Sadly Over-hyped

A different way of telling a story

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I had to do a double take when this picture started. My copy of the film has an opening title page that states "Riders of the Timberlane". That just doesn't sound right, and reading one of the trivia posts for the movie describes it as an error on a distributor's release. I tried picturing a timberlane and it just doesn't work.Victor Jory is back in another Hopalong Cassidy flick and this time he's a good guy, but just to stay in fine form as a villain, he's persuaded by his boss Jim Kerrigan (J. Farrell McDonald), to accuse Hoppy (William Boyd) of being a card cheat so that he and partner Johnny (Brad King) can be run out of camp. It's just a ruse to have the boys infiltrate the bad guy outfit run by Preston Yates (Edward Keane). The strategy works for a while, long enough for Hoppy to make the save for Kerrigan and his men operating a logging operation.I have to say, the neatest thing about this story was seeing Hoppy and Johnny ride that timber line in the sky, rocketing along looking like it was going about forty miles an hour! They didn't even look like they were hanging on for dear life until Johnny got winged by a bad guy bullet. That was a pretty cool sequence demonstrating how real loggers must have been able to move those massive trunks they cut down (at a much slower pace of course). I never saw anything like that before.You know it's funny, but for almost every Hopalong Cassidy movie on IMDb, you'll find someone who states it's the best one there is, and someone else that says it's the worst. For me, everyone is about the same in entertainment value as a B Western and this was no exception. Even though I enjoy the heck out of all of them, rating any one of them as more than a '5' or a '6' is pretty much an exaggeration.

Hopalong Cassidy and his young sidekick Brad King leave the Bar 20 ranch when the foreman Buck Peters sends them to help his old friend J.Farrell MacDonald and daughter Eleanor Stewart who are being sabotaged in their effort to fulfill a lumbering contract. It's not the same as herding cattle but Hoppy and Brad get the gist of it fast. In fact their old partner Andy Clyde was already working for MacDonald.There was a later Hopalong Cassidy film with a lumber setting and it seemed a bit better. Certainly Hoppy was more home on the range than home in a logging camp.Victor Jory is in this Hoppy film and usually he's a villain. Not here, he's MacDonald's strong right arm as a French Canadian foreman.I can't forget that crew of Jory's peers who come down from Canada to help MacDonald. They cut down trees as well as fight and sing and they have their own theme, The Kinkajou song. It's somewhat along the lines of Stouthearted Men.Not one of the better Cassidy westerns, but Hoppy aficionados will be pleased.

Edging on for A feature production values, tho economies do occasionally show - off screen explosion, limited time with the real donkey engine or the vintage locomotive. It's not all that strong in the scripting line either.At the logging camp run by Victor Jory, with a check shirt over his padded vest and a thick Frog accent, another logger has been injured and Tom Tyler (obviously up to no good) has called the men out. Hoppy, California and Johnny Nelson help out, along with Stewart's rail flat car full of Fighting (& singing) KinkajousMuch logging activity, including an ambitious montage and Hoppy and Johnny actually finishing off downing a modest size trunk. Another of the deception plots cross cuts Hoppy and the boys on the rail hand car pursued by Jory's train and Stewart racing on horseback to tell the loggers the truth. Climax has our heroes riding the timber high line with Hoppy diving into the lake and disposing of the fire in the hole, where the bad hats are planning on blowing up the dam.Players of the class of Tyler and Nilsson are punching below their weight but they and the timber scenics add. Technical work is excellent, outside of obvious process photography.Jory does the same character in LUMBERJACK, which must have helped with stock footage. There's even an explicit eco-theme, with J Farrel McDonald insisting on planting a tree for every one he chops down, unlike the heavies who covert his timber.Certainly one of the better Hoppys.

I have seen through the satellite so far 38 out of 66 Hopalong Cassidy westerns. This is by far the best one with not only lots of action but Hoppy is not afraid to pitch in with the workers and not wear his customary black outfit. He is seen with a checkered shirt and white cap most of the time. I would recommend this episode to anyone who has not seen a Hoppy movie.