Hop-a-long Cassidy (1935)

Too much of everything

the audience applauded

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

William Boyd made his screen debut as Hopalong Cassidy in Hop-ALong Cassidy. He was really William known as Bill Cassidy when he does arrive, but he gets wounded in a gunfight and limped a bit for the duration of the film. The guys in the bunkhouse called him Hopalong after he gave himself that nickname. Throughout the rest of the 66 films and TV shows we rarely heard his Christian name.The plot is a standard western one, an outlaw gang stirs up a feud between the Bar 20 and a neighboring outfit owned by Robert Warwick. But it takes Bill Boyd to come up with the solution, aided and abetted by James Ellison whom he acquires as a sidekick.Gabby Hayes is in this as Uncle Ben and he's the usual Gabby Hayes. He proved so popular that Paramount just resurrected him for the next few years before he left the series. Here as the chief villain guns him down it shows the Saturday matinée kids just how dastardly he is. Rather stupidly he leaves him to bleed out rather than finish him off. I guess Paramount did not want to shock the kids whose dimes to see the film and the subsequent series planned.So Hopalong Cassidy becomes an American institution. Curiously enough Bill Boyd did a few non-Hoppy films after this before settling down into this character permanently.It was a good beginning for an American institution.

I thought the movie had the "feel" of western life..the cattle grazing in the opener..the dust on the outfits (except Johnny's!)You could even see the dust flying in several scenes....good characters, except the foreman (just didn't fit)..Ellison excellent as Johnny..and Hayes, McGlynn as Red and Middleton as Buck--all good...how about the scene where Hoppy appears riding Topper (I guess it was Topper,then) down that steep hill? I like the silent film "leftovers", like Hoppy's steely glare and the gathering of the ranchers scene near the end...Just a very well-done, enjoyable film! This movie borrows plot elements from the book Hopalong Cassidy (1910)-- Meeker, the H2 spread, Thunder Mesa..to name a few. I'm still reading the book, so I don't know all the details..! Interesting note-- the two well-known western character actors--Boyd and Hayes-- are from Eastern locales: Marion, Ohio and Wellsville, NY, respectively. Once again--a top rating for this film! John Field

It was interesting for me to see this first of the Hopalong Cassidy movies last night. I saw a distinctly different Hopalong than those later movies I have seen. This one had a hard look in his eye that was most menacing and at one point, he was about to draw his gun on his own man, which made for a completely different Hopalong than the one which emerged in time. He actually resembled men of the REAL OLD WEST instead of the watered-down, lip-stick sissy version most of Western characters in the movies had--such as Gene Autry.I remember last year I got to see the very first episode of Bonanza--the TV Western series. I noticed the same thing there how the Cartwrights were hard, rough and even deadly (the way men were in the REAL WEST) and, having watched the series over several years, I noticed they too mellowed with time.Otherwise, I certainly enjoyed this first issue of Hopalong Cassidy. He was certainly my HERO as a small boy of 5-6 back in 1953-1954 when I first started watching him on TV. And it was good to view this one.I won't bother with the plot. Others have already done that. But the point I made is one that clearly stood out to me about this very first movie in the series.

"Hop-Along Cassidy" (aka "Hopalong Cassidy Enters") was the first of 66 features starring William Boyd as Hoppy. One of the most successful and best written of the "B" western series, it was to run from 1935 to 1948. As written by Clarence E. Mulford, Cassidy was a crude, crusty ranch hand and definitely not intended as a Saturday Matinee hero. In fact, character actor James Gleason, who looked nothing like a hero was apparently first offered the part.Boyd, who had been around Hollywood since the early 20s and had fallen from grace, ultimately was cast in the part. It was decided between himself and producer Harry "Pop" Sherman that Boyd would not play the character as written.In this first entry in the series, Boyd plays the character with a few rough edges, all of which would disappear in future films. He starts out as "Bill" Cassidy but acquires his nickname "Hopalong" when is wounded in the leg and is forced to hop along with the aid of a cane.The story involves two competing ranchers, Buck Peters of the Bar-20 (Charles Middleton) and Meeker (Robert Warwick) arguing over the open range land for their cattle. Meeker's foreman known as Pecos Jack (Kenneth Thompson) is behind a plot to set the two ranches against each other while stealing their cattle, changing their brands and selling them off for himself.In this first entry in the series the traditional trio comprises Hoppy, Johnny Nelson (James Ellison) and Red Connors (Frank McGlynn Jr.). George Hayes by this time had evolved into the character he would play for the rest of his career. In this picture he plays a ranch hand named "Uncle Ben". Although still not using the name "Gabby", he would appear later in the series as the grizzled sidekick "Windy Halliday".Also in the cast are Paula Stone as Mary Meeker, Ellison's love interest, Willie Fung as the Meeker's Chinese cook, who provides most of the comic relief, and veterans John Merton and Franlyn Farnum in other roles.Charles Middleton would achieve some measure of fame as "Ming the Merciless" in the Flash Gordon serials. The character of Red Connors would be resurrected in the Hopalong Cassidy TV series of the 50s with Edgar Buchanan playing the part.