Just what I expected

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I was sorta raised on Hopalong when I was a kid. I also remember Sky King, Paladin, Have Gun Will Travel, Roy Rogers, Sons of the Pioneers, Gabby Hayes, John Wayne, The Rebel ... I even had a Hopalong Cassidy bedspread. I definitely consider William Boyd to be a cut above the "average." The main complaint I have ... the Indians aren't portrayed very realistically, although in this movie, they're not the "bad guys" (except 1).

Copyright 16 April 1937 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. No New York opening. U.S. release: 16 April 1937. 7,062 feet. 78 minutes. SYNOPSIS Ranchers near the Indian reservation in Wyoming are suffering heavy losses because of cattle rustlers. Clues point to the Indians as the thieves. Hopalong Cassidy, who, with his pals, Windy and Mesquite "Lucky" Jenkins, has bought the Bar Three ranch in that territory, suspects Andrews, the government agent. NOTES: The Indian extras are Sioux. Film debut of Russell Hayden. COMMENT: The presence of real Indians does not add a great deal of luster to this routine Hopalong Cassidy entry. Alas, they are all rather amateurish actors. Uninspired direction by Nate Watt doesn't help, though it must be admitted that the script itself generates little excitement. We have not read Mulford's original 312-page novel, but surely it was not as bland, as colorless or as bereft of excitement as this pot-boiler. Still, Hills of Old Wyoming does boast one point of interest: former silent star Clara Kimball Young as the hearty storekeeper, Ma Hutchins. (An excellent Platinum Disc DVD). ANOTHER VIEW: Replacing James Ellison as Hoppy's sidekick, was Russell Hayden, with no previous screen experience, who stepped from behind the cameras where he had been a production member of Sherman's staff. Hayden first appeared in the new role of Lucky Jenkins in Hills of Old Wyoming (1937) and fitted right in with Boyd and Hayes, just as if he'd been there all along. This entry was a good one with the by-now customary scenic values, plus an original, if rather inappropriate and tinny, musical score.

Compared to most of the cowboy series films of the era, the Hopalong Cassidy movies are among the very best. He was no singing cowboy and the quality of the films are a tad better than the films of his contemporaries. Take "Hills of Old Wyoming" for example. While B westerns usually ran from 55-65 minutes and seem hurried, this one is 78 minutes and seems less slapped together than the others. This means the acting is better, the sets better and the story a bit more interesting. For the first 15 minutes, Windy (George Hayes) and Lucky (Russell Hayden) were tracking cattle thieves who were stealing from not just their Bar 3 Ranch but from their neighbors as well. The trail led to the nearby Indian reservation and a nasty agent, Chief Deputy Andrews (Morris Ankrum). But his boss was pretty blind to all this and actually managed to often HELP Andrews in his evil endeavors. So, it's up to Hoppy to come along and piece the mystery together. And, working with the Indians themselves, he finds the man who shoots bullets with a strange notch.I wouldn't call this brilliant compared to some of the A-pictures but for the series pictures, it's engaging and very well done. It also doesn't insult your intelligence or only appeal to the kids--a weakness with some of the other cowboys' pictures.

HILLS OF OLD WYOMING (1937) is a moderately engaging Hopalong Cassidy western about cowboys plagued by rustlers. Most of it was shot on location (at least 90%) on the outskirts of Kernville, CA, a town near the southern end of the Sierra mountain range which provides a majestic backdrop for many shots here. The black-and-white photography is quite sharp and picturesque and was done by Archie Stout, who went on to work for John Ford (FORT APACHE, THE QUIET MAN). I can't say there's a lot of action, but at least there's a lot of movement throughout, as cowboys search for their stolen cattle and track the rustlers to an adjacent Indian reservation where the Deputy Agent gives the cowboys a hard time. The cast is larger than usual for a film of this type and at one point a mass of about 50 riders, consisting of cowboys and Indians working together, gallops across the screen. However, too often in the film men are seen climbing on horses and massing for action and then left hanging as the film blithely cuts to something else. This is particularly baffling during the climax, in which a chase involving dozens of riders is quickly reduced to a one-on-one gunfight in the rocks. Where'd everybody go?The film's depiction of life on the Indian reservation deserves some comment. While the white characters often treat the Indians brusquely, the fact remains that the Indian characters are all played by real Indians, led by Chief Big Tree (a Seneca Indian who was the model for the Indian head nickel), who speaks both English and his own language. In fact there are scenes where the Indians speak among themselves in their own language, untranslated for the viewers. The one major Indian character besides Big Tree is Lone Eagle, a "half-breed" who's in cahoots with the rustlers and is played by Steve Clemente, who hailed from Mexico (according to IMDb) but could well have been Native American himself. He played Indians in many other westerns, but he's best known for playing the Melanesian witch doctor on Skull Island in KING KONG (1933). As you may recall, he was the one who convinced the native chief (Noble Johnson) that Fay Wray would make a more appropriate sacrifice to Kong than one of the local girls. Hoppy is a ranch foreman in this one. He makes a dramatic entrance at the 17-minute mark, just in time to prevent his partners, Lucky (Russell Hayden) and Windy (George "Gabby" Hayes), from being arrested. Hoppy's quite a tough guy here and has no qualms about riding onto the reservation and barging into the Indian Agent's office for a confrontation. When he works with Chief Big Tree on a murder investigation, they make highly unlikely use of forensic science, given that this must have been in the late 19th century and neither character involved appears to have had any training in the field. With a 79-minute running time, the film is longer than usual for a B-western and there are times when the action seems to move slower than it ought to and characters don't do what they're supposed to as quickly as they should.Morris Ankrum, billed as Stephen Morris, plays the corrupt deputy agent-turned-cattle rustler. (This is not a spoiler. He reveals his true colors in the very first scene.) He was in a lot of Hopalong westerns, usually but not always as a bad guy, and was later known for playing generals and scientists in 1950s sci-fi movies (e.g. EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS). One-time silent star Clara Kimball Young plays Ma Hutchins, who runs the Indian trading post, and Gail Sheridan plays her pretty daughter Alice, who's attracted to Lucky (and he to her). All the scenes involving the actresses were shot in the studio. Earle Hodgins plays Thompson, the unsuspecting Indian Agent whose own men are rustling the cattle. Hodgins looked familiar to me, so I looked him up and learned that he regularly played auctioneers and carnival barkers in a film career that lasted 30 years. I counted over 50 movies of his that I've seen. The title song was composed by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, Paramount's preeminent songwriting team ("Thanks for the Memories").