NOTES: Paramount and Zinman agree: This is number 41 of the 66-picture series. Locations in the Cisco Range.Gentlemen, in general, may prefer blondes - but there's one who doesn't. He's Harry "Pop" Sherman, producer of the popular Hopalong Cassidy films of the wild west. "Every time we've used a blonde for the feminine lead in a picture," Sherman said, "we've slam banged right into trouble." For some strange reason, the fans do not like blonde actresses in Western dramas and send in a flood of complaints every time one appears. Equally strange is the fact that they do not object to blonde men. William Boyd, who has been starred in 41 "Hoppy" films, has never elicited a single protest - and he is so blonde that his hair appears almost white on the screen. (Paramount publicity actually got this one right!)COMMENT: Hopalong Cassidy and his sidekicks impersonate dude Eastern detectives in this yarn, which Boyd plays for laughs rather than thrills. In fact, at the height of the climactic fisticuffs, the camera focuses on Clyde, not Boyd. Directed at a leisurely pace by Howard Bretherton. Co-scriptwriter Ellen Corby is the famous character actress.

More comedy than usual is in this Hopalong Cassidy western as Hoppy, Johnny Nelson and California go undercover as eastern dude type detectives. In fact we don't see them in their traditional western outfits until more than half the film is done.Hoppy with that affected English accent and California Carlson with that ridiculous looking deerstalker cap are funny in and of themselves. Andy Clyde who was from Scotland and started in music hall was funnier than usual.Not that the chief villain is long fooled. He suspects a rat, but the guys put an end to his rustling racket.Brad King was the young member of the trio and he got to sing some cowboy ballads that Paramount owned the right to. If they sound familiar The Funny Old Hills was introduced by Bing Crosby in Paris Honeymoon and Twilight On The Trail comes from the Paramount picture Trail Of The Lonesome Pine. and was also recorded by Bing Crosby who was Paramount's number one star. King didn't last long, he had no personality at all unlike Russell Hayden or Jimmy Ellison.But the comedy is key more than usual in this Hopalong Cassidy western.

Listen I was a Hoppy fan as soon as I could get into the Saturday matinées, somewhere around five. Nothing but free range parenting when I was a kid. We had watched the Sherlock Holmes TV shows with Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford as the sleuth and his able aide, so we had maybe an idea of an English accent but not much. But we would have been falling out of our seats watching Hoppy, California, and Lucky passing themselves off as English detectives who couldn't handle a gun, ride a horse, or play cards. We knew what was coming. Hoppy and his pals were pulling the wool over the bad guys and would they be surprised to find out the English dandies—taa, taa; cheerio, old boy—were actually Hopalong Cassidy and his pals. And when the revelation came, we cheered and hooted and laughed at the stupid bad guys. This picture was prime horse opera. It would have been perfect if they had dropped the singing. Whoever thought boys between five and twelve liked singing cowboys? That was almost as bad as the good guy kissing the girl—mush, ugh. The relationships that counted were being with your pals and riding a smart horse. In this film, we worried a bit when a secret search of Hoppy's suitcase revealed he and the boys were rangers. We knew there would be an attempt to bushwhack the guys. And there was; but it failed, but then Hoppy and the boys could drop the "monkey suits" and wear their real clothes and let the rustlers know who they really had on their trail. It didn't take long then for Hoppy to find the entrance to the faux cabin and tunnel the rustlers were using. And here you thought that idea was new to the Fast and the Furious franchise. It looks bad as the bad guys get the drop on Hoppy and California, but they escape to help save the day. Those rustlers never had a chance. And another satisfying end to a good Hoppy film. Now start the Batman serial.

Aside from Andy Clyde (as California) & Brad King (as Johnny), none of theusual supporting crew often found in the Hoppy series is here. Perhaps theyread the script & refused to be involved with the film. Hoppy, California, &Johnny pretend to be private detectives. Are those English accents we hear?Can't really tell, because they keep switching back & forth anyway (except for Andy Clyde, who does a better job with the accent). I guess the actors wanted a breather from their regular Hoppy roles; they got to dress outside the usualHoppy gear, which is often a sign of a lesser Hoppy effort, & that statementcouldn't be truer than here. All three use the most atrocious comedic voices, & California wears a deerstalker hat, smokes a curved pipe, & carries amagnifying glass, apparently as part of a Sherlock Holmes spoof. This silliness goes on for far too long (the first 36 minutes of the film, to be exact), & it's too poorly done to be effective as comedy, & it certainly is even less effective as a Hoppy western. There are three songs, two of which Johnny sings in a tenorvoice. This film has very little to recommend it, & I rank it as one of the two worst Hoppy movies, along with "Outlaws of the Desert." The best part of the film is when Hoppy announces "Let's get out of these monkey suits," & things doimprove a bit in the last 20 minutes, but not enough to make it a decent film. It would have been a better film if he had made that announcement 19 minutesearlier. I rate it 4/10.