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.

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").

Hills Of Old Wyoming is significant in the Hopalong Cassidy series for introducing Russell Hayden as Lucky Jenkins as one of the two sidekicks for Bill Boyd. James Ellison who was the first young sidekick for Boyd quit the series and Hayden joined Gabby Hayes for the next few years with Boyd.The three of them are partners in a Bar 3 ranch in this film, not working for the Bar 20. Somebody's been systematically rustling small amounts of cattle from their ranch and others and the trail seems to stop at an Indian reservation of an unnamed tribe in the film. Russell Hayden's Lucky Jenkins was always an impetuous lad who constantly charged into situations and got himself in trouble that Hoppy would have to get him out of. That aspect is introduced in Hills Of Old Wyoming when Hayden and Hayes go onto the reservation and start 'questioning' the Indians. Of course they've got no legal right to and they get arrested by the reservation police and Hoppy has to rescue them.But we've got a real legal conundrum here in that it's the reservation police doing the rustling and making a fool out of Indian agent Earl Hodgins and the two women who run the trading post Clara Kimball Young and Gail Sheridan. Of course when Sheridan's around, Hayden doesn't concentrate on much of anything else. That's another aspect of Lucky Jenkins that is introduced here.Other than introducing Russell Hayden to the series, Hills Of Old Wyoming is your average Hoppy feature of no particular other significance. Still the fans of the series will like it and so will others.