Saturday matinee: Border Feud (1947)

Starring:

Lash LaRue          Marshal Cheyenne Davis

Al St. John           Sheriff Fuzzy Q. Jones

Ian Keith              Doc Peters

Bob Duncan         Jack Barton

Story                    Joseph O’Donnell

Screenplay           Patricia Harper

Director               Ray Taylor

Get your popcorn and go to the rest room now before the show starts, so you don’t miss an exciting minute of this one.

Opening montage. There’s exciting music, and we quickly find out that there’s a fierce feud going on between the Condons and the Harts over the Blue Girl Gold Mine. Newspaper headlines flash by, and there’s constant gunfire. Bang-bang-bang.

Men on horseback chase a wagon until it goes over a cliff into the water. A man is shot from a horse and rolls down a steep embankment. In a night-time scene, men behind rocks are shooting at another horse-drawn wagon. We see it roll into town, the driver hunched over, hit. One man falls from the speeding wagon and the wagon goes over a cliff and crashes in a cloud of dust. Crash!

First scenes. A sign tells us that we’re at the Mesa City sheriff’s office. It’s a closeup of the sheriff facing a concerned Cheyenne, who sits across from him, “You walked right into the trap I baited for you, Cheyenne.”

Cheyenne says, “It’s not the first trap I’ve sprung or I escaped from, Sheriff.”

The Sheriff says, “You’ve reached the end of your rope.”

Turns out they’re playing checkers, and the Sheriff wins the game. Ha-ha.

A bright lamp is glowing over the table and there is a pair of longhorns mounted on the wall behind them. Two men have been watching the game. Cheyenne is wearing his black shirt. He looks confident, barely smiles. He’s been winning every match until now.

There’s a letter just arrived on the stage from Sheriff Fuzzy Jones in Red Gulch, Nevada. Fuzzy says the Condons and the Harts are feuding and he’s asking for help. When the Sheriff hears Fuzzy is in Red Gulch, he says he’s just picked up a killer by the name of “Tiger” who was on his way there to make trouble. He was carrying a letter introducing him to a Jack Barton.

Cheyenne gets up to leave for Red Gulch. He’s dressed completely in black, with a black hat. He has two pistols in his silver-studded holsters and gun belt.

Saturday matinee: Hopalong Cassidy in FORTY THIEVES (1944)

Get your popcorn and go to the rest room now, because you don’t want to miss a minute of this one.

The story begins. There’s exciting music, and we quickly find out that Hoppy is a town sheriff and he’s been bringing in the outlaws, one bunch after another. Newspaper headlines trumpet his successes with exclamation marks!

Deputy California Carlson is doing one of his comic routines as he stands on a stack of boxes beside a sign: “Re-elect Hopalong Cassidy for Sheriff.” He practices delivering a speech to an imaginary audience (well, there's one kid watching) but loses his balance and falls into a horse trough. Ha-ha-ha! Hoppy and Deputy Jimmy Rogers come along and laugh, too.

Fresh out of prison, here comes bad guy Tad Hammond. Serving 20 years for rustling cattle and now out on parole. He doesn’t like Hoppy and makes no bones about it. “My trigger finger doesn’t itch anymore,” he says, “except when I see you.”

Inside the saloon, Hammond is persuading saloon owner Jerry Doyle to run against Hoppy for sheriff. Doyle looks like he could be a nice guy, but Hoppy has been keeping the town too law-abiding, which cuts into his business.

Hammond says he’ll bring in his old gang members from where they’ve been hiding out in Indian Territory. There are 40 of them. That’s where they got the name for the movie. Together, they’ll run Hoppy out of town.

Next thing, we see all of them getting together on their horses. It’s Election Day and they’re going to foil it up, which they do. They spread a rumor that the election has been postponed and do other things. Finally they’re stuffing the ballot box when nobody’s looking.