Old Movie Watching with Rob's video: Call of the Prairie 1936 - Movie Review

This was the first time seeing William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. I've heard the name but never actually seen one his films, and this was fun. He's got an easy going demeanor, has no issue with breaking out into song while goofing around with Chinese finger puzzles with his friends, and to me he vaguely resembles Draco Malfoy's Dad, had he been a cowboy, that is. So the story here is that Johnny Nelson (played by James Ellison) leaves Hopalong's crew and falls in with a group of baddies, that includes George Gabby Hayes as Shanghai McHenry. He's a little more grizzly here but he's a bad guy. The bad guys get Johnny drunk and then get info from him about how to break into the safe of Buck Peters, one of Hopalong's friends. They also pin a robbery and shooting on him as well. Shanghai is sent out to kill him, but he escapes and winds up in hiding, where he is cared for by Shanghai's daughter Linda, and of course there's a hint of romance there. The story I will admit was a little confusing but it all comes together. As we near the end the outlaw gang, led by Sam Porter (played by Al Bridge who sort of looks and sounds like Lon Chaney Jr of the universal classic monsters era) captures Johnny and they tie him up with a booby trap gun thing. So its up to Hopalong (or Hoppy) to show up and save the day. And you know, he goes sauntering up to the bad guy hideout, strolling along like Yul Bryner in Westworld, seemingly impervious to bullets as he picks off the baddies but, hey, it's all fun. You know, it's a fun western and even if the script is a little muddled it was fun. There's an amusing part of the film was seeing Chester Conklin as Sheriff Sandy McQueen, rrrroling his r's and generally being generally goofy, interacts with Shanghai who is pretending to be drunk in order to get his partner in crime out of jail. The character Wong (played by Willie Fung) shows up and momentarily tries to be the hero, but that's short lived. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027415/?ref_=ttmi_tt