The Matinee - Waiting for Hopalong

In the late forties, kids flocked to the matinees. It was always a raucous crowd of children ranging from about five years old to twelve or so. When the cartoon started up, the crowd cheered and then watched in rapt attention as the previews of coming attractions, the next episode of an exciting serial and the newsreels all flashed on the screen.

Then came the main attraction, usually a cowboy movie but sometimes a detective story like Boston Blackie.

Cowboys were the favorite and it was from those movies that we received the most influential instruction about proper conduct. Cowboy movies were far more influential than Sunday School.

The plots were always the same. The villain, a greedy, cowardly bully who sent his hired hands to do the dirty work, had devised a way to take over the town and leave the good, hardworking and honest townspeople, farmers and ranchers without an effective voice.

Then the hero rode into town. It might be Hopalong Cassidy or the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Lash Larue or Wild Bill Hickock. It might even be Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, though they sang entirely too much.

The hero quickly sized up the situation, possibly spying on the villain. Then he organized thetownspeople, pumped up their courage and led them in the effort to undo the villain's plan. There was always a fist fight, and often a gun fight, though the hero never killed anyone. He would just shoot the gun out of the bad guys' hand and "bring him to justice," which meant turn him over to the Sheriff.

It was all good fun, even though we knew it was unlikely that a real world hero could shoot a gun out of someone's hand without otherwise harming him.

Other moral lessons from these movies: greed is bad and greedy people are usually evil; people have to stick together to fight evil; honest workers who do an honest days' work for an honest days' wages are the good guys; if a deal isn't fair, it isn't right.

And altruism is good.

Not bad life lessons.

In the real world, though, it might not work to just wait for Hopalong. Sometimes we have to set things right ourselves.