"The Dead Don't Dream" is less a western and more a murder mystery...which is not what you usually expect from a Hopalong Cassidy film. While the setting is out west, the rest of the film is essentially a murder in an old house sort of affair.
When the story begins, Lucky has come to the Last Chance Inn to meet his fiancee and get married. However, the girl's uncle is supposed to be there as well but he's disappeared. Later, after Hoppy heads to the Uncle's nearby mine and finds the man's body...and it's likely he was killed at the inn and dropped here.
Shortly after this, another miner comes to stay at the inn. He stays in the exact same room....and the next day he's gone...disappeared. Hoppy suspects he, too, was murdered--most likely for his claim. So he does what anyone would do...he contacts the Sheriff. However, the Sheriff stays at the hotel as well...the same room...and he, too disappears...presumably dead!! What's going on here?!
This film is like so many dark house mystery films of the era...complete with the weird lighting, red herrings and the like. It's not bad...but not the sort of thing fans of westerns might like nor expect. Interestingly, it's the second film like this I've seen with Hopalong Cassidy, as the previous year's "Unexpected Guest" was also a murder mystery! Worth seeing...albeit rather strange and with a really weird gimmick by which the folks were killed!
