Texas Masquerade

Texas Masquerade calls for William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy to masquerade as tenderfoot from Boston. He takes the place of a lawyer who is coming to visit relatives and take possession of half a ranch that is in his name.

Some night riders have been trying to scare all the ranchers out of a certain Texas valley. Kindly old Russell Simpson has been lending folks money and then collecting on their properties when they can't pay back. Of course Simpson's behind it all, but the question is why he wants this land so badly.

Hopalong Cassidy fans will enjoy Hoppy's time as an eastern dude and he's even got a knowledge of the law that fools Simpson for a bit. Of course in the end the bad guys are rounded up western style.

An enjoyable entry in the series, however I never quite enjoy Hoppy as much when he sheds the black outfit, although I admit he does look good in the checked shirt in the later scene in this film. I agree totally with an earlier reviewer in that the youth of the world could do with a role model like Hoppy these days more than ever, he was mine, and I think Hopalong Cassidy probably was responsible for turning more kids into decent law abiding citizens that any other screen character, and for that alone America owes William Boyd a debt of gratitude! I'm 76 now, and still get more enjoyment out of watching a Hopalong Cassidy movie than most of the clap trap that's on screen today, no matter how expensive and spectacular it's said to be!

When the story begins, Hoppy and his pals come upon a guy who has been shot and his attacker is about to finish him off once and for all. Fortunately, Hoppy stops this and arrests the would-be killer.

In the following scene, Hoppy has traveled to Texas and has assumed the identity of the injured man. After all, he wants to figure out why someone was trying to kill him....why preventing him from going to his new ranch was so important. There, Hoppy pretends to be an Eastern dude...and anything but the tough Hopalong Cassidy we all love. So who is behind the attack and why?

William Boyd (Cassidy) posed as an Eastern dude in a few other films....and these were among my favorite roles he played, since his character seemed so wimpy and harmless. It's the closest thing you have to comedy in these films....and make for a nice B-western. Well made and fun.

A gang of outlaws are using force to become possessors of every ranch in the area. Hoppy, of course, is out to stop them in what is an adequate Hoppy western punctuated with some good action - for example, the shootout in the cactus area - and a very good performance by William Boyd, who acts as a greenhorn easterner. His acting is really good, and makes this entry fairly watchable.

I see reviews of Hopalong Cassidy movies that denigrate them and refer to them as "average" and "another oater." well, to the kids that sat in the movies on Saturday afternoons and ate salty popcorn, they were great entertainment. They saw Hoppy travel to the mountains of South Texas and never gave a thought to the fact there are no mountains in South Texas. It's as flat as a pancake. The cactus and mesquite trees abound there and not the Joshua trees from California such as you see in Texas Masquerade. None of that mattered to us. We saw a straight arrow hero who didn't even kiss a girl. Too mushy for us kids. He stood for what is right and we looked up to him. We need another Hoppy to ride into the lives of today's kids. Too bad those kind of heroes have vanished from the movies.