Stick to Your Guns

My summary title doesn't refer to the plot of any movie, it refers to the quality of the two Hoppy movies that followed this one: "Twilight on the Trail" & "Outlaws of the Desert," which are the two worst Hoppy movies of the 66 in the series. So somewhat surprisingly, this movie that preceded them is really a good movie. There are four songs, & although I frown on songs in my Hoppy movies (I leave that to Gene Autry & Roy Rogers), these songs are actually of good quality. This is a good, old fashioned western with lots of action, & not all of it involving Hoppy. There's plenty of gunfights, & unlike most later Hoppy movies, some of them are one on one gunfights (in later movies, the gunfights became one gang vs. another gang gun battles). This is a pretty tough western with plenty of excitement, & other characters have the stage quite a bit. Oddly, the Buck Peters character (owner of the Bar 20 Ranch that Hoppy works for) appears & has a few lines, but is not listed in the credits. Blooper: in one scene, California warns Hoppy of danger by yelling "Look out, Hoppy!" The problem is that Hoppy was supposed to be a character named "Tex Riley" at the time! No one in the baddies gang seemed to notice this, & apparently the film editor missed it also (or the director decided it would cost too much to re-shoot the scene). If you're watching the Hoppy series in chronological order, enjoy this one while you can, because as I said earlier, the quality of the next two Hoppy films "falls off the cliff!" I rate it 8/10.

Enjoyable hopalong Cassidy western starring the charismatic William Boyd. Plenty of rootin' toot in' shooting, great scenery and galloping hooves - the staple diet of these films. There's some singing. The finale is quite nail biting.

Jennifer Holt's first role on screen was in Stick To Your Guns. Billed as Jacqueline Holt for the only time in her career, a possible attempt to cash in on her famous father, Jack Holt, she did not care for the billing. In one scene, where she is riding with the posse, her saddle cinch becomes unloosened and she was in danger of falling off and being trampled. She was rescued by character actor Tom London who quickly transferred her onto his horse. Of course this scene does not show up on the screen. She was replaced by a double. Jennifer never cared much for horseback riding and in her words, "if you look closely in some scenes, you can see me holding on for dear life. For more about this film and her career, please check my memorial tribute as it appeared in Classic Images in November, l997. Our nickname for each other was "Scorpio."

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If you look on YouTube, you can find many of the old Hopalong Cassidy films. In fact, it's the best place to find them, as these are the original full-length movies and are in beautiful condition. This is a sharp contrast to many other B-westerns, where only truncated versions are available thanks to the films being cut down a bit to fit them into television time slots. This is where I found "Stick to Your Guns".

When the story begins, messages are sent out to the boys of the Bar 20 Ranch to come help, as rustlers are robbing an old friend of theirs. Hoppy and California (Andy Clyde) also receive word, but they are much closer. So they head there first and pose as bad guys...hoping to join up with Nevada Teale and his gang of thugs. They are successful in convincing these folks that they are evil...and one of their first duties is re-branding stolen cattle. The other duty is not getting their heads blown off, as the gang members are on edge an soon begin sniping at each other. How long they can remain in the gang without getting shot or discovered is anyone's guess!

I noticed that one reviewer felt that this was one of Hopalong Cassidy's last good films. Well, my reaction was pretty much the opposite. While I've seen better films he made later, I felt that this one was awfully dull. Not bad...just not that exciting. It's worth seeing...but had few memorable scenes aside from the poker game that ended...in death!!

Sorry, but this Hoppy outing disappointed me.

My main complaint is that the basic plot was laid out at the start of the movie. Hoppy was told the general area where the rustler gang was headquartered. Hoppy and California were to join the gang and smoke signal Johnny Nelson and the Bar 20 posse to round up the bad guys -- and that is exactly what happened. No mystery or surprises. Early on Hoppy happened to meet an old adversary who readily told Hoppy where the headquarters was. The boss of the gang learned of Hoppy's deception too late. There were a few twists that mainly served as filler.

I could do without the singing, and Brad King and Jennifer Holt as Hoppy's young sidekick and heroine did nothing for me. Other sidekicks and heroines in the series were much more engaging.

One scene surprised me, for a Hoppy film, for its unnecessary violence: Hoppy gets the drop on the gang leader at the end of the movie. He orders the leader to holster his gun, which he does. Hoppy then holsters his gun, encouraging a quick draw contest, which is what happens -- Hoppy outdraws and kills the leader, who was really not particularly villainous.