Twilight on the Trail

One of the worst Hoppy films. Hoppy and his sidekicks take leave of their Bar 20 duties to help an old friend whose ranch is suffering rustlers.

The supporting cast was uninteresting. I never cared for Brad King as Hoppy's young sidekick. It seems he was hired mainly for his singing; his acting was bland. I like it when the heroes go undercover to solve the crime. Unfortunately here, their acting as inept British detective dudes got tiring and silly fast. Finally the mystery solving was pretty unimaginative: the bad guys try to kill Hoppy and sidekicks, giving themselves away.

This Hoppy film starts off a bit slow. An old friend calls on the Bar 20 trio to help stop cattle rustling. Hoppy and pals show up disguised as dude detectives from back East but that doesn't last long. Once the outlaws realize this group can shoot straight and ride like the wind, its all over. Its typical Hoppy fare as good prevails over evil.

More comedy than usual is in this Hopalong Cassidy western as Hoppy, Johnny Nelson and California go undercover as eastern dude type detectives. In fact we don't see them in their traditional western outfits until more than half the film is done.

Hoppy with that affected English accent and California Carlson with that ridiculous looking deerstalker cap are funny in and of themselves. Andy Clyde who was from Scotland and started in music hall was funnier than usual.

Not that the chief villain is long fooled. He suspects a rat, but the guys put an end to his rustling racket.

Brad King was the young member of the trio and he got to sing some cowboy ballads that Paramount owned the right to. If they sound familiar The Funny Old Hills was introduced by Bing Crosby in Paris Honeymoon and Twilight On The Trail comes from the Paramount picture Trail Of The Lonesome Pine. and was also recorded by Bing Crosby who was Paramount's number one star. King didn't last long, he had no personality at all unlike Russell Hayden or Jimmy Ellison.

But the comedy is key more than usual in this Hopalong Cassidy western.

Aside from Andy Clyde (as California) & Brad King (as Johnny), none of the

usual supporting crew often found in the Hoppy series is here. Perhaps they

read the script & refused to be involved with the film. Hoppy, California, &

Johnny pretend to be private detectives. Are those English accents we hear?

Can't really tell, because they keep switching back & forth anyway (except for Andy Clyde, who does a better job with the accent). I guess the actors wanted a breather from their regular Hoppy roles; they got to dress outside the usual

Hoppy gear, which is often a sign of a lesser Hoppy effort, & that statement

couldn't be truer than here. All three use the most atrocious comedic voices, & California wears a deerstalker hat, smokes a curved pipe, & carries a

magnifying glass, apparently as part of a Sherlock Holmes spoof. This silliness goes on for far too long (the first 36 minutes of the film, to be exact), & it's too poorly done to be effective as comedy, & it certainly is even less effective as a Hoppy western. There are three songs, two of which Johnny sings in a tenor

voice. This film has very little to recommend it, & I rank it as one of the two worst Hoppy movies, along with "Outlaws of the Desert." The best part of the film is when Hoppy announces "Let's get out of these monkey suits," & things do

improve a bit in the last 20 minutes, but not enough to make it a decent film. It would have been a better film if he had made that announcement 19 minutes

earlier. I rate it 4/10.

Please note that the IMDB summary for this Hopalong Cassidy film is wrong. It mentions 'Lucky'...who is a character in many of these films. BUT, he is NOT in "Twilight on the Trail". The handsome second sidekick is Johnny (Brad King)....not Lucky. The mistake is understandable, as BOTH Johnny and Lucky were used in many of the Cassidy films...but never in the same film.

Jim Brent is a friend of Hopalong Cassidy and he contacts Hoppy when his cattle start disappearing and the clues are confusing. For example, the trail the stolen cattle took just ends at the river and don't appear to resume anywhere! This is quite strange. Even stranger is when Hoppy and his two sidekicks arrive at Brent's ranch...as they are in disguise as British dandies who are supposed to be detectives. They act so out of touch with the American west and its customs, that they are laughable....and this will hopefully lull the guilty into false confidence. And, it's pretty funny watching them...particularly Hoppy with his affected styles and accent. Oddly, the least convincing accent I noticed was Andy Clyde's...and he was born in Scotland!

In addition to having the guys pretending to be Brits, the film features something unusual for the Cassidy films...there's some singing! Yes, a trio sings a couple nice tuns...and this is surprising since normally these films have none whatsoever.

So is it any good? Yes, though I wish they'd carried on playing British fops longer, as it was hilarious. Well worth seeing.

If you want to see this or other Hoppy movies, go to YouTube. Their versions are the most complete and best quality prints...which surprised me.