Hoppy Serves a Writ

Everybody mentions Robert Mitchum in this movie, but if you coughed at the right time, you miss his entire dialog. George Reeves had the meatier part and looked Superman-ish in it. Victor Jory was a well known actor who did a lot more than cowboy baddies. Two others stood out for me. One was Earl Hudgins, the barkeep, a solid character actor who had a long list of movie credits, usually as some kind of con artist. The other was Roy Barcroft, a competent heavy in many TV cowboy shows of the 50s. In this, he had a minor part as a rancher with a complaint. There was plenty of action in this Hoppy flick if you count all the endless horse riding and the several long gunfights. The one nothing part was the lone female who gave up acting after this, her first and last job in Hollywood.

I find this an excellent departure from the usual Hoppy routine. The dialog when Hoppy is checking into the hotel is worth the price of admission. Maybe it's just me but I find it side splitting, and a tad more adult than you'd expect from either a Hoppy movie or any movie made in 1943. William Boyd's personality is as winning as ever. Seeing Robert Mitchum's first film appearance is a hoot and George Reeves inclusion is welcome, as always. Both Mitchum and Reeves would be regulars in the Hoppy films for several years, alternating between the bad guy and the good guy. That's all I've got to say on this subject. I have to add some lines to get this to be accepted by IMDb.

The 26 year old Robert Mitchum made his screen debut in this film. I'm not too sure how good an actor he really is because he always seems to sound the same. The true test is when you compare him acting as an antagonist as opposed to a protagonist. He's a better protagonist because he's the consistent broad shouldered, tall American.

"Hoppy Serves a Writ" is an interesting Hopalong Cassidy film because of its cast. Victor Jory, George Reeves and Robert Mitchum all star as members of a gang of crooks...though, sadly, Mitchum (in his first film) has barely a line of dialog.

This version of "Hoppy Serves a Writ" is a nice because it's 65 minutes and isn't one of those chopped down to about 54 minutes back in the 1950s. This was done to allow the film to be shown in a one hour time slot back in the day. But apparently, the excised portions of Hopalong Cassidy's films were saved and were recently restored. These nice restored prints recently showed up on YouTube...and are well worth seeing. Unlike many B cowboys, Cassidy is no pretty boy nor is her a singer...just a hard-fighting do-gooer.

The film begins with a stage coach being robbed in Texas. However, the baddies run off to the Oklahoma Territory...out of the jurisdiction of Texas authorities. So, Hoppy and his sidekicks, Johnny and California, head there and go undercover. They need to find the loot and the crooks that stole it...but it doesn't look very easy in this lawless land.

This is pretty much a standard sort of Hopalong Cassidy film...well made and enjoyable.

By the way, in one scene Hoppy has a brutal fight with Tom Jordan (Victor Jory). In real life, Jory probably would have won that one as he used to be the champion wrestler and boxer in the Coast Guard.

This traditional "Hoppy" adventure was never meant to be any kind of classic, but mainly functions as Saturday Matinée fare, a pitting of the good guys against the bad guys with plenty of horse chases and gun-play to keep the kids in their seats and wanting to come back for more.

Having grown up in the 1940's, I watch the old Westerns today for reasons other than a gripping plot about which the outcome is clearly foretold. The photography in this one, for example, is exceptional, with cinematographer Russell Harlan going beyond the usual camera set-ups to capture the beauty of location shooting in Lone Pine, California-- the desert-like conditions shot against mountain vistas, the beauty of rustling sycamores framing the action, and exceptional long shots giving us such keen perspectives as robbing of the Well's Fargo Stage from several angles (Harlan, incidentally, went on to film the indelible images of To Kill A Mockingbird). FYI, an unsolicited commercial: Platinum Productions (though Echo Bridge) has released the Cassidy adventures in multiples for very little money, and the transfers are remarkable!

Another incidental pleasure of Hoppy Serves A Writ is Hoppy himself, of course, a cool character who always seems a little above the chaos around him: William Boyd, a leading man from the 1930's found his niche in these Westerns--and we don't have to listen to him sing! Frequently pointed out is Robert Mitchum's first major appearance in a film: a performance at the edge of narcolepsy, but Mitchum actually saddles up a few times and rides; future Superman George Reeves has a meatier role as a dude with attitude, attempting to romance the sole female on the film, but losing her to Hoppy's cute, mild-mannered assistant. And for those with an eye for familiar character actors, the laconic Byron Foulger serves as a shopkeeper; Victor Jory, so often a villain in both Westerns and crime films, sports a nasty scar on his cheek that marks him as the one to hiss.

In all, this is 64 minutes of matinée fun, perfect for a Saturday afternoon with a bowl of popcorn and all your memories of time well spent with your Hollywood pals.