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2.9 KiB
Plaintext
1 line
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
This an free adaptation of the novels of Clarence Mulford; fans of the Willaim Boyd films will probably feel a little at sea here (and the reviews here so far reflect that). But I knew of Hopalong from the novels first, and never cared much for the Boyd films once I got around to them.<br /><br />Christopher Coppola has made a wise choice - he has not made a nostalgic "Western"; instead, he has approached the Cassidy story as a slice of what we used to call 'Americana'; or what older critics once called 'homespun'. As the film unraveled, I found myself more and more reminded of the great "Hallmark Theater" version of Mark Twain's "Roughing It", with James Garner narrating.<br /><br />Both these films remind us that, although films about the 'old west' are probably always to be mythic for Americans, they need not be 'westerns'; they can very well be just films about what it meant to be American in that time, in that place.<br /><br />I never feel pandered to, watching this film; there's no effort to shove the Boyd-Cassidy legacy down our throats, no irony, no camp. Consequently, I get a sense of these characters as having walked - or ridden horseback - across some real western America I too could have walked a hundred years ago.<br /><br />Given that, the plainness of the film - it positively avoids anything we have come to call "style" - is all to its favor; and the plain acting of the performers fits neatly in with this; gosh, it really does feel like some story told around a campfire on a cattle drive - no visual dressing, just the quirks and good humor - and sudden violence - that we expect from the good narration of an adventure yarn. I was very pleasantly surprised by this film, and if the viewer sets aside encultured expectations, he or she will find considerable pleasure in it.<br /><br />I would have given this film 9-stars, but I'll give it a ten just because most reviewers here have missed the point completely; and I urge them to set their memories of Boyd aside and give this film another chance.<br /><br />Note 1: A reviewer complained that Hopalong shoots people dead in this film, rather than shooting the guns out of their hands (ala Boyd's Cassidy); first, Cassidy DOES shoot people dead in the novels; second, if Cassidy were a real cowboy he would have shot people dead - the problem with shooting guns out of people's hands is that they can always get another gun - which happens to be part of the subtext of this very film.<br /><br />Note 2: I admit that I am jealous of the Coppola family, that they have the Director of "The Godfather" among them who can get them all opportunities to make movies that I can't; but a good movie is a good movie; and this is a good movie. If it's by somebody by the name "Coppola", well, that's just is as it is. America is the land of opportunity (or was, until Bush got into office) - that's what the great American novels are all about. |