Riders of the Timberline

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.

I'm surprised that this movie got such high user ratings and reviews. It is as though only Hoppy fans vote here and mindlessly give everything a 7 vote.

I thought this was one of the worst Hoppy movies. I enjoy most of them. The story was uninteresting. The supporting cast was mediocre. Victor Jory should have remained as a bad guy; here he looked ridiculous with his silly accent. The singing was corny. Andy Clyde's antics was inane and juvenile. There was some decent camera-work and action.

The final action scenes in the film demonstrate without doubt how poor this movie is. Hoppy gets word that the bad guys are on their way to blow up the dam with dynamite. So Hoppy returns to his camp, and with his sidekick Johnny they ride a log through the sky (the timberline of the title) to reach the dam and the bad guys, who shoot a fusillade of bullets at them, merely slightly wounding Johnny. So after miraculously arriving at the dam in the nick of time and unhurt, Hoppy (who happened to spot the bad guy planting dynamite with a lit fuse at the base of the dam near the water) dives off the dam into the water and swims to the lit dynamite. I couldn't believe he could dive that distance into the water with his hat on and swim to the planted dynamite, with his hat still on! Still immune to the fusillade of bullets, he conveniently throws the dynamite quite a distance to the bad guys blowing them up. The final scene in the movie was particularly embarrassing. As Hoppy and his pals are saying goodbye to all assembled, sidekick California says he forgot his hat, and everyone laughs as though it was the funniest thing they ever heard.

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 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.