weezeralfalfa Review of Renegade Trail

Renegade Trail (1939)

Last film featuring the team of Hoppy, Russell Hayden, and George Hayes

[7/10 · 18 February 2019]

For 13 films, Russell Hayden had played Hoppy's clean shaven younger partner: Lucky, and George Hayes had played Hoppy's often comical old timer sidekick: much bewhiskered Windy. After the present film, Hayes moved to Republic, after a salary dispute. There, he served as a sidekick for a number of cowboy heroes, including Roy Rogers, John Wayne, and Randolph Scott. Paramount owned the rights to the moniker Windy Halliday. Thus, Republic came up with the moniker Gabby, which expressed the same idea: that, among other things, he was a wind bag. He is generally much better remembered as Gabby, rather than Windy, because he played in more films and later films as Gabby........In this film, amazingly, Windy has been elected sheriff of the small town of Cactus Springs. The local rustlers are pleased with this, as they assume he will be relatively easy to fool.........Charlotte Wynters, as Mary Joyce, manages a cattle ranch, living with her 11 y.o. son Joey(Sony Bubb), as well as a bunk house of hands. She's a forceful women, in contrast to some the former leading ladies, who were too demure to be credible rancher's daughters or wives. Mary tells Joey that his father, Smoky, was a good man, but died when Joey was 1 y.o.. In fact, Smoky was sent to prison during that time, and has recently escaped. When Smoky shows up on Mary's doorstep, she tells Joey that he is his uncle, to spare Mary the embarrassment of having to change his father's prison uniform for civilian clothes. Several times in the film, extraordinary measures are taken to keep the secret about Smoky..........There is an incident where a rustler kicks Joey's dog away when he tries to greet him. Joey beats on the man, who then tries to hit Joey. However, Hoppy butts in. The man pulls out his gun, and Hoppy shoots it out of his hand. Mary now badmouths Hoppy as a assumed villainous gunslinger, and complains he broke her bottle of molasses. At this point, Hoppy is still pretending that he's not Hoppy. However, when Joey breaks his leg falling into the cattle enclosure, the doctor is not available. Thus, Hoppy volunteers to set his leg, apparently having experience doing such. Initially, Mary had no confidence in him, until Windy told her that he was Hoppy........Meanwhile, that night, Smoky, notorious rustler Baily, and other rustlers have a meeting about plans to rustle 1000 head from Mary, and drive them across the border, where presumably they have a buyer waiting..........When Hoppy and Mary take Joey home in a converted chuck wagon, Hoppy encounters Smoky, told he his Mary's brother. However, Smoky claims he's spent some time in Mexico. But, he doesn't know any Spanish. And, he claims he recently met a man Hoppy knew, who Hoppy says died a year ago. Thus, Hoppy has no confidence in what he says, and wants to arrest him. But Smoky says he will reveal that he is Joey's father if Hoppy arrests him. So, Hoppy backs down and leaves. Smoky then locks Mary in the tool shed and leaves........While riding with Hoppy, the King's Men, masquerading as Mary's cowmen, sing a song. Hoppy usually wanted to limit music in his films to one song. .......I will stop my narration here, with most of the exciting action yet to come.. However, I will say that Hoppy's last heroic deed involved stopping the run away horses pulling the converted chuckwagon containing Mary and injured Joey. While sitting next to Hoppy, Mary says she wants to discuss some things. Joey has been pestering her to offer Hoppy a job on the ranch, or to marry him, as he wants Hoppy to stay around. Thus, we suspect that Mary may be making a marriage proposal. But, she chickens out, and merely asks him to stay on the ranch. He emphatically says "No" ..........I thought this film was a shade better than most of Hoppy's films, thus I give it a 7 rating.........See it at YouTube.