Pride of the West

"Pride of the West" is an okay B-western, though MOST Hopalong Cassidy films are better than average. I think much of it is because this one is awfully short. Now it is NOT one of the edited down versions that Cassidy had edited down for television in the 1950s....but it's one that comes in at under an hour in its original form.

The story begins with Windy and Lucky (Gabby Hayes and Russell Hayden) coming back to town after the stage they were driving was robbed. In the process, Lucky was shot but not badly. The bank owner (whose money was stolen in the robbery) is angry and says he's going to bring in an outside detective to investigate. But some of the locals aren't sure if they can trust the banker nor his detective, so they send for Hoppy who investigates.

The biggest problem is that the location of the money and some of the bandits is obvious and it was brought up early in the film....meaning that there isn't a ton of suspense about this. As far as who was behind all this, well, it came as no surprise. Watchable but not among Hoppy's better films.