RED GARTERS

Rosemary Clooney

RED GARTERS (1954). Director: George Marshall.

The citizens of Limbo County are holding a barbecue to celebrate the death of a hated individual, when said individual's brother, Reb (Guy Mitchell), shows up wanting revenge on whoever murdered him. It doesn't make any difference that Red also hated his brother, it's "the code of the West." Someone who is sick of this code and all of the fighting and killing is saloon singer Calaveras Kate (Rosemary Clooney of White Christmas), who is inexplicably in love with the fat Jason Carberry (Jack Carson), the unofficial leader of the town. She refers to the bloodthirsty townspeople as "Modern-day Romans." While Reb draws closer to Jason's ward, Susan (Pat Crowley), another romance develops between bandit Rafael (Gene Barry) and newcomer-from-Boston Sheila (Joanne Gilbert). Reb and Rafael have also become fast friends, but what will happen when Red learns that it was his buddy who shot and killed his brother?

Guy Mitchell and Pat Crowley

Red Garters is easily both the weirdest musical and western that I have ever seen. For one thing, the movie is so highly-stylized that it often seems like a cartoon. In some westerns there is some attempt to make sets on a soundstage resemble the real thing, but the town in Red Garters is completely artificial. That pretty much matches the farcical absurdity of the screenplay. However, without putting to fine a point on it, the film has a subtext of using logic to reduce violence, personified in the character of the quite sensible Kate (aside from her infatuation for Jason). Similarly Clooney dominates the movie, and gives a terrific performance. Not only is she surprisingly sexy doing such numbers as the title tune, "Code of the West" and especially the splendid "Bad News," but she delivers her songs with more assurance and professionalism than I've ever quite seen from her before. 

Joanne Gilbert and Gene Barry

As for Guy Mitchell, who was essentially a singer, he gives a good performance in Garters, but his lack of good looks probably didn't help him and he made only two movies, this and Those Redheads from Seattle. Joanne Gilbert, also a good singer, was introduced in this film and she is notable as well, but she did mostly television work and her career petered out in the sixties. Gene Barry's turn as a Mexican bandit may be on the stereotypical side, but he is nevertheless excellent. Buddy Ebsen is only given one number but he dances up a storm as expected. Buck-toothed Cass Daley plays an Indian squaw. Reginald Owen and Frank Faylen score as respectively, Sheila's father, the judge, and a cowardly if highly vocal townsperson. Crowley and Carson do their turns professionally. The songs by Livingstone and Evans [Somebody Loves Me] are a mixed bag, some quite forgettable and others rather pleasant.  

Verdict: Like a Western animated movie with flesh and blood players. **3/4.

THE LOOTERS

Danton, Faylen, Adams, Calhoun

THE LOOTERS (1955). Director: Abner Biberman.

"I haven't had this much fun since I was kicked out of the Campfire Girls." -- Sheryl.

Jesse Hill (Rory Calhoun of That Hagen Girl), a loner and mountain climber who lives in the Rockies, gets a visit from a shady ex-army buddy, Peter Corder (Ray Danton of Code Name: Jaguar). When a commercial plane crashes in the mountains, the two decide to climb towards the wreckage, but with very different motives. Jesse wants to look for survivors, while Pete is more interested in salvaging what he can, which turns out to be a trunk full of loot. Pete's true nature is revealed pretty quickly, and he stakes his claim while threatening everyone else. Before long the two men start a tense descent back down the mountain along with three survivors, a former cheesecake model named Sheryl (Julie Adams), a captain named Leppich (Frank Faylen of The Mystery of the 13th Guest). and a wannabee big shot named Parkinson (Thomas Gomez). Who will get to keep the loot and who will survive?

Ray Danton as sneaky Pete

The Looters has a very good premise and could have been turned into a nail-biting and memorable suspense film. Instead it's a mediocre and often hokey time-waster that isn't good enough for the audience to ignore its many implausible aspects. Now, the plane crashed on top of a mountain, but it isn't in a nearly impassable area as the plane was in Three Secrets, so it seems to me that even if there were no survivors, arrangements would be made to get the victims' bodies back to their loved ones. But when the military, who is playing war games in the area, discovers that no one is at the plane, they start bombing the whole area -- say what? Admittedly, this adds some excitement to the climax, but it doesn't make much sense, as if the military's attitude would be "let's just blow up the bodies of the crash victims without even finding out what caused the crash!"

Of course one reason for this silliness is that it may fool viewers into not scratching their heads when one survivor expresses the hope that everyone will think he died in the crash. Another problem is that no one seems to act as if this was the scene of a tragedy, that there are several dead bodies (never shown) lying just out of view for much of the film's length. Then you have to wonder why Sheryl and Jesse would want to make out when neither has brushed their teeth for at least several days. Gomez makes his mark as the weaselly Parkinson, Danton is typically vivid, Adams is reasonably adept and sexy, giving the film no more than it deserves, and Calhoun is adequately stolid and heroic. But this is one flight you may not want to book. After meeting on this film, Adams and Danton were married. Abner Biberman was originally an actor, playing a great many Asian roles, before switching to directing.

Verdict: Another reason to avoid the Rockies. **. 

WHEN THE BOYS MEET THE GIRLS

Harve Preesnell surveys the scene

WHEN THE BOYS MEET THE GIRLS (1965). Director: Alvin Ganzer.

