Hoppy Serves A Writ (1943) - Movie Review

Описание: #HopalongCassidy #Western #MovieReviews

Hoppy Serves a Writ was an entertaining Hopalong Cassidy movie. I realize I'm not really watching these in any particular order, so it was interesting to see that when this one beings, Hopalong is a sheriff. Not sure when that happened, but hey, I'm fine with it. So there's a stagecoach held up, and the bad guys make a run for it, across state line from Texas into Oklahoma. Sheriff Hoppy soon hears from another guy who says his cattle have been rustled (it's a Hopalong film, so there must be cattle rustlin') and mentions the guy had a scar, similar to the stagecoach robber.

So Hoppy goes off to Oklahoma territory to investigate, dressed in dapper clothing, which was weird to see.
He goes in, asking about buying cattle from some ranchers. Johnny and California meanwhile, sneak in to follow and encounter Jean Hollister on a runaway horse and save her. Hoppy makes his way to a local saloon and plays some poker and faces off with Tom Jordan, the local jerk.
Hoppy doesn't back down, and in fact, he takes his poker seat. What follows is a great poker game, followed by Hoppy and Tom going 1-1 in an old fashioned fist fight! Yeah Hoppy! Clearly a stunt double steps in, but it's all good.
Johnny and California show up (even though they aren't supposed to be in town) and Hoppy has to pretend like they are strangers.
But Tom Jordan and his baddies suspect Hoppy is working with them, and that he might secretly be a US marshall.
Hoppy and his friends head off to Hollister's ranch, because Hoppy suspects he's in trouble.
Sure enough, the bad guys show up and there's a big dramatic shootout.
Hoppy and crew chase them off and Hollister and his beautiful young daughter are both grateful.
They also offer Windy and Johnny some work and Hoppy sets them to work.
The baddies, for some reason, pursue California, and eventually catch up with him and rough him up, trying to get his to say who he works for. He hangs in there and gets a good beating.
There's a big horse chase and Hoppy and Johnny rescue California, who's no worse for wear. He shares that he heard the baddies talk about changing brands of cattle (it always comes back to cattle rustlin in these films.)
They go looking for cattle with this brand, and while doing so, they mange to capture the George Reeve character Steve, and with him they head to the bad guys hideout to look around, and while there California does some silly stuff, like getting his hand in a mouse trap and get sticky paper on his hands. While they look about Steve makes a run for it. This was part of Hoppy's scheme. He wants him to go, so that they can rustle some cattle to lure the bad guy gang across state line so he has the jurisdiction to make arrests.
This leads to a big gun fight and, well, you check out the ending.

Closing thoughts: this was a fine Hopalong Cassidy film. I continue to enjoy these. They aren't overly deep, and he's something of a superman in that he never seems to be harmed in any of the shootouts. It was cool to see George Reeves and Robert Mitchum.