Memorable, crazy movie

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It's the girls (Clayton & Amann) getting most of the screentime until the bang-up finale. Seems an outlaw, The Fox, lures Hoppy down Mexico way to exact revenge for sending him up in the good ole USA. Now our three heroes have to avoid traps The Fox and his sister lay for them. To me, it's just an okay Hoppy. I could use more antics from Windy and more action. Nonetheless, the girls are cute even if devious, the desert horizon is dramatic, and Boyd's an effective blend of charm and toughness. Then there's an unexpected twist with Windy and a long ride. Also, the main gunman is Glenn Strange familiar as Sam the bartender from the classic Gunsmoke series. All in all, it's an easy hour without being anything special Hoppy-wise.

As the title says Hoppy, Lucky, and Windy go south of the border In Old Mexico paying a visit to Al Ernest Garcia playing old friend Don Carlos Gonzalez in answer to a summons. Not like Don Carlos isn't happy to see an old friend, it's just that he didn't do any summoning.That note was written by escaped criminal Paul Sutton a notorious outlaw known as The Fox who has escaped a hanging and looking to settle the score with Hoppy and Don Carlos's son Trevor Bardette who is a colonel in the Mexican Rurales. They put The Fox away once.Sutton kills Bardette outright but still has Hoppy to deal with. What was unusual here for a Cassidy western is that most criminals had a healthy respect for Hoppy's instincts. Sutton has them, he just doesn't care. Sutton has a carefully laid plan to put Hoppy in his hands and it's going according to schedule or so he thinks.In fact Betty Amann plays a femme fatale in charge of seducing Mr. Cassidy. Bill Boyd is up to her tricks as well.It's all good in the end though as you would expect a Hopalong Cassidy picture would be.

Hoppy, Lucky and Windy are all in fine form as they are brought to Mexico under false pretenses. Lucky, as usual, falls for the pretty girl but in this case, it was for real and he married her in real life. The girl is Jan Clayton from the TV Lassie series and she is very very young (and she sings, too).The Uber-villain is very well played by Paul Sutton. His voice seemed familiar and IMDb shows that he was the voice of Mounty Sgt. Preston on "olde timey" radio! The evil henchman is Glenn Strange, later employed as the bartender at The Longbranch Saloon in Dodge City where he mostly got to talk to Miss Kitty.This time we get to go to "Old Mexico" and see the impressive scenery of Joshua Tree, CA. It's rather fun finding out just where these older westerns were filmed and more so when one has actually been to the locations.Good plot. No cattle rustlers (yep, spoiler checked !), funny side story with Windy and a much married lady at the hacienda.Recommended.

"The Fox" (Paul Sutton) is out for revenge and lures Hoppy across the border via a letter from an old friend into Mexico. Hoppy finds that his friend has been murdered and had left a partial message written in the sand, "Zorro", Spanish for Fox. Hoppy, who had captured "The Fox" in "Borderland", whilst working undercover for both the U.S. and Mexican governments; the Fox had been leading raids on both sides of the border.Morris Ankrum aka Stephen Morris played "The Fox" in "Borderland". Paul Sutton does a fine job as "The Fox"; but for the sake of continuity I would have preferred Morris Ankrum in the role.This one is a little more violent than the majority of "Hoppy" pictures but not unnecessarily so, it also has the benefit of a good plot and the story moves along nicely; and "Hoppy", "Lucky" (Russell Hayden) and "Windy" (George "Gabby" Hayes) are in fine form as are the rest of the cast. Highly recommended. See Borderland first, if you can.