Fool's Gold (1946)

just watch it!

A Masterpiece!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A United Artists picture, released on 31 January 1947, directed by George Archainbaud.CAST: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, Jane Randolph, Robert Emmett Keane, Stephen Barclay, Harry Cording, Earle Hodgins, Forbes Murray, William Davis, Benny Corbett, Fred (Snowflake) Toones, Bob Bentley, Glen B. Gallagher. Running time: 63 minutes. (Available on an excellent Platinum Disc DVD). Comment: Not a bad entry in the series which pleasingly focuses attention on Boyd himself rather than the garrulous Clyde or the colorless Brooks. It's also a pleasure to see Jane Randolph as the reluctant innkeeper and Robert Emmett Keane as the villainous spider man. The plot doesn't make much sense, but for all that, it's mildly intriguing and director Archainbaud has handled it with a bit of welcome atmosphere and even - dare we say it? - style!

Well I've never seen William Boyd looking this dapper before. Going undercover as it were, Hopalong Cassidy dons a snazzy waistcoat and decorative cravat along with an assumed name, in the service of helping out an old Army buddy. Colonel Jed Landy's (Forbes Murray) son is on the run and facing court martial charges after striking an officer, and might turn into an outright desperado after hooking up with a gang in the town of Twin Buttes.There's an interesting Professor Dixon (Robert Emmett Keane) character here who's hobby of choice happens to be collecting poisonous spiders. It's a bit comical actually when we see samples from his collection because they all have this large, rubber-like phony quality to them and they don't move. When Hoppy shoots one off the headboard of a bed Lucky Jenkins (Rand Brooks) is resting on, I wondered what might have happened if he missed. Could have been curtains for Lucky. The good professor himself wasn't quite so lucky later on in the story when his minions got loose and did him in. Not a nice way to go.Anyway, the bad guys are about to rob a two hundred thousand dollar gold shipment by performing a switcheroo; they'll replace the gold bars with similar ones made of copper but covered with gold. Dressed as cavalry officers, the baddies will take the transfer of gold and replace it with the counterfeit stuff for it's final destination. If they had put this much effort into being good guys, they might have gone places.Well there's never any doubt that Hoppy would get this all sorted out by the finale. He even wins over the evil professor's daughter (Jane Randolph) who refused to rent him a room upon his arrival in Twin Buttes. She winds up convincing her fiancé Bruce (Steve Barclay), the colonel's son, that a life of crime just wouldn't work out in the end. Isn't that always the case?

Peace and quiet is what Hoppy is after on his ranch until an old friend turns up wanting his help. But it's us viewers who get the 'peace and quiet,' as this is a very dull entry in the long running series of film and TV episodes.Far too much talking and little action in this story as Hoppy goes undercover to get his friend's son back on the straight and narrow. To disagree with my esteemed fellow reviewer, Hoppy does fire his pistol in this but only to kill a deadly spider left in his bed by the villain! The evil Prof Dixon and his collection of spiders are the stars of this, sadly, we see very little of them except as incidental background until the finale.Lots of horse riding here and there and the plot is padded out somewhat before we reach the fairly predictable ending. Still, Hoppy and his pals are there usual carefree selves, so, it's pretty amiable viewing if nothing else.

Hoppy's in black only for the first few minutes of this film, which, as readers of my other Hoppy film's reviews know, is a bad sign. This time, he plays a cattleman. There is very little action in this film. The only gunfight occurs in the last few minutes, & Hoppy isn't even involved in it, so he never actually fires his gun in this film! There isn't even a legitimate horse chase, although Hoppy & Topper do chase a buggy at one point! There's the standard latter day Hoppy-type mystery (in the sense of his being "undercover"), but there's no real mystery here either. Let's see, no mystery, no gunplay from Hoppy, no horse chase. What does that leave? Must be a lot of romance between Lucky & the female lead, right? Nope. She's involved with another character & hardly speaks with Lucky at all. Oh well, maybe it has some good funny parts supplied by California? Nope. One of the least funny of all the later Hoppy movies. I think what really happened here is that the cast & crew decided to take the week off, & just threw this product out there. Earle Hodgins is good in his very minor role (uncharacteristically, for him, playing a straight baddie instead of his usual charlatan snake oil salesman). The highlight of the film is actually watching Hoppy watch Hodgins spit on the ground several times while they're talking. And you know, if that's the highlight, this isn't a very good movie, even for the Hoppy fanatic that I am. I rate it 5/10, & would have rated it a point lower, but it never really got silly or stupid at any point. Miscellaneous comments: I thought I found a blooper when California referred to the baddies as "yellow dogs," a term which I had thought originated during WWII, but according to the "American Dictionary of Slang" (Harper Collins Publishers) this term was in use as early as 1881. In this film, a calendar on the wall shows June 1 as occurring on a Thursday. From 1881 to 1900, the only June firsts to occur on that day were in 1882, 1893, & 1899. Wasting my time trying to instill a little historical accuracy in a B western? Sure, but I take my Hoppy movies very seriously, it's all part of the fun!