Riders of the Timberline (1941) User Reviews

"From now on, you're runnin' this show, Hoppy!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 25 October 2017]

I had to do a double take when this picture started. My copy of the film has an opening title page that states "Riders of the Timberlane". That just doesn't sound right, and reading one of the trivia posts for the movie describes it as an error on a distributor's release. I tried picturing a timberlane and it just doesn't work.

Victor Jory is back in another Hopalong Cassidy flick and this time he's a good guy, but just to stay in fine form as a villain, he's persuaded by his boss Jim Kerrigan (J. Farrell McDonald), to accuse Hoppy (William Boyd) of being a card cheat so that he and partner Johnny (Brad King) can be run out of camp. It's just a ruse to have the boys infiltrate the bad guy outfit run by Preston Yates (Edward Keane). The strategy works for a while, long enough for Hoppy to make the save for Kerrigan and his men operating a logging operation.

I have to say, the neatest thing about this story was seeing Hoppy and Johnny ride that timber line in the sky, rocketing along looking like it was going about forty miles an hour! They didn't even look like they were hanging on for dear life until Johnny got winged by a bad guy bullet. That was a pretty cool sequence demonstrating how real loggers must have been able to move those massive trunks they cut down (at a much slower pace of course). I never saw anything like that before.

You know it's funny, but for almost every Hopalong Cassidy movie on IMDb, you'll find someone who states it's the best one there is, and someone else that says it's the worst. For me, everyone is about the same in entertainment value as a B Western and this was no exception. Even though I enjoy the heck out of all of them, rating any one of them as more than a '5' or a '6' is pretty much an exaggeration.

The most exciting "Hoppy"? I tend to disagree!

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 7 February 2018]

NOTES: Locations in the High Sierras. COMMENT: This is the one in which Victor Jory is a Louie de Loop good guy and some splendid stunt work is spoilt by some obvious process screen effects. However, it is beautifully photographed, as usual, by Russell Harlan, and the heroine is quite attractive. OTHER VIEWS: Eleanor Stewart, the girl with the chestnut hair who has the feminine lead with William Boyd in Paramount's latest Hopalong Cassidy action picture, Riders of the Timberline, is sporting a pair of solid silver spurs, the gift of Hoppy himself. The spurs were presented to Miss Stewart because she is the only actress to appear in two Hopalong features. Eleanor recently appeared in Pirates on Horseback, and her work caused so much favorable comment across the country that Producer Harry Sherman decided to break precedent and cast her opposite Bill Boyd a second time. If Miss Stewart receives acclaim for Riders of the Timberline comparable with the plaudits accorded her for the earlier picture, Sherman plans to star her as a Western heroine in a series of her own. Riders of the Timberline, based on the famous Clarence E. Mulford stories, is set in the High Sierras where Hopalong Cassidy and his sidekicks, Brad King and Andy California Clyde, battle a gang of saboteurs who attempt to destroy a lumber company. No punches have been pulled in making the picture the most exciting in the long line of Hopalong Cassidy western thrillers. In one scene more than 300 extras engage in a free-for-all battle that is said to be the biggest fight sequence of its kind ever filmed. Gun fights, fist fights and some fast and furious riding pack Riders of the Timberline with enough action to satisfy any audience.

• Paramount Publicity.

A very familiar problem...'accidents' and folks stirring up the workers...and a very familiar solution.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 9 October 2020]

A very familiar theme in many Hopalong Cassidy is an unseen baddie who is paying his evil minions to create 'accidents' and stir up workers. I've seen it done in Cassidy films about railroads, cattle and more....and "Riders of the Timberline" is about the same sort of thing...in lumber country.

When the film starts, workers at Jim Kerrigan's lumber camp are discontented after yet another accident. And, soon, they are stirred up by workers who really are being paid to disrupt things. But when Hoppy arrives, he vows to help his old friend, Kerrigan (J. Farrell McDonald). To deal with this, he does something the Hopalong Cassidy films ALSO did a lot...pretend to be a villain in order to get the bad guy behind all this to hire them...thus exposing himself and his crooked scheme.

If you've never seen other Hopalong Cassidy films, you'll no doubt enjoy this one. If you've seen most of his pictures, like me, you'll feel a strong sense of déjà vu since it's really too familiar...and therefore, very predictable. About the only thing I couldn't have anticipated was seeing Victor Jory playing a French-Canadian lumberjack, his wearing bulky padding to look macho and his NOT being a villain as he ALWAYS was in villain in other Hoppy pictures.

By the way, while Victor Jory never looked like a macho man to me, apparently when he was in the service he was a champion boxer and wrestler! And, he WAS born in the Yukon...that really is lumberjack territory!

Best "Hoppy" movie thus far

[TC-4 · 13 October 2000]

I have seen through the satellite so far 38 out of 66 Hopalong Cassidy westerns. This is by far the best one with not only lots of action but Hoppy is not afraid to pitch in with the workers and not wear his customary black outfit. He is seen with a checkered shirt and white cap most of the time. I would recommend this episode to anyone who has not seen a Hoppy movie.

