Riders of the Timberline

Hopalong Cassidy and his young sidekick Brad King leave the Bar 20 ranch when the foreman Buck Peters sends them to help his old friend J.Farrell MacDonald and daughter Eleanor Stewart who are being sabotaged in their effort to fulfill a lumbering contract. It's not the same as herding cattle but Hoppy and Brad get the gist of it fast. In fact their old partner Andy Clyde was already working for MacDonald.

There was a later Hopalong Cassidy film with a lumber setting and it seemed a bit better. Certainly Hoppy was more home on the range than home in a logging camp.

Victor Jory is in this Hoppy film and usually he's a villain. Not here, he's MacDonald's strong right arm as a French Canadian foreman.

I can't forget that crew of Jory's peers who come down from Canada to help MacDonald. They cut down trees as well as fight and sing and they have their own theme, The Kinkajou song. It's somewhat along the lines of Stouthearted Men.

Not one of the better Cassidy westerns, but Hoppy aficionados will be pleased.

A very familiar theme in many Hopalong Cassidy is an unseen baddie who is paying his evil minions to create 'accidents' and stir up workers. I've seen it done in Cassidy films about railroads, cattle and more....and "Riders of the Timberline" is about the same sort of thing...in lumber country.

When the film starts, workers at Jim Kerrigan's lumber camp are discontented after yet another accident. And, soon, they are stirred up by workers who really are being paid to disrupt things. But when Hoppy arrives, he vows to help his old friend, Kerrigan (J. Farrell McDonald). To deal with this, he does something the Hopalong Cassidy films ALSO did a lot...pretend to be a villain in order to get the bad guy behind all this to hire them...thus exposing himself and his crooked scheme.

If you've never seen other Hopalong Cassidy films, you'll no doubt enjoy this one. If you've seen most of his pictures, like me, you'll feel a strong sense of déjà vu since it's really too familiar...and therefore, very predictable. About the only thing I couldn't have anticipated was seeing Victor Jory playing a French-Canadian lumberjack, his wearing bulky padding to look macho and his NOT being a villain as he ALWAYS was in villain in other Hoppy pictures.

By the way, while Victor Jory never looked like a macho man to me, apparently when he was in the service he was a champion boxer and wrestler! And, he WAS born in the Yukon...that really is lumberjack territory!

There's not really any such thing as a bad Hoppy film, but this one comes close, for a start Russell Hayden's gone, then Hoppy spends most of the film dressed in lumberjack clobber, and looks like he may have borrowed one of Buster Keaton's hats? So, he doesn't really look like Hoppy for most of the film! I guess they were trying for something different, but for me, it didn't work.

Edging on for A feature production values, tho economies do occasionally show - off screen explosion, limited time with the real donkey engine or the vintage locomotive. It's not all that strong in the scripting line either.

At the logging camp run by Victor Jory, with a check shirt over his padded vest and a thick Frog accent, another logger has been injured and Tom Tyler (obviously up to no good) has called the men out.

Hoppy, California and Johnny Nelson help out, along with Stewart's rail flat car full of Fighting (& singing) Kinkajous

Much logging activity, including an ambitious montage and Hoppy and Johnny actually finishing off downing a modest size trunk. Another of the deception plots cross cuts Hoppy and the boys on the rail hand car pursued by Jory's train and Stewart racing on horseback to tell the loggers the truth. Climax has our heroes riding the timber high line with Hoppy diving into the lake and disposing of the fire in the hole, where the bad hats are planning on blowing up the dam.

Players of the class of Tyler and Nilsson are punching below their weight but they and the timber scenics add. Technical work is excellent, outside of obvious process photography.

Jory does the same character in LUMBERJACK, which must have helped with stock footage.

There's even an explicit eco-theme, with J Farrel McDonald insisting on planting a tree for every one he chops down, unlike the heavies who covert his timber.

Certainly one of the better Hoppys.

Hopalong Cassidy and Johnny Nelson ride to the mountains to help a man and his daughter save their logging business from someone who is sabotaging their efforts.

This unusual Hoppy western in a sense that our hero in black features in a timber western, and it's quite a lively one with the usual villains coming up with diabolical schemes and Hoppy and Co. Overcoming them - there's plenty of action, fist fights in the street, a lively shootout finale with Hoppy diving from a dam wall, reaching a dynamite and chucking it as the bad guys. Good stunt work, and a good entry. It's nice to see Victor Jory on the good side - he plays a lumberjack with a French accent and a hearty laughter.