BETTY WHITE IN BLACK AND WHITE

BETTY WHITE IN BLACK AND WHITE DVD collection.

If you can't get enough of Betty White, here's a DVD collection of some of her shows from the fifties. There are two episodes of Life with Elizabeth that she did with Del Moore [three sketches per episode] in which they play a married couple. The skits range in quality from amusing to tiresome but all are well-acted. Betty reveals a very pleasant singing voice on an episode of the daytime variety show The Betty White Show. Betty surprises a young orphan (also named Betty) with a ton of gifts but it's hard to tell if the strangely subdued child is shell-shocked or annoyed that she didn't get the gift she wanted! Then there are two episodes of the sitcom A Date with the Angels in which Betty and Bill Williams play another married couple. On one episode stately Nancy Kulp [Miss Jane Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies] plays a highly sophisticated wife of a friend. Judging by these episodes, A Date with the Angels was pleasant but forgettable. Lastly, there's two episodes of yet another program called The Betty White Show [this one aired in the evening] which also has comedy sketches featuring Jimmy Boyd and the wonderful Reta Shaw. I have to confess I didn't like the Olga cleaning woman sketch any better than I did Carol Burnett's later charwoman routine. All in all, this is an interesting collection, however. White exhibited a bundle of comedic talent practically from the first.

Verdict: If you're not into the "fabulous fifties," there's always White in The Golden Girls. **1/2.

FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 5

FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 5.

Warner Brothers has just issued a new collection of classic film noir: 8 movies on four DVDs.

Cornered (1945)stars Dick Powell as a man who travels to Buenos Aires to try to uncover the mysterious man who is said to be behind the murder of his wife and many others in the French underground.

Desperate (1947) stars Steve Brodie as a man involved in a botched heist. Raymond Burr co-stars.

The Phenix [sic] City Story (1955) looks into corruption in an Alabama city and is directed by Phil Karlson. Widescreen.

Dial 1119 (1950) deals with a deranged escapee who holds hostages at a dive bar. William Conrad and Marshall Thompson star.

Armored Car Robbery (1950) features a battle of wits between a gun moll (Adele Jergens), a gangster, and a hard-boiled cop.

Crime in the Streets (1956) has a gang leader deciding that they must kill someone who blabbed a little too much. John Cassevetes stars. Widescreen.

Deadline at Dawn (1946) has a dancer helping a sailor prove that he didn't murder a gangster's sister. Bill Williams and Susan Hayward are the stars. This fine movie is based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich and has a screenplay by Clifford Odets.

Backfire (1950) has a veteran and his nurse-girlfriend encountering all kinds of characters as they try to prove that his buddy didn't commit murder. Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, and Edmond O'Brien star and MacRae's future wife Sheila has a strong supporting role as well.

The movies are crisp, digitally re-mastered, and none have ever been on DVD before.

Check out the official Warner Brothers site.

Verdict: Entertaining and varied collection of hard-boiled movies. ***.

SPACE MASTER X-7

SPACE MASTER X-7 (1958). Director: Edward Bernds. 

Dr. Pommer (Paul Frees) experiments with a piece of "blood rust," his name for the red fungus that covers the planet Mars and was brought back by a ship called "Space Master X-7,", and discovers to his regret that it's even more dangerous than he imagined. Laura (Lyn Green), the mother of his son, comes to visit and walks off unaware that she's carrying fungal spores. Agents John Hand (Bill Williams) and Joe Rattigan (Robert Ellis) begin a desperate search for the woman, finding traces of the fungus -- which sort of resembles a glistening, moving carpet -- wherever she's been. The climax occurs on a plane where the fungus begins to break out of the cargo hold. An amusing scene has the passengers reacting to the fungus as it covers the plane windows. Thomas Browne Henry of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Blood of Dracula, and many others, is in the cast as a Professor, and Moe Howard of the 3 Stooges is a helpful cab driver! The acting is more than adequate, and Frees has a better and bigger role than usual; he's excellent. This might have amounted to more if it had a bigger budget and more imaginative direction, but it has its moments. 

Verdict: Creepy in spite of itself. **1/2.

DEADLINE AT DAWN

DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946). Director: Harold Clurman.

"Golly, the misery that walks around in this pretty, quiet night."

Alex (Bill Williams), a sailor who has to catch a bus at six am to report back to duty, is on leave in Manhattan when he discovers that a woman (Lola Lane) with whom he dallied earlier in the evening has been murdered. A hard-boiled, disillusioned taxi dancer named June (Susan Hayward) feels sorry for him and helps him find out who the real killer is before he has to catch his bus -- or is arrested. They are aided by Gus Hoffman (Paul Lukas), a sympathetic cab driver. Along they way they encounter cops, blackmail victims, shady ladies (one played by Osa Massen), the dead woman's nasty brother (Joseph Calleia), her blind ex-husband, and a sad man (Steven Geray) with white gloved hands who is smitten with Hayward. This isn't much of a mystery -- the identity of the killer is pretty obvious -- but it has an undercurrent of loneliness and lost souls that gives the film a poignant and disturbing edge. Considering that New York is essentially a major character in the film, it's criminal that the movie was clearly shot on Hollywood sound stages and not on location. Clifford Odet's screenplay, awash in great dialogue and interesting characters, was based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich (William Irish). Jerome Cowan demonstrates his versatility as a nervous if exuberant blackmail victim. Hayward offers an interesting portrait of a tough, unpleasant woman who slowly allows her humanity to shine through. Joe Sawyer, who's only seen in the distance, makes an impression as a drunk friend of the dead woman's. The entire cast is excellent.

Verdict: More here than meets the eye. ***.