Posts from Richard--W in thread „Hopalong Cassidy (1952-1954)“

Glad you enjoy them. My favorites are

Trail Dust
Borderland
Rustler's Valley

and

The Eagle's Brood.

They are true period westerns -- no cars, no paved roads, no telephone polls, no mailboxes, no iron fences, no neon signs in the window, etc. The horses are spirited, the scenery is beautiful and the landscapes pristine. Not anymore, of course. Today many of those locations are housing developments.

Gabby Hayes is an asset, of course. I'm just beginning to realize what a natural actor and brilliant comedian he was.

I confess I do have a problem with William Boyd's outfit. His outfit is all wrong. It is never believable, it calls attention to itself, and it diminishes the films. At least for me it does.

Do you know of another 1930s western series that was as good as the Hopalong Cassidy films?

Richard

Keith, in your list you forgot

1937 Borderland

one of the top five, which comes after Trail Dust (1936) but before Hills of Wyoming (1937).

Also, Ranger Guns West (1940) is better known as, and only released on DVD as, Three Men From Texas. It is the last really good Hopalong Cassaidy film. After that the series turns into static poverty-row low-grade B movies.

Richard

Is the moderator certain he wants to lump the feature films together with the TV program? The features started life on the big screen 17 years before the TV program happened. Related but separate entities. My posts were about the feature films. I've never seen an episode of the TV program.

Richard

Quote from Stumpy

"The 1930s films are the strongest. By the early 1940s the scripts are pretty weak and the productions shot too fast to carry much gravitas, although they maintain their decency and charm."

I've learned that this seems to hold true with about every writer who ever lived. They ALL seem to lose their sense of imagination and creation as time passes, unfortunately.

Actually, I was referring to the scripts for the movies. They started out above average and actually achieve something special by the late 1930s. By the 1940s the screenplays got worse and worse as they strayed further and further away from Clarence E. Mulford and the films got cheaper and cheaper until they were hardly better than grade Z fare.

On the other hand, the novels kept getting better and better until the author stopped writing them. He started out with Bar 20, published in 1906. Hopalong Cassidy is one of several cowboys in this story of ranch life in the American west. This novel help to invent what we now know as the western. It defined the western for the 20h century. I believe it was more influential and of more value than The Virginian, which gets more credit than it deserves. Anyhow, Bar 20 was an excellent book, and the following Hopalong Cassidy novels got progressively more brilliant from there.

The novels are a lot more realistic than the films. Cassidy is more fleshed-out, more down-to-earth on the page. He bears no resemblance to William Boyd, who basically re-invents the character for the films. Warner Brothers is tinkering with the idea of reviving the series. Ethan Wayne is just the man to play Hopalong Cassidy. But they'll never even think of him.

Quote from Stumpy

Thanks for the advice concerning the VHS versions, Richard. I may just give up on the movies altogether and keep trying to find reasonably-priced books.

Stumpy,

I have an extra copy of Borderland from SinisterCinema.com that I will send to you if you're stateside, but the quality isn't much better than the VHS. As an alternative, you might splurge on this box-set:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ…tails?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

which has gone out of print before the supply runs out and the price skyrockets.

Another edition, without the lunch box, is also going out of print:

http://www.amazon.com/Hopalong…TF8&qid=1315395635&sr=1-2

You get all 66 Hopalong Cassidy films restored, uncut and in excellent quality. Try to watch them in chronological order. The 1930s films are the strongest. By the early 1940s the scripts are pretty weak and the productions are shot too fast to carry much gravitas, although they maintain their decency and charm. I Know you'll like them.

Richard

Stumpy,

Clarence E. Mulford wrote 28 westerns between 1906 and 1941. He was the real thing. His books reek with authenticity. Trail Dust (1936) is based on the novel of the same name published in 1934. It's a great novel, a vital and important novel. I've invested a good many years of my life researching the cattle trailing industry of the late 1800s in the southwest, but I never came across a story that captures the feel and flavor of the time, let alone the vernacular, with such unerring truth, not even in the eyewitness accounts (which are numerous). Truly an extraordinary little book. Borderland (1937) is based on an earlier Mulford novel called Bring Me His Ears published in 1922. The films are good, but the books are better. You won't be disappointed, either way.

Bypass the VHS. Quality is poor and the films are cut. Get the DVD if you can. It's restored and complete.

Richard

Last night I watched Rustler's Valley (1937), which I think was the seventh or eighth Hopalong Cassidy film. A warm and agreeable western of the period, well-shot on beautiful locations and well-acted. Well-written, too. The Hopalong Cassidy films had good writing, at least in the beginning. Not the same experience as reading the books; author Mulford achieved greatness on the page. Whenever I watch a Hopalong Cassidy film, I always think it' so good it could have been better if they had only done this or that, instead of that and this. Close, but no cigar.

Trail Dust (1936) and Borderland (1937) are two of best westerns of the 1930s, I am inclined to think, and by coincidence, they are also two of the strongest and orniest Mulford novels.

Richard