AllMovie

The best of William Boyd's self-produced Hopalong Cassidy Westerns and the popular pulp fiction character's penultimate "big screen" adventure, False Paradise returns to the picturesque Lone Pine locations, always a favorite spot for the Hoppy thrillers. And although the story is nothing new -- to put it mildly -- the cast members go through their paces as if they've never been down that dusty road before. Boyd, who in the later films eschewed his earlier funereal attire in favor of a less solemn appearance, enjoys a furious gun battle with henchman Zon Murray inside the silver mine and there is the obligatory rousing finale. Arguably the most consistently entertaining in Hollywood history, the Hopalong Cassidy series deserved to go out with a bang but, unfortunately, False Paradise was followed by the less than satisfactory Strange Gamble (1948).