Au coeur de l'Arizona

I can't recall another Hopalong Cassidy film where William Boyd got involved with a character from the real west. Possibly fans more versed in Hopalong Cassidy films can correct me, but in this film Hoppy gets to meet up with none other than the legendary female outlaw Belle Starr.

Belle's a good stand by your man kind of woman. When her husband was caught at rustling and as Hoppy explains it we're not clear if she knew anything about it. Still when the posse came she shot it out with them and did a stretch in the joint. Now she's back and as luck would have it her spread is next to the Bar 20. She's got a daughter Jacqueline Starr and the Starrs Belle and Jacqueline are played by Natalie Moorhead and Dorothy Short.

Unbeknownst to Belle her foreman, Alden Chase, is still using the Starr ranch as a cover for rustling. It's up to Hoppy and his two trusty companions Russell Hayden and Gabby Hayes to set things right.

The real Belle Starr was born in Missouri and did her outlaw thing in Oklahoma then called Indian Territory. In fact Belle's husband Sam Starr was an Indian. Unlike sweet innocent Jacqueline, Belle's real daughter Pearl Starr became a known prostitute and operator of several bordellos in the Old west.

There was a famous film with her as the central title character that starred Gene Tierney. But it wasn't any closer to the truth than this film.

Still it's not a bad film for the Hopalong Cassidy series.

Seeing that there were few A-westerns in the 30s until the explosion of 1939, I have watched a few B-westerns of that time to see what they were like. This one I chose as representative of the Hopalong Cassidy film series. There were 66 of these films. Just in 1938, seven of them were filmed. When B-westerns phased out in the late 40s, the star William Boyd bought the rights and the films were again successful on TV, spawning a TV show. Hoppy was sure a household name at that time in the US.

So what's the film like? Well, while still clearly being a B-western, it has better production values than most, with gorgeous scenery. This one is 68 minutes long, slightly longer than the typical B-western.

The story is straightforward and filled with action, as expected of these films. There's a lot of shooting. Almost every character got shot at some point. It does get a bit convoluted at the end, but not much. Hoppy is not on screen all the time, but relies on his supporting cast to drive the story forward, unlike other B-western stars of the time.

Not great drama, but a sure way to keep the kids happy at the theater with some cowboy action, while they waited for the main part of the double feature.

If the chief female had not been called "Belle Starr," which was the name of a real person in the annals of the West, this would have been more in line with the rest of the Hoppy series. But that's a very minor problem.

Playing La Starr is an obvious stage actress, Natalie Moorhead. Because she's an obvious city slicker, she should not have been cast as a long-time Westerner; but her character could more easily have been a fairly recent immigrant. Still, only a very minor problem. Suspend your disbelief.

And enjoy William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. Boyd was undoubtedly one of the very finest actors to play the lead in a Western series. There is a subtlety in his every move and gesture, in his facial expressions, that show that, if it hadn't been for that ugly "news" paper error early in his career (when another William Boyd was arrested and our guy's picture ran), he might have been a huge mainstream star. He certainly deserved it. He certainly had the talent.

Russell Hayden gave a magnificent performance, surely one of his best. He was a good-looking guy and was a wonderful cowboy. His acting was uneven later, and he often sounded as if he had bad-fitting dentures, but here he was just perfect, a real pleasure to watch.

Dorothy Short gave another of her excellent performances, and George Hayes played his "Windy" character also to perfection. He too, by the way, was actually a city slicker -- well, sort of. In his bio at IMDb is this comment: "In real life he was the exact opposite of the characters he played on film. He was well read, well-groomed, serious and highly philosophical."

He reportedly did not even learn to ride a horse until he was 50, but few actors are more identified with Westerns than Hayes, and probably even fewer are and were more beloved. Any movie is better for his presence.

The other players were talented and the script-writer gave many of them a chance to shine -- which they do.

Paramount produced dusty and gritty Westerns, often showing the dusty and gritty ranch life, and often doing so better than other studios. Perhaps especially in the Hopalong series.

I highly recommend "Heart of Arizona," and you can find a very good copy at YouTube.

First, a trivia question for those of you who have seen this film already: what was the name of the horse Hoppy rides throughout most of this movie? This is a fairly good Hopalong Cassidy movie with too little of Hoppy. He's known for being off-screen more & sharing more of the footage with his side-kicks & other characters than his main rivals, Gene Autry & Roy Rogers. And indeed, one of the reasons the Hoppy movies were better than the others is that he was not center screen at all times. But in this movie, he "underdoes" it, & there's just too little seen of him during the film. The main character of this film almost seems to be Lucky, & he may well have more on-screen minutes than Hoppy. We do learn some interesting things, though, about the main film characters. If we're to believe George "Gabby" Hayes (in his character of Windy), he says to Hoppy "I learned you how to ride" (& Hoppy accepts the statement as if it were true). We learn that a "California collar" is slang for a "noose" (so why was Andy Clyde known as "California" in the later Hoppy movies?). We learn how Windy lost his teeth ("A Cheyenne chief knocked all my teeth out in a hand to hand duel...That happened at the Battle of Bull's Tail" (ha! Get it?). We learn that Lucky has been at the Bar 20 Ranch less than 5 years at the time of this story. This film is more violent than later Hoppy movies (Windy is seemingly shot, Lucky is grazed in the head with a bullet, Hoppy is wounded in the arm, & the character of Belle Starr is shot twice). After a few moments, I noticed how beautiful the rock scenery was (but the story is set in Arizona, near Nogales, Mexico); little did I know how significant the rocks would be to the story. Hoppy is dressed all in black (a good sign, see my other Hoppy reviews), but he lends Topper to someone else, & rides a plain brown horse for most of the movie. How odd! And (answer to trivia question) the name of this horse was Yuma. Strange that Hoppy should mention that horse's name but never mentions that his own horse is named Topper. Uncharacteristically, Hoppy really loses his temper in one scene where he slaps a baddie silly, & says "Say something, or I'll smash your brains in!" My, what violence! Mistake: Gabby Hayes trips over William Boyd's foot while trying to mount his horse. Since there was no comment on this, & no laugh, I'd have to assume that it was accidental. Second problem: Natalie Moorhead (a decent actress) plays Belle Starr as if she were on the Broadway stage. Her mannerisms & speech are too refined for a wild west rustler who just spent time in jail. Unlike most movies, everyone in the listed cast had a part big enough to be readily identifiable when the end credits came on. Despite all the shooting, Hoppy himself was involved in only one of the gunfights. I rate it 6/10.

"Belle Star" (Natalie Moorhead) is not a woman to be messed with after she returns after an unjust five year spell with Uncle Sam to discover that her herds are being rustled. We know it's her dodgy foreman "Trister" (Leo J. McMahon) who is up to no good, and we know just who is pulling his strings but can she thwart their plan to rob her of her livelihood? Luckily, "Hoppy" (William Boyd) is on hand to try and help her get to the bottom of just who killed her husband and framed her for stealing her own cows! The deft use of some branding, some fine shooting from the young "Artie" (Billy Peters) and an hidden coin all contribute to the adventure as "Hoppy" determines to get his man. The production here is really basic, but there's more of a story and as ever the dynamic between Boyd and "Gabby" Hayes keeps the pace moving swiftly along. Moorhead and her on-screen daughter "Jacqueline" (Dorothy Short) also deliver at the livelier end of the damsels-in-distress scale and there's Stephen Chase's "Ringo" to keep the nastiness going, too. It's not the most original, no, but for a low-budget affair it's actually quite exciting and worth an hour.