The Worst Film Ever

Great Film overall

As Good As It Gets

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A United Artists release: 30 April 1948. Director: George Archainbaud. (Available on an excellent Platinum Disc DVD, but the movie itself is contrived, ridiculous and - dare we say it - juvenile). CAST: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, John Parrish, Leonard Penn, Mary Tucker, Francis McDonald, Richard Alexander, Bob Gabriel, Stanley Andrews, Forbes Murray, Don Haggerty. 63 minutes. COMMENT: A ridiculous script about a crippled innkeeper who thinks there's money to be made in a remote inn that has only two guest rooms. This notion is presented quite seriously as it's essential to the plot. As Cassidy, Clyde and Brooks are quartered in the one available room, Stanley Andrews is forced to take the room formerly occupied by the heroine's murdered dad! But if the innkeeper is a first-class dope, the murderer is the number one prize idiot of all times. No, I take that back. The prize idiot is Cassidy. Oblivious as to who the killer has to be, he makes some fatuous guesses instead of pinpointing the heroine or Brooks or Mr X. As this is a kiddies' picture, alas, our killer is definitely not Miss Tucker or Hoppy's companero. So the only people left are the surly publican and his equally surly servants (whom the script is always pointing to - including even no-brains Hoppy himself) or Mr X (who even looks like a killer). The photographer tries to work up a bit of atmosphere for this no-brains murder mystery but his efforts are as futile as Hoppy's inappropriately fat-headed comments. And as for the killer's modus operandi, how did he know about it? How did he operate it? And why draw attention by moving the body?

The way dead bodies pile up in this story, you'd think it was a Charlie Chan mystery. But no, it's a Hopalong Cassidy Western, with an unusual opening scene in which Hoppy (William Boyd), California Carlson (Andy Clyde) and Lucky Jenkins (Rand Brooks) all appear in suit and tie! The occasion - Lucky's getting married! Any other time we'd see Lucky trying to romance some pretty young lady but this time out, the courtship is moot and he's all set to tie the knot! Well, not so fast. Arriving at the Last Chance Inn where the wedding is scheduled to take place, Lucky's fiancé Mary (Mary Ware) is distressed over her uncle who's wound up missing. This gets Hoppy's antenna up for trouble, and it's only a matter of time before a handful of suspicious characters arrive on scene. Before long, Hoppy discovers the body of the dead uncle in the gold mine he was prospecting. It turns out that both the uncle's will and gold mine are at stake, and before long, a friend of Hoppy and a sheriff who arrives to investigate wind up dead as well, all having spent the night in the deceased uncle's hotel room.Just as in the old Charlie Chan flicks, the murderer seems to come out of nowhere, as some of the other characters in the story seem more likely to have done in the former mine owner. Particularly suspicious was Inn owner Jeff Potter (John Parrish), who at any minute one expects he might get right up out of his wheel chair to prove his guilt. What's really rather novel is the method that the real killer used to dispatch his victims; the bed in the hotel room in which all the victims stayed was rigged with a heavy retracting canopy that came down to suffocate them! Well I already gave a nod to the Charlie Chan franchise, but something Cassidy said at the dinner table reminded me of another era sleuth. Having figured out who the murderer was, and with the guilty party on hand, Hoppy says "The killer is right in this room". That's the same thing Nick Charles said in "The Thin Man" as he was about to solve his very first case. Only thing is, he added, 'you may now serve the fish'!

A lot less action in The Dead Don't Dream than in a normal Hopalong Cassidy film. This story seems to be taken from some old English murder mystery as Hoppy and his pals become detectives. Not that they were all that much use with Lucky Jenkins getting married and California Carlson just being California.In fact that's what they're all in the locale for, Lucky is getting married to Mary Ware. The guys stay at a hotel in the middle of nowhere and people keep disappearing out of a certain room at said hotel. Anyone who watches old English murder mysteries knows there's a hidden door someplace. One of the ones disappearing is Mary Ware's uncle, another is the sheriff.Of course Hoppy figures it all out and Lucky proves to be valuable at the final showdown with the bad guys.Nice, but not the usual Cassidy type film.Of course

Hoppy, Lucky and California arrive at the the Last Chance Inn for Lucky's wedding only to find that his finance Mary's Uncle, a local mine owner, has disappeared from his room at the Hotel. As Hoppy's suspicions arise he sets out to her uncle's mine only to find him dead. Hoppy soon becomes involved in a series of unexplained disappearances and murders.This is another movie where Hoppy forsakes the iconic black clad gunfighter outfit and sports his gentleman's western suit attire, which usually means a lot more talking and a lot less action. That's the case here. Dead Men Don't Dream plays out more like a western styled spooky house murder mystery which was a popular theme at the time. It really bears little resemblance in style and content to the earlier Harry Sherman produced Hoppy's. This is a shame because none of the other B-western cowboys of the day had quite as much of a no nonsense, hard edge to them as Boyd did in his earlier films. Here Hoppy is scripted more like an Agatha Christie inspired detective. Dead Men Don't Dream is one of the last dozen Hoppy movies produced by Boyd himself. The Boyd produced post WWII Hoppy's are an unusual bunch and have a budget meter is running feel to them. Some of it could have been attributed increasing production costs but some could be attributed to Boyd himself. It seemed like Boyd was always searching for a less expensive type movie to make and apparently found it in this script. If your looking for a classic Hopalong Cassidy movie this one isn't it. If you enjoy the idea of the cowboy murder mystery angle it's done better in Gene Autry's Rim of the Canyon. All in all a pretty Lukewarm Hoppy flick.