Pirates on Horseback (1941)

Touches You

good back-story, and good acting

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Britt Wood who was a sidekick of Hopalong Cassidy for a few films makes a return to the series in Pirates On Horseback. But it's only a brief return as Wood is killed for the location of his hidden gold mine.The location of which is something that Eleanor Stewart his niece would also like to know. The only clue is a cryptic message left by Wood that Hoppy, Johnny, and California have a time getting a hold of.Sad to say for our cowboy hero he and the sidekicks have to tell a white lie to get dealt in on this game. Andy Clyd pretends he's a relative. When they're caught at it by the real villain, smooth gambler Morris Ankrum it's almost the end.The cryptic clue is something along the lines that both Glenn Ford and William Prince were trying to decipher in Lust For Gold. Let's say Hoppy had better success.Hoppy fans will like this.

By the time this Hopalong Cassidy film came out, Britt Wood had already appeared in a few of them as Speedy McGuiness, one of Hoppy's sidekicks along with Russell Hayden as Lucky Jenkins. There was "The Showdown" and "Stagecoach War", both from 1940, so it was interesting to see him show up here as an unrelated character, only to have him take a bullet at the hands of the outlaws after being a bit too loose lipped about discovering a gold mine. That was kind of curious actually, because it was referred to as the mythical El Dorado Mine that no one knew the location of, but later when California (Andy Clyde) mentions he found some nuggets, there's a virtual stampede to the exact location. All for naught though, the 'Golden Nuggets' were a brand of giant mushrooms!Well never let it be said that these old time oaters had to make any sense. Another case in point would have been California's claim that he was Ben Pendleton's (Wood) forty-second cousin. How do you go about figuring that out? All in good fun though, as Andy Clyde had this believable quality about him even when he was making it up as he went.Another frequent player in Hoppy's films was the villain of the piece here, Morris Ankrum as Hawkeye Bar owner and Rim Rock town boss Ace Gibson. Normally creepy enough as an outlaw, as another reviewer points out, he outdoes himself as a potential suitor for Pendleton's legitimate heir, niece Trudy (Eleanor Stewart). He's so dastardly that for a brief time, he's got Hoppy and the boys on the outs with the heroine. It doesn't last long however, especially after Ace makes a take it or leave it offer of five grand to Trudy for the gold mine.With a clue left by Ben Pendleton before he died - 'Eagle will show way to mine but only at sundown' - the cowboy heroes eventually figure out that a shadow cast by a rock formation points to the location of the hidden gold. Battling the bad guys, Hoppy and his crew save the day for Miss Trudy, and in one of those rare instances in a Hoppy flick that I've managed to catch so far, this time Lucky Jenkins actually winds up with the girl!

The silly title is a put off, but of course there are no real "pirates" in this film, which at 69 minutes, is one of the longest in the Hopalong Cassidy series. It starts off very well, with lots of action & a goldmine plot. Based on the way it started, I thought this would be one of the best Hoppy films; it was realistic, conveyed a good old-fashioned western feeling, & the gunfight between a prospector & the baddies was brutal. Hoppy first appears 10 minutes into the film, wearing a black hat, tan shirt, & light-colored pants. If you've read my other Hoppy reviews, you'll know that the lighter the colors he wears, the worse the film is. I thought this film would be an exception to that rule, but sadly, I was wrong. The comedy starts soon after Hoppy appears, which is to be expected anytime Andy Clyde is on screen, & that's OK, but in this film, the comedy went on & on & on, & eventually caused the film to lose all the momentum it had gained before Hoppy had even appeared. There were some good comedy segments to be sure; one that stands out is California's assumption that he's speaking to a dumb Indian & therefore resorts to pantomime, only to find out that the Indian speaks English in a more educated manner than any of the cowboys! Another humorous segment involved jokes about Lucky's propensity for immediately falling in love with any young lady he meets. But five to ten minutes of the film is wasted on a long, drawn out gold nugget joke situation. Amazingly, Hoppy is not involved in even a single gunfight, & fires his gun only once during the film (but at the ground). The first 10 minutes of the film were certainly the best part of this film, & it could have been so much better than it was, a disappointing effort overall.

Producer Harry "Pop" Sherman, originator of the Hopalong Cassidy film series that stars William Boyd, is responsible for this well-devised work, released through Paramount, that recounts of gold miner Ben Pendleton, viciously gunned down by henchmen of gambler Ace Gibson (Morris Ankrum) during an unsuccessful endeavour to force Ben into revealing the location of his newly found rich strike. Since Cassidy's friend California Carlson (Andy Clyde) is a distant cousin of Pendleton, he, Hoppy, and their sidekick Lucky Jenkins (Russell Hayden) attempt to locate the concealed lode while simultaneously seeking Ben's killers, but when the trio comes to the cabin of the deceased, they find it occupied by his niece Trudy (Eleanor Stewart). When the evil Ace succours the young woman, in the process turning her head against Hoppy and his friends while planning to defraud her of her legacy, Hopalong and his pals face tough sledding and many anxious, danger fraught moments. Shot in the rugged high country of eastern California's Inyo County, the brief (69 minutes on VHS) film is replete with finely wrought detail and naturalistic dialogue, trademarks of director Lesley Selander who had benefited from his close friendship with Buck Jones, gradually developing into a top drawer helmsman of low-budget Westerns. Additionally apparent is the hand of assistant director Glenn Cook, one of the best at deployment of extras. The work showcases humour as often as it does action and melodrama, all smoothly blended by Selander, while crisp editing and effective sound mixing, especially of the scoring, are noteworthy, and skillful cinematographer Russell Harlan is consistently inventive. All of the featured players perform capably, the beautiful Stewart a nifty rider to boot, with brief but effective turns from Dick Simmons, as a cheated gambler, and lanky Wen Wright as a Gibson lackey; acting laurels go to Dennis Moore, cast as Gibson's principal henchman, who eventually joined cinema's Forces of Good as a Range Buster but still frequently fulfilled roles as a member of the Forces of Evil.