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Border Patrol
USA 1943
produced by Harry Sherman (executive) for United Artists
directed by Lesley Selander
starring William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jay Kirby, Russell Simpson, Claudia Drake, George Reeves, Duncan Renaldo, Pierce Lyden, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Parkinson, Roy Bucko, Earle Hodgins, Hugh Prosser, Bill Nestell, Bob Kortman, Victor Adamson, Merrill McCormick, Herman Hack, Dan White, Leo J.McMahon, Charles Murphy, Henry Wills
screenplay by Michael Wilson, based on characters by Clarence E. Mulford
Hopalong Cassidy
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The commander of the Mexican border patrol (Duncan Renaldo) asks
Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) and sidekicks California (Andy Clyde) and
Johnny (Jay Kirby) to investigate the disappearance of a number of Mexican
citizens in a Texan silver mining town called Silver Bullet. His
acquaintance Inez LaBarca (Claudia Drake) however, whose fiancé Enrique
(George Reeves) is among those who disappeared, immediately distrusts
Hoppy and company just as she has learned to trust all Yankees, so she
goes after them, and soon finds them leaning over the dead body of a
Mexican, concluding they have shot him (which they didn't). Soon enough,
Hoppy and co arrive in Silver Bullet - where they are immediately arrested
by mayor Orestes Krebs (Russell Simpson) and his (Yankee) friends who
simply don't like strangers, and before long, they are accused of murder
... and when Inez LaBarca arrives in town and testifies against them, they
are almost immediately sentenced to death by hanging.
However, Inez soon grows suspicious about Silver Bullet and asks
Orestes Krebs to give her a tour of the place, including the mines, and
Krebs, taken in by her charms, grants her her wish - but not before seeing
to it that his Mexican slave workers are hidden away in an abandoned cave.
Inez however soon finds a trace of Enrique and begins to see the truth ...
so she persuades Krebs to let her prepare the last meal for Hoppy and co -
and this way smuggles a gun into their cell. Hoppy and co of course soon
break free, invoke a revolt among the Mexican slave miners and ultimately
see to it that Orestes Krebs and his gang get their just desserts.
A young Robert Mitchum plays one of Krebs' henchmen.
As with most Hopalong Cassidy films, this is a solid B
Western, but at the same time it's really nothing special, not much more
than a production line product with little in terms of surprises,
interesting plottwists and setpieces. But at least it's solid
entertainment.
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