DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Robert Armstrong and Gale Robbins

DOUBLE JEOPARDY (1955). Director: R. G. Springsteen.

Marge (Gale Robbins of Three Little Words) is married to the drunken Sam Baggott (Robert Armstrong), who has trouble coming up with the rent money. Marge gets some comfort from the handsome used car salesman, Jeff (Jack Kelly), and when they discover Sam is getting blackmail payoffs, figure they should get themselves some of the loot. Sam's victim is wealthy Emmett Devery (John Litel), whose daughter, Barbara (Allison Hayes), is dating attorney Mark Hill (Rod Cameron) and who can sense something's up with her father. Then somebody dies ... Double Jeopardy is well-acted for the most part, especially by Armstrong [Sky Raiders] and Litel, and Hayes offers a lovely and sympathetic portrayal for a change, but Robbins is just a bit superficial as the femme fatale and Cameron is as stiff as a board. Minerva Urecal [Who's Guilty?] adds some spice in her portrayal of a disapproving landlady. There are a couple of tense sequences but the script lets the audience down in the long run. There's some suspense but no surprises. From Republic studios.

Verdict: Armstrong steals the show. **1/2.

PIER 5 HAVANA

Allison Hayes

PIER 5 HAVANA (1959). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

Steve Daggett (Cameron Mitchell) comes to Havana -- right after Castro has taken over -- to look for his missing friend, Hank Miller (Logan Field). Hank is married to an ex-girlfriend of Steve's named Monica (Allison Hayes), who is now keeping company with a character named Fernando Ricardo (Eduardo Noriega of The Beast of Hollow Mountain). Steve's trail leads to Schluss (Otti Waldis of Unknown World), whose warehouse is inexplicably stocking guns. Steve contacts Lt. Garcia (Michael Granger of Creature with the Atom Brain), but he has nothing to pin on Schluss. Then Garcia tells Steve they have found Hank Miller's body -- or have they? Steve discovers that there's a plot afoot to put Batista back in power, and to bomb Havana. The performances are all solid in this cheap melodrama, which is more like an expanded television episode than a movie. Vincent Padula, Rick Vallin, and Ken Terrell all have small roles.

Verdict: It's always fun to see the 50 Foot Woman herself, Allison Hayes. **.

COUNTERPLOT

Allison Hayes

COUNTERPLOT (1959). Director: Kurt Neumann.

Brock Miller (Forrest Tucker) is hiding out in San Juan after being accused of murdering a man in New York who owed him money. He has befriended a boy named Manuel (Jackie Wayne), and has a girlfriend, a singer, named Connie (Allison Hayes). Fritz Bergmann (Gerald Milton) a portly lawyer and apparent owner of the club where Connie works, has knowledge that might clear Brock, but there's interference from the victim's business partner, Ben Murdock (Richard Verney). Spargo (Miquel Angel Alvarez) tries to play both men against each other for a price. It all comes together for a final shoot-out. Counterplot has some good acting in it, especially from the dynamic Milton, and Allison Hayes, the 50-foot Woman herself, is warmer and more sympathetic than usual. Jackie Wayne is a talented and appealing child actor who appeared in the original stage production of "Damn Yankees;" Counterplot is his only movie credit. Milton was mostly a television actor who also appeared in Unknown Terror. Forrest Tucker [Fresh from Paris] basically plays the same dull "Forrest Tucker" character. Photographed by Karl Struss [Sunrise], who did many films with director Neumann .

Verdict: A melodrama that holds the attention but never quite catches fire. **1/2.

HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL

HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL (1958). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

Special Agent Casey Reed (Gene Barry of The War of the Worlds) works in a nightclub in Hong Kong as a singer as his cover. He is told that the Russians have kidnapped the young son, Abdul, of Thamen's King Faid, to force his cooperation in a deal that is also important to the U.S.. Reed is assigned to find the boy, and along the way pretends to be a crook who wants an alliance with Macao gold smuggler Elena Martine (Allison Hayes of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) and her associates, Chung (Philip Ahn) and Owen Howard (Noel Drayton). Casey's pretty accompanist, Fay (Beverly Tyler) is brought to Macao via subterfuge to put pressure on Reed. Hong Kong Confidential has obtrusive narration that tells us what we're seeing, and is on the level of a cheap TV production, but it does boast a tense scene when Reed, still pretending to be a crook, is told to prove his loyalty by killing the British agent John Blanchard (Michael Pate); the climax is also suspenseful and the movie is fast-paced. The performances are okay, although Hayes, without much of a character to play, seems a trifle bored at times. Ed Kemmer also appears as an old flame of Fay's. When Barry goes into his song and dance routine it looks as if he's doing a parody! Cahn directed a number of cheapie-creepies, some of which, like Voodoo Woman, were a lot of fun.

Verdict: Amos Burke meets the 50 Foot Woman. **1/2.

LOST TV: COOL AND LAM

Benay Venuta and Billy Pearson

COOL AND LAM. CBS pilot 1958. Director: Jacques Tourneur.

This pilot for a series based on the books about Bertha Cool (Benay Venuta)  and Donald Lam (Billy Pearson), private investigators, aired on CBS in 1958 but never became a series. The books were written by Erle Stanley Gardner (as "A. A. Fair") and he introduces the show as well. Gardner more famously created Perry Mason; this show has the same producer, but lightning didn't strike twice. In this one and only episode, based on "Turn On the Heat," the Cool and Lam team are hired by a man calling himself "Smith" to find out if a certain woman ever remarried. Turns out Smith is a mayoral candidate and may be an accidental bigamist. Then a cocktail hostess named Evaline Dell (Allison Hayes of The Disembodied) who has some knowledge of the situation is found murdered. Lam, the brains behind the outfit while penny-pinching Cool takes care of the finances, eventually unmasks the true murderer. This could have developed into an interesting show, but perhaps the unusual Venuta and Pearson -- not exactly subtle actors -- were seen more as supporting players than stars. Diminutive Pearson had been a thoroughbred jockey who appeared on game shows in the fifties and then became an actor with a short-lived career [no pun intended]. The hefty Venuta appeared sporadically in films and on television and had a small role in Repeat Performance. Tristram Coffin appears briefly in a funny prologue. Margaret Field, Don Megowan, Sheila Bromley, and Maurice Manson also have roles.

Verdict: Not bad, but you can't win 'em all.

THE STEEL JUNGLE

Perry Lopez and Kenneth Tobey

THE STEEL JUNGLE (1956). Director: Walter Doniger.

Ed Novak (Perry Lopez) is a cocky hothead and bookie who, after being arrested, is told if he tells all he knows about the operations of Steve Madden (Ted de Corsia) he''ll get a greatly reduced sentence. Loyal to the undeserving Madden, he refuses, much to the heartbreak of his wife, Frances (Beverly Garland), who doesn't care about the fur coats he gives her and hopes he'll get an honest job after serving his time. Madden is also in jail and Ed tries to ingratiate himself with the mob boss, who comes to like him. Ed witnesses the murder of a guard which Madden was responsible for and still refuses to talk, leading to serious complications and an unexpected kidnapping ... Lopez gives a good lead performance in this, which also boasts fine work from Garland, Walter Abel [Mirage] as the no-nonsense warden, and Kenneth Tobey as a sympathetic if somewhat sappy prison shrink. Allison Hayes has a small role  [playing a "Mrs. Archer" as she later would in her classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman] as a neighbor of Novak's who has some information; Joe Flynn [McHale's Navy] is a prisoner; and Malcolm Atterbury plays a chatty mailman. Gregory Walcott of Plan 9 from Outer Space plays the guard, Weaver. The Steel Jungle is an acceptable prison melodrama with some effective performances. Lopez had a long list of credits.

Verdict: Reasonably engaging potboiler. **1/2.