Hoppy lost in the Woods

[girvsjoint · 6/10 · 18 December 2019]

There's not really any such thing as a bad Hoppy film, but this one comes close, for a start Russell Hayden's gone, then Hoppy spends most of the film dressed in lumberjack clobber, and looks like he may have borrowed one of Buster Keaton's hats? So, he doesn't really look like Hoppy for most of the film! I guess they were trying for something different, but for me, it didn't work.

Riders of the Timberline

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 14 February 2024]

Hopalong Cassidy and Johnny Nelson ride to the mountains to help a man and his daughter save their logging business from someone who is sabotaging their efforts.

This unusual Hoppy western in a sense that our hero in black features in a timber western, and it's quite a lively one with the usual villains coming up with diabolical schemes and Hoppy and Co. Overcoming them - there's plenty of action, fist fights in the street, a lively shootout finale with Hoppy diving from a dam wall, reaching a dynamite and chucking it as the bad guys. Good stunt work, and a good entry. It's nice to see Victor Jory on the good side - he plays a lumberjack with a French accent and a hearty laughter.

Lumberjack Men

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 12 December 2015]

Hopalong Cassidy and his young sidekick Brad King leave the Bar 20 ranch when the foreman Buck Peters sends them to help his old friend J.Farrell MacDonald and daughter Eleanor Stewart who are being sabotaged in their effort to fulfill a lumbering contract. It's not the same as herding cattle but Hoppy and Brad get the gist of it fast. In fact their old partner Andy Clyde was already working for MacDonald.

There was a later Hopalong Cassidy film with a lumber setting and it seemed a bit better. Certainly Hoppy was more home on the range than home in a logging camp.

Victor Jory is in this Hoppy film and usually he's a villain. Not here, he's MacDonald's strong right arm as a French Canadian foreman.

I can't forget that crew of Jory's peers who come down from Canada to help MacDonald. They cut down trees as well as fight and sing and they have their own theme, The Kinkajou song. It's somewhat along the lines of Stouthearted Men.

Not one of the better Cassidy westerns, but Hoppy aficionados will be pleased.

very poor Hoppy film

[chipe · 4/10 · 2 November 2014]

I'm surprised that this movie got such high user ratings and reviews. It is as though only Hoppy fans vote here and mindlessly give everything a 7 vote.

I thought this was one of the worst Hoppy movies. I enjoy most of them. The story was uninteresting. The supporting cast was mediocre. Victor Jory should have remained as a bad guy; here he looked ridiculous with his silly accent. The singing was corny. Andy Clyde's antics was inane and juvenile. There was some decent camera-work and action.

The final action scenes in the film demonstrate without doubt how poor this movie is. Hoppy gets word that the bad guys are on their way to blow up the dam with dynamite. So Hoppy returns to his camp, and with his sidekick Johnny they ride a log through the sky (the timberline of the title) to reach the dam and the bad guys, who shoot a fusillade of bullets at them, merely slightly wounding Johnny. So after miraculously arriving at the dam in the nick of time and unhurt, Hoppy (who happened to spot the bad guy planting dynamite with a lit fuse at the base of the dam near the water) dives off the dam into the water and swims to the lit dynamite. I couldn't believe he could dive that distance into the water with his hat on and swim to the planted dynamite, with his hat still on! Still immune to the fusillade of bullets, he conveniently throws the dynamite quite a distance to the bad guys blowing them up. The final scene in the movie was particularly embarrassing. As Hoppy and his pals are saying goodbye to all assembled, sidekick California says he forgot his hat, and everyone laughs as though it was the funniest thing they ever heard.

Vintage Hoppy

[Mozjoukine · 27 November 2011]

Edging on for A feature production values, tho economies do occasionally show - off screen explosion, limited time with the real donkey engine or the vintage locomotive. It's not all that strong in the scripting line either.

At the logging camp run by Victor Jory, with a check shirt over his padded vest and a thick Frog accent, another logger has been injured and Tom Tyler (obviously up to no good) has called the men out.

Hoppy, California and Johnny Nelson help out, along with Stewart's rail flat car full of Fighting (& singing) Kinkajous

Much logging activity, including an ambitious montage and Hoppy and Johnny actually finishing off downing a modest size trunk. Another of the deception plots cross cuts Hoppy and the boys on the rail hand car pursued by Jory's train and Stewart racing on horseback to tell the loggers the truth. Climax has our heroes riding the timber high line with Hoppy diving into the lake and disposing of the fire in the hole, where the bad hats are planning on blowing up the dam.

Players of the class of Tyler and Nilsson are punching below their weight but they and the timber scenics add. Technical work is excellent, outside of obvious process photography.

Jory does the same character in LUMBERJACK, which must have helped with stock footage.

There's even an explicit eco-theme, with J Farrel McDonald insisting on planting a tree for every one he chops down, unlike the heavies who covert his timber.

Certainly one of the better Hoppys.