Piratas de Estrada

A pretty pedestrian entry into this long running series. Someone is hijacking the gold from a mine, can it be an ex-outlaw, now supposedly gone straight or could it be his business partner and the shady foreman that are behind it all? If you need me to answer that, you haven't watched many westerns! This plot was hackneyed and old well before this was filmed. Still, the cast do their best with the material and Bill Boyd always puts his heart into the role that he made forever his own.

There's some nice shots of the posse riding to the rescue and full use is made of the beautiful scenery of the unspoilt American western range. And there's enough gunfights and action to keep things moving along to the somewhat predictable finale.

In a distinct minor league entry in the Hopalong Cassidy series Hoppy and Lucky Jenkins answer a distress call from old friend Britt Wood about a series of robberies of gold shipments. The outlaws have a marvelous scheme for hiding their stolen loot and it involves former outlaw Minor Watson as a potential fall guy.

Although suspicious initially this outlaw scheme can't fool Hopalong Cassidy for too long. He sets an ingenious trap that almost doesn't work thanks to the blabbing of Britt Wood.

Between Gabby Hayes and Andy Clyde the Cassidy series had Britt Wood as the old timer sidekick for Hoppy. But Wood never really took with the fans which was why he was replaced.

Case in point, during the final shootout with the outlaws and Hoppy and his posse, Britt Wood gets one outlaw and then spends the rest of the time trying to carve a notch in his rifle. I mean really, that was more stupid than funny. No wonder they replaced Wood with a far more colorful Andy Clyde.

Future B picture cowboy hero Eddie Dean has a small part in the film as well, but sings not a note.

If there are any Britt Wood fans out there, this one's for you.

William Boyd was an excellent cowboy, but earlier he had been a good actor in all kinds of roles. I thought he stole "King of Kings," the silent version of the Christ story. Boyd had a cameo appearance, coming out of the crowd to help Jesus carry His cross.

As many times as I have seen that short bit, I still get tears, and chills of admiration for Boyd's ability to express his emotions with no words. It's a beautiful example of silent movie-making.

In "Hidden Gold," he has a more prosaic role, Hopalong Cassidy.

The Hoppy movie character is very different from the book Hoppy, and a better one, in my opinion.

The book Hoppy was a Bar-20 cowboy, but in the movies he was other things, too, including a bit of a detective, as in "Hidden Gold."

He is aided by a very capable cast, including Russ Hayden, an extremely likable young man with some funny dialog here.

A very lovely Ruth Rogers underplays the unhappy leading lady, and I wonder why she didn't make more movies.

That marvelous singer Eddie Dean makes a small appearance, and we get another chance to see the great Roy Barcroft, and Jack Rockwell, and the veteran Walter long, among a long list of talented performers.

Lesley Selander might have been brushed off as "capable" or "dependable" but those are important qualities, and in his hands, this B western shines.

It is also helped by a bouncy score, apparently put together by Irvin Talbot from stock music from such greats as Victor Young and George Antheil, and others, all uncredited, except, of course, here at IMDb.

This is another Hopalong Cassidy feature from Paramount, which means it's enjoyable entertainment, and it's one I highly recommend -- except: The excellent version at YouTube is marred by commercial interruptions, sometimes right in the middle of a scene, rather than between scenes, which would have been bad enough.

Ordinarily I refuse to watch movies interrupted by commercials. Here I make an exception. If you can't watch "Hidden Gold" elsewhere, see it at YouTube. You'll be glad you did.

Some nice touches in this otherwise average entry. That tunnel collapse is well done, well enough that you might wonder how Hoppy walks away. But then who worries about realism when entertainment's at stake. So who's behind the gold robberies? As this ex- front row kid (turned old geezer) knows, you just look for the guy with the moustache. Not just any moustache, but the pencil-thin variety favored by those evil-doers from Hollywood.

Producer Harry Sherman popped for a lot of hard riding extras and some gold mining sluice boxes that add color. I hadn't seen comedy relief man Britt Wood before. He's no Gabby Hayes, but does look a little like Shemp of the Three Stooges (that's surely no compliment). I am curious, however, about the leading lady Ruth Rogers. She died young, 35, after what looks like a brief, unrewarding career. She's very much a subdued presence here, and I'm wondering if she was an unfortunate casualty of movie star ambitions.

Anyway, there's enough hard riding, good scenery, and faux shoot-outs to keep this old suburban cowboy happy.

During the course of the 66 Hopalong Cassidy films, the only real constant was Hoppy himself (William Boyd). Otherwise they had a formula but the actors playing these roles often changed. Hoppy almost always had two sidekicks--a younger handsome guy and a grizzled old coot. The handsome young guy changed a lot in these films...with James Ellison, Russell Hayden, George Reeves, Rand Brooks, and Jimmy Rogers playing this unremarkable and rather bland part. The coot was most often played by Andy Clyde, who played 'California' in about half the films. But Gabby Hayes often played the role in the earliest films in the series. In between, for six films, Britt Wood (whose voice is very reminiscent of Strother Martin's) played this role as 'Speedy'. "Hidden Gold" is one of these Speedy films...and for me, I found his character less compelling than either Windy (Hayes) or California (Clyde).

Hoppy and Lucky have recently arrived to investigate the robbery of several gold shipments from Colby's mine. When they arrive, they meet up with an old pal, Speedy. Prevailing wisdom is that Colby himself might be staging these robberies. This seems less likely after Colby is shot...though his partner seems insistent that Colby did it to himself! Naturally Hoppy will solve this mystery....and it involves setting a trap using Speedy's gold.

So is it any good? Well, I've never seen a really bad Hopalong Cassidy film, so even if this one is a bit subpar, it's still decent entertainment compared to most B-westerns of the day. One reason it's not particularly outstanding is due, in part, to it being a Speedy film. His character just seemed a bit dull compared to the usual old sidekick....and it's hard to equal Hayes or Clyde. Plus, I agree with bkoganbing---Speedy's spending all his time notching his gun in the middle of a gun battle was pretty lame.

By the way, several of the B-western cowboys had television shows in the 1950s and to fit the time slots, many of their films were heavily edited. Unlike Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, William Boyd (Cassidy) kept the originals as well. Fortunately, his estate recently restored these prints and released them to YouTube...a rare case where this website it the best place to find a western series.

Also, during one scene at about 28 minutes into the film, Speedy is playing "Home Sweet Home" on the harmonica while panning for gold. How could he play the harmonica like that without using his hands?! I'm pretty sure this is impossible....correct me if I'm wrong.