CHICAGO SYNDICATE

O'Keefe, Hayes, Lane and Stewart

CHICAGO SYNDICATE (1955). Director: Fred F. Sears.

"First you give me the cold shoulder and now you're romancing me like I'm Liberace."

A man named Kern is gunned down in the street and it develops that he was bookkeeper for a mobster named Arnold Valent (Paul Stewart). Kern's wife commits suicide and her daughter, Joyce (Allison Hayes), becomes a social pariah. Barry Amsterdam (Dennis O'Keefe) is hired to go undercover to get the goods on Valent, and he runs into an angry young woman with a gambling habit who turns out to be Joyce Kern; eventually the two join forces. Joyce's presence is irksome to Connie (Abbe Lane), Valent's girlfriend, who is also a singer and has a lap dog named Benny (Xavier Cugat). Hayes clearly has the leading female role, but she's billed under Lane, who gets co-star status with O'Keefe. Apparently Lane and Cugat (who were married at the time) were a package deal, as Cugat, who can't act [even when he's playing an orchestra leader!], just seems along for the ride. On the other hand, O'Keefe [Hold That Kiss] is fine, Stewart is excellent, while Hayes is a little more problematic. The infamous "fifty foot woman" [a Great Old Movies favorite] has no problem doing her usual shtick -- smouldering, bitter hostility -- but she's less successful in getting across any of her character's other nuances. Still, Hayes is always fun, especially when she's trading barbs with and spilling hot coffee on Lane, who doesn't give a bad performance; Lane could have used a little more seasoning but she managed to amass a few credits after this. Chicago Syndicate is entertaining even if it plays like little more than an expanded TV episode. Sears also directed such fun sci fi as The Giant Claw and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

Verdict: O'Keefe and Hayes make an interesting pair. **1/2.

THE UNDEAD

 














THE UNDEAD (1957). Producer/Director: Roger Corman.

 "Keep thy place, malignancy!"

Diana Love (Pamela Duncan of Attack of the Crab Monsters) is a prostitute who is regressed to a past life via hypnotism. Suddenly she finds that she is a witch named Helene living in medieval times and dealing with stuff she never had to deal with in the 20th century -- such as the fact that if she doesn't  die in the past she will have no future lives at all, and presumably this means her current life as Diana -- as well as such folk as Pendragon (Richard Garland, who was also in Crab Monsters), another witch named Livia (Allison Hayes), Smolkin the gravedigger [there's a nifty scene with Helene inside a coffin with a corpse essayed by Paul Blaisdell], and others. Richard Devon as Satan is a little hokey in the prologue, but gets better as the film proceeds. Dick Miller [A Bucket of Blood] is a leper, Billy Barty [The Day of the Locust] is an imp, and Bruno Vesota [The Wasp Woman] is an innkeeper, while Val Dufour plays Quintus Ratcliff and Dorothy Neumann is the elderly witch, Meg Maud. Duncan gives a good performance, and Hayes is as vivid as ever. This is an interesting picture with an unusual plot; it should have been made into a full-fledged fantasy film with FX, monsters, color and the works. As it is, it's entertaining and special fun for Corman fans.

Verdict: It's certainly different! ***.

THE DISEMBODIED

THE DISEMBODIED (1957). Director: Walter Grauman.

"You bad, bad woman!"

Photographer Tom Maxwell (Paul Burke) comes across Dr. Wetz (John Wengraf) and his evil wife Tonda (Allison Hayes) on a jungle back lot. Tonda is a voodoo queen who's learned the secrets of native witch doctors, and she wants her husband dead -- and just wants Maxwell. Norman (Joel Marston) and Joe (Robert Christopher) are Tom's associates, and Dean Fredericks of The Phantom Planet is the native Suba. Wengraf was also in 12 to the Moon and Christopher was in Creature of the Walking Dead. Allison Hayes probably didn't know that she'd shortly star in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Although The Disembodied has a perfectly workable if minor-league plot, it's much too slow and dull to amount to much. Paul Burke went on to better things on television.

