Wonderfully offbeat film!

Sick Product of a Sick System

Excellent adaptation.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A United Artists rfelease, 1 July 1948, directed by George Archainbaud.CAST: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, Elaine Riley, John Kellogg, Helen Chapman, John Parrish, Cliff Clark, Anne O'Neal, Earle Hodgins, Herbert Rawlinson, Don Haggerty, James Harrison. Running time: 59 minutes. (Available on an excellent Platinum Disc or Echo Bridge DVD). COMMENT: This one not only offers a plot line that's rather dull but cheats outrageously in order to bring about a "surprise" ending. Obviously aimed at a kiddies' audience, it wastes an enormous amount of time in the school room. True, Anne O'Neal does well by the typically spinsterish school marm, but Andy Clyde has obviously been encouraged to way over-act. Fortunately, Helen Chapman makes a dandy saloon girl, but she's not in the movie all that much. Admittedly, John Parrish does his best to fill in for Morris Ankrum as the villain and it's good to see barkeep Byron Foulger stooging for Clyde, as well as Earle Hodgins making the best of his running gag as an always-late sheriff. All told though, it's a disinterestedly directed entry that out-stays its welcome even at 59 minutes.

This was the 64th of 66 Hoppy movies, and it was one of the worst, unfortunately. The few things to like in the movie are: (1) the neat title to the movie, "Borrowed Trouble;" I always liked that; (2) the wordless scenes at the start of the movie — the cowboys driving the cattle through the plains to the railhead; good mountain scenery; (3) Anne O'Neal's performance as the crusty, feisty old schoolmarm was at turns charming and tolerable; and (4) a surprising twist ending when the "mystery" was solved.Those are all minor good points and are weighted down by the many many minutes of bad aspects: tedious repetitive scenes; lack of action; and California's stupid humor that would try the patience of a child. The plot was no great shakes, relied on coincidences (gifts from heaven). The main story line lacked much interest — the noise from a saloon disrupting the teaching of children in the near-by school house.

This is a bit of a change of pace for a Western. A spinsterish schoolmarm (Anne O'Neal) declares a running feud with saloon owner Mawson (John Parrish) about to open a new establishment right across the street from her school. When Miss Abott breaks the windows of The Golden Mill, Mawson naturally assumes it was done by Davis (Cliff Clark) of the rival Big Dome Saloon. Right there a big old question mark arose in the story for me - why wouldn't Miss Abott be opposed to both gin mills instead of just Mawson's? The Big Dome was just down the street from the one about to open.Well I guess one wasn't supposed to wonder about things like that. Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) and his pals Lucky Jenkins (Rand Brooks) and California Carlson (Andy Clyde) arrive in town just in time to help settle things down before they get too riled up. There's a nice scene of Hoppy interacting with the school kids, and the youngsters have a fine time propping up a dunce cap atop California's head when he falls asleep watching the classroom.Meanwhile, Miss Abott is kidnapped by Davis's henchmen with the dual objective of blaming it on Mawson and getting his potential competitor to close down. As Hoppy gets to the bottom of the real high-jacker's identity, Miss Abott thwarts a shootout between Davis and Mawson when she targets one of her trusty apples at Davis's gun - talk about an apple a day!Well it's always interesting to catch an old Western like this where the story doesn't revolve around your standard rustling or mineral rights issue. The inclusion of Miss Abott as a surprisingly refreshing comic figure was an added bonus, and I had to chuckle over the way she characterized the three R's the saloon owners brought to town - 'rye, rabble and roulette'.

Miss Abbott (Anne ONeal) is a schoolteacher who is having a running battle with saloon owner Steve Mawson (John Parrish) over the proximity of his saloon to the schoolhouse. Hoppy goes to see the teacher after he catches her breaking the windows in Mawson's saloon by heaving apples through them. Abbott is the stereotypical curmudgeonly, yet curiously likable old spinsterish teacher. Sometimes the supporting actors get all the best lines. After Hoppy introduces himself as Hopalong Cassidy, she tells him "I can't do anything about that, why don't you change it." He informs her that Hopalong is a nickname and that his real name is Bill, so of course she calls him "William" throughout the movie. She also gets in another zinger later when – after she has hit a bad guy – Lucky tells her "You sure knocked him out," she says, "That's nothing, he was unconscious fifteen years ago when he was a student of mine". After the apple-throwing incident, the teacher is kidnapped. Both California and Hoppy briefly look after the school children. Hoppy's scenes with the children are delightful and a highlight of the film. The ending of the film had a nice little twist to it. I agree there's not a lot of action in this film but it is an engaging, funny and quite charming film. As one reviewer said – it's all a matter of taste.