Playboy Danny Churchill (Harve Presnell) is sent by his lawyer to an obscure college so he can avoid the clutches of a gold-digging dame, Tess (Sue Ane Langdon), threatening a breach of promise lawsuit. Danny and his buddy, Sam (Joby Baker of Girl Happy), run into Ginger (Connie Francis), whose property is falling into disrepair because her father (Frank Faylen of The Mystery of the 13th Guest), is a gambleholic. But somebody gets the bright idea of converting their property into a ranch-resort near Reno where ladies who want divorces and others can congregate. But will Danny's passion for Ginger hit a snag when Tess shows up in town? The trouble with the picture is that "when the boys meet the girls" not much happens that hasn't been seen -- and seen and seen -- many times before. You may not recognize this as a remake of the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland starrer Girl Crazy, although some of the Gershwin tunes have been happily preserved. Both Francis and Presnell do creditable versions of "Embraceable You" as well as "I've Got Rhythm," a bouncy classic that it's hard to ruin. Presnell has an appealing personality and a very nice voice, and Francis -- playing the leading lady for the second and last time (after Looking for Love) -- is fine, but Presnell is so pleasant and mild in his role that her aggressive anger towards him makes her seem like a real bitch at times, and it's hard to see what he sees in her. Langdon does her usual fair-to middling sexpot bit, and we have guest appearances by Herman (Peter Noone)  and the Hermits (singing "Listen People"), Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, and Liberace (!) doing his 'Liberace Aruba" mambo. An unfunny bit with a moronic boxer named Canvasback Davis (mercifully uncredited) goes on forever and nearly kills the picture.

Verdict: Nice Gershwin tunes and good performances save this from total schlock. **.

THE MYSTERY OF THE 13TH GUEST

THE MYSTERY OF THE 13TH GUEST (1943). Director: William Beaudine.

"Your soul must look like the inside of a vinegar bottle."

Marie Morgan (Helen Parrish of First Love) enters her dead uncle's creepy old house where years ago he talked about his will to the gathered relatives, and there she finds an old letter giving the strange stipulations of her inheritance. Not much later Marie is found dead in the house -- until she turns up alive, despite the lookalike body in the morgue. Private eye Speed Dugan (Frank Faylen) and Lt. Burke (Tim Ryan) try to find out who killed whom. Suspects include lawyer Barksdale (Cyril Ring); Marie's brother, Harold (John Duncan of Batman and Robin); Uncle Adam (Paul McVey); and the high-spirited cousin Marjory (Jacqueline Dalya). Faylen is fine, but Ryan offers an especially obnoxious portrayal as the cop. Dalya [Charlie Chan in Rio] is the sauciest thing in the movie and gives the picture most of its limited fun. The old house contains a sinister masked figure as well as a deadly electrified telephone. Full of foolish alleged humor.

Verdict: The very embodiment of the word mediocre. **.

99 RIVER STREET

Evelyn Keyes and John Payne

99 RIVER STREET (1953). Director: Phil Karlson.

Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is a bitter prize-fighter and current cab driver whose career ended when he received a serious injury to his eye. Driscoll also discovers that his unsatisfied wife, Pauline (Peggie Castle), is having an affair with a diamond thief named Victor (Brad Dexter). Then an aspiring actress he knows, Linda (Evelyn Keyes), tells him that she's in trouble, leading to the movie's best scene, which is, unfortunately, only midway through the movie. One clever if unlikely sequence isn't enough to save this standard potboiler, where Driscoll has to settle accounts with Victor while dodging police because of an incident with Linda -- and worse. Payne and Keyes are okay, as is Frank Faylen as Driscoll's buddy, but Castle [Beginning of the End] makes a better impression and Dexter is terrific as a smiling homicidal reptile, matched by Jay Adler as the man who engineered the diamond heist but now won't pay off. Michael Ross, the space giant and bartender in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, appears as a cabbie and Glenn Langan [The Amazing Colossal Man] is a theatrical producer. Keyes made a better impression in The Killer that Stalked New York but Dexter is much more vital in this than he was in Macao.

Verdict: Unimpressive film noir despite some decent moments and one surprise. **.

THE SNIPER

THE SNIPER (1952). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz) is a delivery man for a cleaning service and has a problem with women. When one of his customers, a singer named Jean (Marie Windsor) innocently excites him but sends him away when her boyfriend shows up, he begins a spree of shooting women, with Jean the first victim. Franz, who is excellent, is the perfect choice for the title role, with his clean cut features and appealing presence in stark contrast to the terrible crimes he's committing. The movie certainly has an interesting cast. Adolphe Menjou is the head cop on the case, Lt. Frank Kafka, and Richard Kiley, that Man of La Mancha himself, is a police psychologist. He gives disturbing statistics about sexual predators (the situation has obviously gotten much worse since 1952). Frank Faylen and Gerald Mohr are also cast as policemen. Miller's landlady is played by Mabel Paige, who sold Lucy and Ethel her dress shop in a classic I Love Lucy episode. Jay Novello, who also appeared on I Love Lucy, turns up in another amazing characterization as Pete, the owner of the bar where Jean sings for her supper. The movie is well made and completely absorbing, but it does give rather short shrift to the victims.

Verdict: Probably Franz' finest hour. ***.