Texas Masquerade

I see reviews of Hopalong Cassidy movies that denigrate them and refer to them as "average" and "another oater." well, to the kids that sat in the movies on Saturday afternoons and ate salty popcorn, they were great entertainment. They saw Hoppy travel to the mountains of South Texas and never gave a thought to the fact there are no mountains in South Texas. It's as flat as a pancake. The cactus and mesquite trees abound there and not the Joshua trees from California such as you see in Texas Masquerade. None of that mattered to us. We saw a straight arrow hero who didn't even kiss a girl. Too mushy for us kids. He stood for what is right and we looked up to him. We need another Hoppy to ride into the lives of today's kids. Too bad those kind of heroes have vanished from the movies.

I love this Hopalong Cassidy film if only to see Bill Boyd enjoying himself enormously by posing as an eastern lawyer dude, dressed to the nines, and speaking in sophisticated English, even incorporating some legaleze! The cast, as usual, is stellar, including Don Costello as an obnoxious and brutal crime boss. It's not giving anything away to say that, as in many Hoppys, he and his pals are drawn into an adventure that has them helping strangers simply because they need the help.

Texas Masquerade calls for William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy to masquerade as tenderfoot from Boston. He takes the place of a lawyer who is coming to visit relatives and take possession of half a ranch that is in his name.

Some night riders have been trying to scare all the ranchers out of a certain Texas valley. Kindly old Russell Simpson has been lending folks money and then collecting on their properties when they can't pay back. Of course Simpson's behind it all, but the question is why he wants this land so badly.

Hopalong Cassidy fans will enjoy Hoppy's time as an eastern dude and he's even got a knowledge of the law that fools Simpson for a bit. Of course in the end the bad guys are rounded up western style.

An enjoyable entry in the series, however I never quite enjoy Hoppy as much when he sheds the black outfit, although I admit he does look good in the checked shirt in the later scene in this film. I agree totally with an earlier reviewer in that the youth of the world could do with a role model like Hoppy these days more than ever, he was mine, and I think Hopalong Cassidy probably was responsible for turning more kids into decent law abiding citizens that any other screen character, and for that alone America owes William Boyd a debt of gratitude! I'm 76 now, and still get more enjoyment out of watching a Hopalong Cassidy movie than most of the clap trap that's on screen today, no matter how expensive and spectacular it's said to be!

A gang of outlaws are using force to become possessors of every ranch in the area. Hoppy, of course, is out to stop them in what is an adequate Hoppy western punctuated with some good action - for example, the shootout in the cactus area - and a very good performance by William Boyd, who acts as a greenhorn easterner. His acting is really good, and makes this entry fairly watchable.