Silver Cities in the west...in Nevada, California, Colorado and New Mexico...and a few others. I went through the famous one in Nevada...and there isn't much left of the town. Virginia City, down the road, is a great little town to visit.

**In the film, they used the term 'Yellowbacks'. These were paper bills used as currency and which were redeemable for gold. When the US left the gold standard in 1934, these bills were no longer redeemable for gold. In contrast, 'Greenbacks' were dollars NOT redeemable for gold nor silver....and were, as a result, less desirable.

After selling out the cattle herd, Kenneth Harlan is murdered by Robert Fiske and his gang leaving wife Charlotte Wynters and daughter Jan Clayton with the ranch and little else. A friend suggests two things that she open a dude ranch as a coming business and that Hopalong Cassidy be sent for.

Gabby Hayes and Russell Hayden go to work as regular cowhand help and Hoppy arrives as one of the first batch of dudes yearning for the western experience. Bill Boyd is just great hamming it up to beat the band as an eastern tenderfoot. It's a guise that Boyd would use every so often in the Hoppy films and it's used very effectively here in Sunset Trail.

Fiske is a particularly nasty type villain not only robbing and killing Harlan, but he has designs on Wynters. His chief henchman is a nasty young punk played by Anthony Nace who has designs on Jan Clayton.

Jan Clayton gets to sing a nice western ballad here. At the time she was married to Russell Hayden. That singing voice would take to Broadway as the original Julie Jordan in Carousel and of course later she was Tommy Rettig's mom in Lassie.

Some nice cameos by Maurice Cass as a Ned Buntline type writer of penny dreadful novels and Kathryn Sheldon as a spinster woman with her eye on Gabby Hayes. In Gabby's films he would sometimes be paired with a woman in his own age bracket with marriage on her mind and his antics fleeing were always fun.

One of the better Hopalong Cassidy features put out by Paramount.

When a stagecoach is robbed and a passenger murdered, the boss of the company asks his pal "Hoppalong" (William Boyd) and his friend "Windy" ('Gabby' Hayes) to travel, incognito, to get to the bottom of things. We know that "Keller" (Robert Fiske) is the man behind the crimes and that he has stolen $30,000 from the now dead husband of "Ann" (Charlotte Wynters) but he is not expecting this great milk-sop of a dandy to arrive replete with bow-tie, and so "Hoppy" is able to infiltrate the town and observe just how the stolen cash is being laundered through it's casino. Needless to say, neither "Ann" nor daughter "Dorrie" (Jan Clayton) are best pleased with this hapless man, but that is bound to change once he gets onto the scent of the perpetrators and brings them to book. Of course the result is that certain, yes, but this is still a solid adventure western with plenty of action, duplicity and Fiske makes for quite a decent baddie as things hot up to a well staged conclusion where luckily nobody's aim is much good. Boyd is competent here and Hayes serves well as his lively foil and for an hour it's an amiable story of greed versus good.

When Hoppy dresses in his all-black outfit, you know there's going to be action & old fashioned western excitement. When Hoppy dresses in his tan or "dude" outfits, you know that William Boyd will get a chance to do more "acting," which he loved to do to break the monotony of his 66 picture run as Hoppy, but you can also expect less action & more talk. So one of the first things I look at, to foretell the type of movie it will be, is the clothes he wears! In this one, he starts out in black & then dresses as a dude in a white hat & sports jacket to go undercover. And sure enough, it's a so-so entry in the Hoppy series, not bad, but not great either. Gabby Hayes has a good role in this one. Worst scene: Russell Hayden (as "Lucky") plays guitar with the guitar invisible to the camera, while his romantic interest sings a western song in the finest pop-operetta style! Best scene: close-up of Boyd riding Topper at high speed. Hoppy changes back to black just in time to ride off with his friends as the movie closes. I rate this one 6/10.