Ombre sur la piste

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.

Disguising himself as a milquetoast Easterner who is quite a dandy, Hoppy enrolls in a dude ranch in order to unmask the murderer of the owner's husband.

This is one of the best examples of Hopalong Cassidy westerns that pulls all the stops to deliver sheer class entertainment and has a wide gamut of humour ( great lines and poor Gabby Haynes scarpering from an eastern lady visiting a dude ranch), intrigue, action, and William Boyd switching to a foppy character and doing great. The scenery is great as ever - the characters come alive and you get a real creepy villain in Robert Fiske. One of Hoppy's best entries.

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.

Francis Nevins in his book, The Films of Hopalong Cassidy, suggests that Sunset Trail has its roots in the rantings of Clarence E. Mulford, creator of the Cassidy saga. The Eastern author frequently voiced his disgust over the realization of his cowboy hero in the movies. Things were a might more personal in 1930's Hollywood than they are today, and someone took a notion to teach Mulford a thing or two about the movies. The result is the wonderful Hopalong parody, Sunset Trail.

Mulford is merrily satirized in the character of E. Prescott Furbush, an author of western novels. Furbush, who never having been west of Flatbush, nevertheless has gained fame recording the deeds of the western desperado, Deadeye Dan. After years of fashioning fairy tales, the little fussbudget books a stay at a dude ranch to savor the `real' West. But his antics pale beside those of another dude, William H. Cassidy, or Harold, as he's known among the other guests at the ranch.

Hoppy has been sent to deal with land grabbers and assumes the identity of the inept Easterner, Harold, as cover. Forget the plot; it's predictable. What is not routine is Bill Boyd's performance. There is a swagger in his walk and a gleam in his eye reminiscent of the sharp-dressed, high-living Boyd of the 1920's. He deftly handles the comedy and energetically pokes fun at the Cassidy image. One of the most outstanding moments comes when Harold offers to compare surgical scars with a female guest who has been regaling Furbush with tales of her poor health.

This episode may not appeal to everyone's sense of humor, but for me it is a final glimpse of Bill Boyd, being as wickedly funny as he is handsome before he permanently transformed himself into the stalwart cowboy hero.

We all love seeing Hoppy in his iconic black outfit, but just for a change it's fun to see him go undercover as a foppish tenderfoot dressed up in a suit and trilby. William Boyd was a good actor, a big name in the silent era when a lot of acting depended on facial expressions, and Boyd is a master at this lending his western hero more credibility than most. This is a fun romp with some good comedy moments, and Russell Hayden with his soon to be wife Jan Clayton having some nice scenes together. Gabby Hayes of course is Gabby Hayes. Hard to believe in real life he was a well dressed, articulate man. Some may be better than others, but I've never seen a Hopalong Cassidy film I didn't like!