Lucybespro
It is a performances centric movie
Holstra
Boring, long, and too preachy.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
JohnHowardReid
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!
bkoganbing
In Fool's Gold Hopalong Cassidy gets a request from a friend who's an army colonel to fetch the colonel's son Steve Barclay away from an outlaw band he's planning to join before he gets in real trouble. Barclay is a lieutenant in the army and he's going to be part of an intricate scheme in a gold robbery.Sad to say Fool's Gold has to go down as one of the lesser features in the long Hopalong Cassidy film series. In fact the series would shortly come to an end only to regain life on television in the early Fifties.The screenplay was strangely actionless and had they concentrated on the caper aspects of the plot it might have been better. It was in fact an interesting idea for a robbery and could have worked better with better writers.Even Andy Clyde's oafishness and yarn spinning was not as entertaining as normal Clyde's California character comes off as more stupid than amusing here.For devoted Hoppy fans only.
zeppo-2
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.
wrbtu
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!
