Twilight on the Trail (1941) User Reviews

Raaaather

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 14 March 2017]

More comedy than usual is in this Hopalong Cassidy western as Hoppy, Johnny Nelson and California go undercover as eastern dude type detectives. In fact we don't see them in their traditional western outfits until more than half the film is done.

Hoppy with that affected English accent and California Carlson with that ridiculous looking deerstalker cap are funny in and of themselves. Andy Clyde who was from Scotland and started in music hall was funnier than usual.

Not that the chief villain is long fooled. He suspects a rat, but the guys put an end to his rustling racket.

Brad King was the young member of the trio and he got to sing some cowboy ballads that Paramount owned the right to. If they sound familiar The Funny Old Hills was introduced by Bing Crosby in Paris Honeymoon and Twilight On The Trail comes from the Paramount picture Trail Of The Lonesome Pine. and was also recorded by Bing Crosby who was Paramount's number one star. King didn't last long, he had no personality at all unlike Russell Hayden or Jimmy Ellison.

But the comedy is key more than usual in this Hopalong Cassidy western.

No sweat, no strain!

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 7 February 2018]

NOTES: Paramount and Zinman agree: This is number 41 of the 66-picture series. Locations in the Cisco Range.

Gentlemen, in general, may prefer blondes - but there's one who doesn't. He's Harry "Pop" Sherman, producer of the popular Hopalong Cassidy films of the wild west. "Every time we've used a blonde for the feminine lead in a picture," Sherman said, "we've slam banged right into trouble." For some strange reason, the fans do not like blonde actresses in Western dramas and send in a flood of complaints every time one appears. Equally strange is the fact that they do not object to blonde men. William Boyd, who has been starred in 41 "Hoppy" films, has never elicited a single protest - and he is so blonde that his hair appears almost white on the screen. (Paramount publicity actually got this one right!)

COMMENT: Hopalong Cassidy and his sidekicks impersonate dude Eastern detectives in this yarn, which Boyd plays for laughs rather than thrills. In fact, at the height of the climactic fisticuffs, the camera focuses on Clyde, not Boyd. Directed at a leisurely pace by Howard Bretherton.

Co-scriptwriter Ellen Corby is the famous character actress.

unimaginative,one of the worst Hoppy films.

[chipe · 5/10 · 20 February 2015]

One of the worst Hoppy films. Hoppy and his sidekicks take leave of their Bar 20 duties to help an old friend whose ranch is suffering rustlers.

The supporting cast was uninteresting. I never cared for Brad King as Hoppy's young sidekick. It seems he was hired mainly for his singing; his acting was bland. I like it when the heroes go undercover to solve the crime. Unfortunately here, their acting as inept British detective dudes got tiring and silly fast. Finally the mystery solving was pretty unimaginative: the bad guys try to kill Hoppy and sidekicks, giving themselves away.

Right Up There with the Silliest of All Hoppy Movies

[wrbtu · 18 February 2004]

Aside from Andy Clyde (as California) & Brad King (as Johnny), none of the

usual supporting crew often found in the Hoppy series is here. Perhaps they

read the script & refused to be involved with the film. Hoppy, California, &

Johnny pretend to be private detectives. Are those English accents we hear?

Can't really tell, because they keep switching back & forth anyway (except for Andy Clyde, who does a better job with the accent). I guess the actors wanted a breather from their regular Hoppy roles; they got to dress outside the usual

Hoppy gear, which is often a sign of a lesser Hoppy effort, & that statement

couldn't be truer than here. All three use the most atrocious comedic voices, & California wears a deerstalker hat, smokes a curved pipe, & carries a

magnifying glass, apparently as part of a Sherlock Holmes spoof. This silliness goes on for far too long (the first 36 minutes of the film, to be exact), & it's too poorly done to be effective as comedy, & it certainly is even less effective as a Hoppy western. There are three songs, two of which Johnny sings in a tenor

voice. This film has very little to recommend it, & I rank it as one of the two worst Hoppy movies, along with "Outlaws of the Desert." The best part of the film is when Hoppy announces "Let's get out of these monkey suits," & things do

improve a bit in the last 20 minutes, but not enough to make it a decent film. It would have been a better film if he had made that announcement 19 minutes

earlier. I rate it 4/10.

Three 'British' dandies investigate some stolen cattle.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 5 October 2020]

Please note that the IMDB summary for this Hopalong Cassidy film is wrong. It mentions 'Lucky'...who is a character in many of these films. BUT, he is NOT in "Twilight on the Trail". The handsome second sidekick is Johnny (Brad King)....not Lucky. The mistake is understandable, as BOTH Johnny and Lucky were used in many of the Cassidy films...but never in the same film.

Jim Brent is a friend of Hopalong Cassidy and he contacts Hoppy when his cattle start disappearing and the clues are confusing. For example, the trail the stolen cattle took just ends at the river and don't appear to resume anywhere! This is quite strange. Even stranger is when Hoppy and his two sidekicks arrive at Brent's ranch...as they are in disguise as British dandies who are supposed to be detectives. They act so out of touch with the American west and its customs, that they are laughable....and this will hopefully lull the guilty into false confidence. And, it's pretty funny watching them...particularly Hoppy with his affected styles and accent. Oddly, the least convincing accent I noticed was Andy Clyde's...and he was born in Scotland!

