Twilight on the Trail

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.