Waste of Money.

Excellent, a Must See

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

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).

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.

It's a pretty routine Hoppy until we get to that great suspension bridge. What an inspired piece of action, well staged and photographed. It's Hoppy and bad guy Hammond (Dumbrille) trying to stay on the life line high above the chasm, while knocking the other guy off. It's the movie's centerpiece, and I'm wondering if the tightrope was built for this film, or more likely, left over from a big-budget production. Either way, it's a visual treat.Anyway, Hoppy's a sheriff mixed up in a crooked election master-minded by that fine arch- villain from many a costume epic, Douglas Dumbrille. To oust Hoppy, Hammond assembles forty thieves just like a frontier Ali Baba. Now Hoppy has his hands full, especially in the main street showdown. Not much hard riding or good scenery, however.Several notable features. Screenplay is by ace writer Michael Wilson who later penned a number of prestige films, including Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Watch for Kirk Allyn as Hammond's feckless sheriff. So how does the screen's first Superman become a "do nothing" sheriff! Speaking of feckless, poor Jimmy Rogers comes across like a big zero and even looks a little like a young jimmy Durante, of all people. Not so, the luscious looking Louise Currie. Too bad they gave her so little to do—just count her lines. Anyway, Bill Boyd is his usual great Hoppy, making the whole thing an entertaining 60 minutes

Set in Buffalo Buttes, the opening is exciting as the film starts with a gunfight on horseback. Hoppy starts off dressed all in black, which usually indicates a hit more than a miss, but then changes to a gentleman's outfit before changing back to black near the end. On the positive side, Earle Hodgins has a (too short) role as a drunk, California is in two real (not comic) fistfights, & gets beat up in both, & there are four gunfights. On the negative side, Jimmy Rogers appears as Hoppy's young sidekick & as always, he can't act (unless you consider "slouching" to be "acting"), is not handsome (as many of the young sidekicks were), & gets beat up in the one fist fight he engages in. Great scene: Hoppy puts guns in the holsters of the baddies, but they're afraid to use them; as Hoppy walks away from them, they shoot. Another great scene: a dozen men in a saloon advance at Hoppy all shooting; as he hides behind the bar, he shoots the lights out, then surprises them from the side of the bar. Despite these highlights, this was disappointing for Sherman's last Hoppy film. I rate it 5/10.