Rustlers' Valley (1937)

Director:

Nate Watt

Writers:

Clarence E. Mulford (characters)
Harry O. Hoyt (dialogue & screenplay)

Release Date:

23 July 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Western

Tagline:

This Rip-Roarin', Gun-Totin' Hombre Blats His Way To New Glories!

Plot:

Hoppy clears Lucky on a charge of bank robbery and foils the plot of a crooked lawyer to rustle a herd of pedigree cattle and take over the valley.

Plot Keywords:

Bank Robbery | Crooked Lawyer | Jealousy | Posse | Loan

Cast

William Boyd	...	'Hopalong' Cassidy
George 'Gabby' Hayes	...	'Windy' Halliday (as George Hayes)
Russell Hayden	...	'Lucky' Jenkins
Morris Ankrum	...	Glen Randall (as Stephen Morris)
Muriel Evans	...	Agnes Randall
Lee J. Cobb	...	Cal Howard (as Lee Colt)
Ted Adams	...	Taggart (Randall Foreman)
Al Ferguson	...	Joe, Howard Henchman
John Beach	...	Sheriff Boulton

Runtime:

61 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Columbia State Historic Park - 22708 Broadway, Columbia, California, USA

Company:

Harry Sherman Productions

Trivia:

The twelfth of sixty-six Hopalong Cassidy movies.

Quotes:

Cal Howard: [with virulence to Hoppy] Don't feel safe without your guns - even at a paty, eh?
'Hopalong' Cassidy: [mockingly] Well, I'll tell yuh, I thought it was a costume party, so I came dressed as a badman.
Cal Howard: Well, bad men, whether they're bandits or bank robbers are not wanted here.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Bar 20 Justice (1938)

What's the Name of That White Horse?

There's an exciting opening sequence where Lucky is chased by a posse & jumps off a steep cliff with his horse into a river. The heroine ("Agnes," played by Muriel Evans) looks like a cross between Claudette Colbert & Loretta Young (I guess this was a popular look in 1937), but isn't as pretty as either. Agnes & Hoppy have a conversation about his horse (oddly, Hoppy says "I don't know much about his past"), whose name is not mentioned (& later, "I shouldn't have let you ride that white horse"). Which makes me wonder, what was the first time Topper was called by name? I'll bet that other horse owners would be able to say more about their horses, like Tarzan, Duke, Trigger, Buttercup, Champion, etc. Often in Hoppy films, the name of the town is made known, but not in this case, & that's a shame also, because this film's set in one of the more unusual western towns, a town with a tree lined dirt main street, where there are no hitching posts, but the horses are tied to metal rings set in the trees. Question for old west historians: is this detail realistic or complete fantasy? A good film & mildly interesting, but a little slow. I rate it 6/10.