North of the Rio Grande (1937)
Genre : Western
Runtime : 1H 10M
Director : Nate Watt
Writer : Joseph O'Donnell
Synopsis
Hoppy's brother has been murdered and he is on the trail of the murderers. To get them he makes himself seem to be a wanted man.
Hoppy and Lucky are headed to South America to deliver a heard of cattle. Bay guy Ralph Merritt gets in their way. For a while.
European bad guy Baron Bendor leads some local townsmen in a plot to obtain horses through theft. Hoppy and his sidekicks Lucky and Speedy must find and expose the horse thieves.
When three Texas Rangers try to investigate kidnapped Mexicans being used as forced labor in the mines of Silver Bullet, they are framed for murder by the town's corrupt sheriff.
Belle Langtry runs a town being taken over by cattle rustlers. She is also a front for the outlaws, who are led by Steve Fraser. Hoppy gets elected sheriff and cleans up the town with help from the Bar 20 boys.
Burton is after Clark's ranch. He gets the banker to refuse to renew Clark's note and then sends his men to rustle his cattle. Hoppy is Clark's new foreman and is on to Burton's scheme. But just as he learns of the rustling and is about to go after the gang, the Sheriff arrives and arrests him for hiding Johnny who has been accused of robbery.
U.S. Marshal Hopalong Cassidy is called when a town becomes overun with bad guys. Disguised as a member of a medicine show, Hoppy discovers that the ringleader is none other than sweet li'l ol' Ma Burton.
When Ranger Hoppy's falsely accused young ranger friend is killed while supposedly trying to escape from jail, Hoppy is blamed and drummed out of the Texas Rangers.
Problems come in the form of one of Hopalong Cassidy's neighbors, but the matter is settled when Hoppy roots out the troublemaker.
Caldwell and Nixon have their men rob the stage and then critcize the Sheriff for not catching the robbers. With her father the Sheriff under pressure, Mary sends for Hoppy who finds the stolen money and sets a trap to bring in the entire gang.
Hoppy is busy chasing stagecoach bandits who sing as they rob.
Buck Colins heads a group of local ranchers who are trying to prevent the railroad from completing its line through their property. Till now they have been able to charge tolls on herds passing through. Hoppy goes undercover to expose them.
Hopalong Cassidy, boss of the Bar 20 ranch in Texas, rides down the Camino Real in the New Mexico cattle country near Alamogordo, in response to an urgent message from his lifelong sweetheart, Nora Blake, who is in serious trouble. Before he and his saddlemates, "Lucky" Jenkins and "Pappy", can reach her ranch, they are stopped by Clay Allison, a cattle-rustler who is in almost complete control of the district, and wants to extend his holdings by seizing Nora's cattle and driving her out. Seeing Cassidy as a menace to his plans, he has him arrested on a trumped-up charge. Cassidy and his pals shoot their way out of the trouble and reach Nora;s ranch where they learn that Allison's henchmen have murdered her foreman, Tom Dillon, and Allison has sent for a crew of outlaws on the Texas border.
A town bedeviled with outlaws sends for Hoppy, Lucky and California after their own vigilante committee fails to solve the towns problems. Hoppy discovers that the bad guys are led by the town boss, and so are the vigilantes.
The local school is causing Hoppy problems. First Bar 20 cattle are stolen when Hoppy investigates a problem there. Then the new teacher arrives and disrupts the routine of the Bar 20 hands. Later with the Bar 20 hands at graduation, the rustlers are poised to strike again. But there is dissension among them and this will lead to the break that Hoppy needs.
Joe Weller has instigated a conflict over water rights between two ranchers. The idea is to have the ranchers do each other in then move in and take over. Hoppy and the good guys won't let this happen.
Stagecoach robbers take the money Hoppy was going to use to buy cattle so Hoppy, California and Lin go after them.
Hoppy and Lucky have been called in to investigate a series of stage holdups. The robbers are taking gold from Colby's mine and Hoppy suspects it may be ex-outlaw Colby himself. When Speedy strikes gold, Hoppy borrows it and announces a gold shipment hoping to catch the gang and their leader.
As rustled cattle have mysteriously disappeared, Johnny sends for his friend Hoppy, Hoppy arrives and immediately suspects Dan Slack. Realizing his telegram about Slack was intercepted, he locks up the operator Lafe knowing he can escape. Tailing Lafe he finds a secret entrance to a mine and inside finds the missing cattle. But Slack's men also find him just as the cattle are stampeded through the mine shaft.
Hoppy, California and Johnny come to the ranch of a friend and his daughter, disguised as dude detectives from the east, to investigate the disappearances, without a trace, of several herds of cattle.
When he runs for sheriff, Hoppy is beaten by Jerry Doyle, the gutless wonder voted for by every crook in town. When Hoppy moves to have the new sheriff impeached, outlaw leader Tad Hammond hires forty gunslingers to stop him. Stop Hoppy? Hah!