In addition to having the guys pretending to be Brits, the film features something unusual for the Cassidy films...there's some singing! Yes, a trio sings a couple nice tuns...and this is surprising since normally these films have none whatsoever.

So is it any good? Yes, though I wish they'd carried on playing British fops longer, as it was hilarious. Well worth seeing.

If you want to see this or other Hoppy movies, go to YouTube. Their versions are the most complete and best quality prints...which surprised me.

"My, what a ferocious looking weapon!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 15 September 2017]

This was the first time in about twenty Hopalong Cassidy flicks that I've run across Brad King as one of Hoppy's sidekick pals. He makes up the good guy trio along with Andy Clyde in his usual role of California Carlson, though the Carlson tag isn't used here. There's probably a good reason King didn't appear as frequently as Russell Hayden or Rand Brooks, the guy just didn't have too much personality. Not a good thing if you're going to be the handsome looking cowboy going after the female lead, in this case Wanda McKay as Miss Lucy Brent. He does get to sing with the Jimmy Wakely Trio as part of a consolation prize though. He sounded decent enough.

Hoppy fans might groan a bit when this one starts out, as he and his pals arrive on scene dressed as British detectives, called in by rancher friend Jim Brent (Jack Rockwell) to investigate some cattle rustling. Oddly, it's Andy Clyde who fits the part best with his deerstalker cap, meerschaum pipe and magnifying glass a la Sherlock Holmes. Their attempts at a British accent provide first half comedy relief, until the bad guys blow their cover in a customary shootout. With that, the boys shed their English duds and go full blown Western cowboy.

The one interesting element brought into play in this picture is something I don't think I've seen before. The cattle rustlers, led by Nat Kervy (Norman Willis), employ a tricked out cabin that hides a tunnel into the outlaw hideout. There's a brief scare when Hoppy and California get captured by the bad guys, but if you've seen enough of these films, you know it won't be for long. The Bar-20 heroes make the save for Jim Brent, and the picture closes on a lighthearted note when California's magnifying glass discovers a huge, armed and dangerous horned lizard. It fit in the palm of Hoppy's hand!

Twilight on the trail

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 17 February 2024]

Hoppy, California and Johnny come to the ranch of a friend and his daughter, disguised as dude detectives from the east, to investigate the disappearances, without a trace, of several herds of cattle.

This would've been just the usual Hoppy fare, but for the trio - Hoppy et al - are dressed up as Eastern dude who don't know how to ride a horse or shoot. It's a ploy to throw the rustlers off their guard and it's works to a certain degree. When the "dress up " is uncovered there's the usual shootouts, fast galloping. It's a fun western with some good humour. It sort of reminds me of the Mark of Zorro where the hero plays an effete character.

Everybody loves Hoppy except the bad guys

[sandcrab · 8/10 · 17 August 2002]

This Hoppy film starts off a bit slow. An old friend calls on the Bar 20 trio to help stop cattle rustling. Hoppy and pals show up disguised as dude detectives from back East but that doesn't last long. Once the outlaws realize this group can shoot straight and ride like the wind, its all over. Its typical Hoppy fare as good prevails over evil.

A fun film in the Hoppy catalog

[pensman · 8/10 · 7 November 2015]

Listen I was a Hoppy fan as soon as I could get into the Saturday matinées, somewhere around five. Nothing but free range parenting when I was a kid. We had watched the Sherlock Holmes TV shows with Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford as the sleuth and his able aide, so we had maybe an idea of an English accent but not much. But we would have been falling out of our seats watching Hoppy, California, and Lucky passing themselves off as English detectives who couldn't handle a gun, ride a horse, or play cards. We knew what was coming. Hoppy and his pals were pulling the wool over the bad guys and would they be surprised to find out the English dandies—taa, taa; cheerio, old boy—were actually Hopalong Cassidy and his pals. And when the revelation came, we cheered and hooted and laughed at the stupid bad guys. This picture was prime horse opera. It would have been perfect if they had dropped the singing. Whoever thought boys between five and twelve liked singing cowboys? That was almost as bad as the good guy kissing the girl—mush, ugh. The relationships that counted were being with your pals and riding a smart horse.

In this film, we worried a bit when a secret search of Hoppy's suitcase revealed he and the boys were rangers. We knew there would be an attempt to bushwhack the guys. And there was; but it failed, but then Hoppy and the boys could drop the "monkey suits" and wear their real clothes and let the rustlers know who they really had on their trail. It didn't take long then for Hoppy to find the entrance to the faux cabin and tunnel the rustlers were using. And here you thought that idea was new to the Fast and the Furious franchise. It looks bad as the bad guys get the drop on Hoppy and California, but they escape to help save the day. Those rustlers never had a chance. And another satisfying end to a good Hoppy film. Now start the Batman serial.