Verdict: Even Allison Hayes devotees may want to miss this. **.

SO THIS IS PARIS

SO THIS IS PARIS (1955). Director: Richard Quine.

In this "French" version of On the Town three American sailors wind up in Paree and have various, generally romantic, mis-adventures. Joe Maxwell (Tony Curtis) is the love 'em and leave 'em type; Al Howard (Gene Nelson) is shyer and more sensitive; and Davy Jones (Paul Gilbert) is the amiable cook and clown. Joe thinks he's got it made with an intriguing chanteuse, but he gets home early while Al and Davy show up later all smeared with lipstick. The women they meet include Jane (Gloria DeHaven), who pretends to be a French girl named Collette for her nightclub act; Suzanne (Corinne Calvet), a beautiful heiress who runs through men the way Joe runs through women; and Yvonne (Mara Corday), a pretty cashier in the nightclub who has a big family to support. It's interesting to see Corday, who starred in The Giant Claw, Tarantula, and The Black Scorpion, appear in a film where she isn't nearly eaten, but she isn't given nearly enough to do. She fares better than Allison [Attack of the 50 Foot Woman] Hayes, however, who seems to be in the background of a pool scene but whose dialogue scenes were apparently cut. On the Town [at least the original Broadway version] had songs composed by Leonard Bernstein; So This is Paris has the team of Moody and Sherrill, whose songs are hit or miss, mostly miss, although one number briefly crooned by DeHaven isn't bad. The performances are fine, with Paul Gilbert being especially noteworthy, and Gene Nelson's athletic dancing is a definite bonus. Curtis sings and dances and doesn't embarrass himself. The talented Gilbert didn't have too many TV or film credits but he may have been more at home in the theater; he later wound up in Women of the Prehistoric Planet.

Verdict: Surprisingly entertaining and not without its charms. ***.

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 VOLUME 6

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 VOLUME 6. Gunslinger (1956). Director: Roger Corman.

I confess I was never a fan of Mystery Science Theater, in which a nerdy guy and two silly robots sit in front of a screen [cutting off the bottom third of the movie] and make sophomoric comments about the "bad" B movies they're watching. True, some of the movies were pretty bad, but not every old low-budget black and white movie is automatically a stinker. Another problem is that the people behind MST weren't especially talented, and the comments they make during the movie aren't much funnier than what you'd hear from someone if you watch one of these movies with a group of friends. [In fact, most of the jokes are pretty predictable.] There's also the fact that comments during movies (when not completely annoying) are funnier when they're made by people you know about people you know. Still, MST was a success of sorts with intellectually-challenged high schoolers and college "kids" of all ages. [We won't even talk about the lame "sketches," enacted by dufus amateurs, that are interspersed with the movies.]

This volume features Attack of the Giant Leeches [no world-beater, but fun enough on its own without added comments, especially when you can come up with better ones on your own], the genuinely abysmal Teenagers from Outer Space, and Roger Corman's Gunslinger with John Ireland, Beverly Garland and everybody's favorite 50 Foot Woman, Allison Hayes. Gunslinger, on its own terms, is a perfectly entertaining little B western with generally good performances from its cast, and would have been a lot more fun without the MST crew piping in with their annoying and mostly unfunny comments. Garland becomes sheriff after her husband is killed, and gets into a war with saloon and dance hall owner Hayes -- the two have a pretty zesty "cat-fight" at one point -- then falls for a gunslinger (Ireland) that Hayes hired to kill Garland. Bruno Ve Sota of Leeches and Jonathan Haze of Little Shop of Horrors are also in the cast.

Verdict: Gunslinger: **1/2.
Mystery Science Theater 0 stars.

MOHAWK

MOHAWK (1956). Director: Kurt Neumann.

