Wow! Such a good movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It was baddie Tad Hammond (Douglass Dumbrille) who made the statement in my summary line to Jerry Doyle (Kirk Alyn), his handpicked choice to replace Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) as the new sheriff of Buffalo Buttes. It's a good bet the players involved all got a look at Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in a gangster flick that came out five years earlier titled "Bullets or Ballots". That was the first thing I thought about when I heard the comment.So as the comment implies, there's a rigged outcome at stake, with Hoppy running opposed for sheriff in an election presumed to be his running away. But Hammond, recently released from prison has other ideas, and his revenge plan includes getting rid of Hoppy once and for all. He recruits forty outlaws from neighboring environs in a show of force meant to intimidate and dissuade local ranchers from voting for Cassidy. The strategy is successful, as Doyle is elected sheriff by a slim margin, with more votes counted than eligible voters! Sounds like this could have taken place in Chicago.Fans of old time action serials will recognize the future first movie Superman, Kirk Alyn, as the none too enthusiastic new sheriff Jerry Doyle, as long as you can overlook that evil intentioned mustache. He's a goner after Hoppy switches clothes with him, shot by his former sponsor when mistaken for our hero from a distance. The final showdown between Ali Baba Hammond's Forty Thieves and Hoppy's old pals from the Bar-20 ends successfully, but not before Cassidy and Hammond duke it out on a swinging rope bridge, which should give you a pretty good idea of how this one turns out.Andy Clyde once again provides the laughs for the matinée fans of the day, applying new meaning to the term breakfast sandwich, and later having a run in with a store front dummy, although as I write this, it could have been the dummy thinking the same thing. Rounding out Hoppy's usual trio is Jimmy Rogers in a largely unnecessary role, as he doesn't have much to do except try to woo the pretty Katherine Reynolds (Louise Currie).

I found this to be an average Hoppy movie. The first half bored me for the most part. It showed the bad guys rigging the election for Sheriff, defeating Hoppy! In various ways they discourage pro-Hoppy voters from voting, and finally they stuff the ballot box! Hoppy turns in his badge but is confident that the Governor will sense foul play and order a new election within a week. …. The second half of the movie is better, filled with a number of good scenes. ***Spoilers.****Among the good scenes: ¶ after Hoppy "loses" the election, there is a great noir-like scene in the saloon. The main bad guy, Hammond, who is out to kill Hoppy for sending him to prison, is dealing poker hands to his outlaw friends. The one who receives the highest hand is to collect the pot and agree to kill Cassidy. Hoppy walks in on the "game" in its early stage, and he forces them to complete the deal. He dares the winner to draw on him. There are no takers. He orders them all out of town within 12 hours. Hoppy turns his back on the group and observes them in the bar room mirror as he exits. He sees some reach for their guns. He spins around and kills a number of them, shoots out the lights and gets away. ¶ to make good on his threat that the outlaws all leave town, Hoppy alone, on foot, faces them (all mounted on horseback) on the street. They charge him. See the movie to see how he survives! ¶ it was clever of Hoppy to figure out how the ballot box was stuffed — he examined the ballots and noticed that the non-Hoppy ballots had some different type font for certain letters. different than the legitimate ballots. ¶ at the end of the movie there is a terrifically filmed scene of Hoppy in a fistfight with Hammond on a suspension bridge over a ravine. Some other observations: ¶ the heroine (who lacks a sweet voice) is surprisingly silent throughout the second half of the movie. She is shot at while in a stagecoach, kidnapped and tied up, rescued, watches Hammond fall to his death from the suspension bridge, etc — and never says a word! ¶ California Carlson's (Hoppy's comic sidekick) often turns me off with his inane antics. Here he tries to eat an eight inch high sandwich. In fact, the other actors (both sidekicks, the heroine, even Buck Peters) were poor compared to other Hoppy movies. ¶ I was surprised to see Hoppy pull this deadly ploy on the harmless inept newly-elected sheriff: as noted above, the heroine is kidnapped by Hammond, and Hoppy is instructed to come alone to retrieve her. Sure death is waiting him. So Hoppy changes clothes with the Sheriff and forces him to accompany Hoppy to the rendezvous with Hammond. So Hammond mistakenly shoots dead the Sheriff, giving Hoppy the opportunity to rescue the girl, etc. Not very good-guy heroic of Hoppy.

Douglass Dumbrille an outlaw who Hopalong Cassidy brought to justice once is out on parole and he's got himself a scheme to take out Hoppy as sheriff. He imports a gang of Forty Thieves to town and they run roughshod over the populace at election time. Believe it or not, the symbol of western law and order is defeated at the polls by Kirk Alyn who is a no good and weak gambler and is Dumbrille's stooge.Of course these kind of crooked shenanigans might be good for the big city east and their political machines, but in the west they don't cotton to that sort of thing. In the end Hoppy with the help of sidekicks Jimmy Rogers and Andy Clyde get things righted and the real forces of law and order triumph.With some of the commentary it makes Forty Thieves is one of the more interesting Hopalong Cassidy westerns made. The screenwriter Michael Wilson found himself blacklisted as a result of the HUAC hearings and I can see why some right wing yahoos might object to some of the content of this film. I'd give it a look, it's quite interesting.

This episode of the series hits the ground running from the first scene as Hoppy cleans up the territory while newspaper proclaim this with banner headlines.It's a shoe-in that Hoppy will be re-elected town sheriff, that is until parolee, Tad Hammond rides into town. Still smarting from been sent up the river by Hoppy years earlier, he vows revenge and with the help of the local gangs, he rigs the election. Saloon owner, Doyle is installed as puppet sheriff and the crooks think they've won. Up to the point where Hoppy gives them an ultimatum to leave town and gives the warning of what will happen if they don't in the summary above.Hoppy has his black duds on and his steely gaze is full on too. Even California proves he isn't quite the bumbling comic relief when he saves Hoppy from a back-shooter. Sadly, Jimmy Rogers is useless and just gets tied up at any occasion.Good action all the way through with a big shoot out at the finale and a classic fight on a swaying rope bridge above the river. All of which may be clichés now but still entertaining just the same.