User Reviews

False Colors. Released by United Artists, 5 November 1943. Director: George Archainbaud.

CAST: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jimmy Rogers (as Jimmy Rogers), Tom Seidel, Claudia Drake, Douglass Dumbrille, Bob Mitchum, Glenn Strange, Pierce Lyden, Roy Barcroft, Sam Flint, Earle Hodgins, Elmer Jerome, Tom London, Dan White, George Morrell. 65 minutes.

(Available on an excellent Platinum Disc or Echo Bridge DVD).

For this entry and the next five, sidekick number two is Jimmy Rogers (the son of Will Rogers) who plays a character called Jimmy Rogers. However, it's little-known Tom Seidel who easily takes the acting honors here with a really brilliant performance as the real heir, the pretender, and the false playing the real! And to make this entry even more of a must-see, Bob Mitchum is in this one too. He and Hoppy (obviously doubled by Ted Wells) have a great fight in the local saloon. And then Ted returns for the climax to punch up the villain, neatly played by Douglass Dumbrille (who breaks all the rules here by doing all his own fighting, including a breathtaking tumble over his own desk).

Four reviewers before me did a pretty good job of describing the action here so I'll take a somewhat different approach. The reason I love these old time B Westerns is because they often contain elements that don't make any sense at all and yet they pass for a credible story. This picture is loaded with them, so let me get right to it.

For a while there it looked like Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), California Carlson (Andy Clyde) and Jimmy Rogers (using his own name) were going to make this look like a Range Busters movie. Hoppy suggests to his pals that they enter the town of Poncho individually so no one suspects that they're working together. But guess what - as soon as they each arrive they hook right back up again! So what was the point?

Then there's the local attorney portrayed by Earle Hodgins. The shingle outside his office shows the name of Jay Griffin. However when he introduces himself to Hoppy he calls himself Quigley! I guess there could have been another attorney, but what are the odds? He didn't look like he had a partner.

So after a while, Hoppy and his pals discuss their strategy to smoke out the outlaw that's impersonating their buddy Lawton (Tom Seidel in a dual role). Their conversation takes place on a porch in the middle of town, and quite visible behind them is a local citizen who could hear every word they said. Fortunately this didn't have any bearing on the story, but you'd have to wonder in a rational world what the guy would have been thinking.

So anyway, the boys get in a jam with the sheriff who's in the pocket of town boss Mark Foster (Douglass Dumbrille). They get some jail time but the sheriff figures it's best if he lets them go to hightail it out of town. Now I don't know if I heard this right but I replayed it a couple of times, and what California said to the sheriff sure sounded like "You're a white man, Sheriff", as in he was doing the right thing, but it sure sounded weird given the circumstances.

Now I might not have this next one in the proper sequence but it really doesn't matter. At one point, Foster's henchmen take off after the trio and mean to do them in. Starting out, one of the outlaws shouts "Come on boys, spread out" and wouldn't you know it - they all gallop off on their horses in a bunch together!

One last goof and this was a pretty good one too. Robert Mitchum shows up in the flick as one of the henchmen and gets riled by California during a card game. About to get the drop on California, Hoppy shows up and the two of them engage in a pretty fair bar-room brawl. Being it's Hoppy's picture he gets to beat the tar out of Mitchum's character who's left with a number of cuts on his face. Yet the next time we see him he looks good as new!

So does any of this really matter? Heck no! I'll be watching another one in a few more minutes!