Unless you have a mania for westerns, there's probably no good reason to see this unless it's to see how Allison Hayes (pictured with Scott Brady), star of the "classic" Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, comports herself in a more "serious" film. Hayes wasn't so hot in Zombies of Mora Tau, but she isn't half-bad in Mohawk (though no Kate Hepburn). Scott Brady plays John Adams, a painter who works out of an Army fort. Hayes is his zesty model, Greta, but he also has a fiancee named Cynthia (Lori Nelson) who shows up unannounced at the fort with her peppery Aunt Agatha (Vera Vague) in tow; Nelson once again proves what a mediocre actress she is. While juggling these two babes, Adams discovers that there's also an Indian wench, Onida (Rita Gam), who has a hankering for him, and vice versa. Meanwhile, some renegade Indians are planning an attack on the fort. Supposedly all the action footage comes from John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk, but none of it is very convincing. John Hoyt is Butler, the white villain of the piece, and Tommy Cook does a nice turn as the doomed Indian lad Keoga. It's a pleasant surprise to see who Adams winds up with at the end. Handsome production is well photographed by Karl Struss and has an effective score by Edward L. Alperson, Jr.

Verdict: See it for saucy Hayes if you must. **.

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (1957). Director Edward L. Cahn.

This cheapie creepy has a interesting premise. An old woman (Marjorie Eaton) lives in an isolated area of Africa where she has been told her husband has been seen walking about as one of the "living dead." He was only one of many over the years who tried to acquire an underwater treasure – diamonds – that is guarded by a whole slew of zombies. The woman not only hopes to find the man, but also to help his restless spirit move on by destroying the diamonds. Other characters include the old lady’s granddaughter (Autumn Russell), who has come for a visit, and an expedition of several people who hope to find the treasure. These individuals include Morris Ankrum and Alllison Hayes of Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman fame. Although in Woman Hayes displayed a fair amount of acting ability that made you wonder what else she could do, in Zombies her distinctly limited performance makes you understand why she wound up in movies like Woman – and Zombies. Still, she’s reasonably vivid as the trampy wife of the expedition’s leader (George Harrison), who she’s married to, but who doesn’t mind if she gives associate Gregg Palmer a passionate kiss right in front of him. Palmer is suitably beefy as the nominal hero. "You old hag!" Hayes shouts at Eaton, "You’re dead already and you don’t have sense enough to know it!" The production values are on a cheap TV show level, and one wishes that there had been some attempt to make the zombies a bit more horrific-looking, but they manage to provide enough suspenseful menace in the final scenes.

Verdict: Worth a look if you’re not expecting too much. **.

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958). Director: Nathan Juran (Nathan Herz).

Blond floozies hanging around hotel bars, a neurotic, dipsomaniac multi-millionairess who clings to an unloving husband, bald giants from space, and the biggest boob fetish of all time combine in a microcosm of 1950's Americana such as has never been seen before or since. Seriously, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a hoot! Rich Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) has a run-in with a giant man (Michael Ross) from outer space who is after her diamond (he uses the gems to power his satellite) and becomes infected, growing to giant-size. As a giantess she tears out of her (rather unimpressive) mansion and takes off for town where her hubby Harry (William Hudson) is hanging out with his honey, a tramp named, well, Honey (Yvette Vickers). The "attack" doesn't last long but it's as much fun as everything else in this highly-entertaining tongue-in-cheek sci-fi flick. You can see through the giant people and the 50 foot woman's prop hand isn't very convincing, but it's all drenched in dramatic, attractive music by Ronald Stein, and the acting of the two ladies is very vivid if a trifle overwrought at times. Very fast-paced. Written by Mark Hanna, who also did the screenplay for the more serious Amazing Colossal Man (which also featured actor William Hudson). That same year director Nathan Herz had a big, technicolor hit with The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which he directed under his own name, Nathan Juran; "Nathan Herz" was no more. Otto Waldis and Roy Gordon play Mrs. Archer's doctors. 

Verdict: Not to be missed if you're in a silly mood and love "big people" movies. ***.