Hoppy Saves the Church
There be a storm a brewing so Hoppy (William Boyd), California (Andy Clyde) and Lucky (Rand Brooks) take shelter in an abandoned church in a ghost town. After noises spook California they suddenly hear the organ playing music and on investigation they meet Susan Crowell (Dorinda Clifton) and her mother Mary Newton) who along with Deacon Black (Ian Wolfe) are the only ones left in town and are busy trying to protect the church from those want to strip it off its lumber. Curious of what happened to cause people to desert the town they find come morning Riker (Harry Cording) and his men trying to tear the joint down. Having none of it Hoppy kicks Riker and his men out and decide to hang around only to find out that Riker and his men are outside holding them captive in the old church.
It made a pleasant change to watch "The Marauders" thinking I was going to get another, formula driven Hopalong Cassidy movie only to find this was different to all the other Hopalong Cassidy movies I had watched. The reason why is because of the situation of Hoppy, his pals along with Susan and her mother being pinned down in a church. Yes the story evolves and becomes a little more typical but the set up is different and kind of entertaining although you have to ask how many bullets do 3 men carry with them?
As I said it does evolve into a bit of a more formula driven episode and as such Hoppy discovers the real reason why the men want to tear down the church and why the town has become a ghost town. It doesn't take a lot of guess work to know that land and probably what is underneath it which is what is wanted but as to who is behind it all, well that is a little more entertaining.
What this all boils down to is that "The Marauders" ended up a lot more entertaining than I was expecting for a Hopalong Cassidy movie as it manages to break from the formula which so many of these movies stuck to and repeated.
