EMERGENCY HOSPITAL

John Archer and Margaret Lindsay

EMERGENCY HOSPITAL (1956). Director: Lee Sholem.

Dr. Janet Carey (Margaret Lindsay of Club Havana) is a very busy doctor at a state-run hospital during the night shift. Ben Caldwell (Byron Palmer of Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki) is a race car driver and playboy who wants Janet to give it all up and marry him, while Dr. Herb Ellis (John Archer) seems to be carrying a torch for Janet as well. Sgt. Paul Arnold (Walter Reed) is the police liaison with the hospital and he is on hand when his son, Jimmy (James Noah), is brought in after an accident and nearly winds up in a nasty incident between father and son. There are other assorted crises and patients during one long night.

James Noah and Walter Reed

Emergency Hospital looks like an especially gritty TV production, and in truth it's the kind of stuff that later wound up in many episodes of assorted medical shows -- life, death, accidents, diseases, assorted mini-dramas with some life lessons passed out by the staff. Lindsay is puffy-looking but gives a good performance, and Reed has some very good moments in the sequences with his son. Archer makes a positive impression as a decent guy who may just have to take a back seat to the flashier Caldwell, who is well-played by Palmer. Rita Johnson [Forty Little Mothers] scores as head nurse Norma Mullen.

The large cast also includes Rhodes Reason and William Boyett as traffic cops; Vera Francis as a lovely African-American nurse also named Vera; and Mary Carver, Maxine Gates, and Jan Englund as semi-hysterical patients.

Verdict: Too bad Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare don't put in an appearance. **3/4. 

MA AND PA KETTLE AT WAIKIKI

Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main

MA AND PA KETTLE AT WAIKIKI (1953). Director: Lee Sholem.

Pa Kettle's (Percy Kilbride) cousin, Rodney (Loring Smith of Shadow of the Thin Man), who once hoped to marry Ma (Marjorie Main) but instead stayed in Hawaii to run a pineapple business, has been told to take it easy by his doctor. Rodney and his associates decide to importune Pa -- whom they wrongly think is rich and successful -- to temporarily run the pineapple business in Honolulu until Rodney's health improves. They also think Pa's brilliance will put the company on the fast track again. Against all odds, the ever-lazy Pa seems to come up with schemes that enrich the firm's coffers. But then he's kidnapped and taken to an island where he thinks there's buried treasure.

Percy Kilbride as the lazy Pa Kettle

Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki starts out well with several amusing sequences revolving both around Pa's efforts at the pineapple plant and Ma's encounters with the snobby bank president's wife, Teresa Andrews (Mabel Albertson of The House That Would Not Die) and her condescending lady friends. Unfortunately, the flick falls apart in the second half with the introduction of the thoroughly uninteresting kidnappers (including Russell Johnson and Myron Healey) and the whole dull business with the treasure hunt. Even the insertion of a Hawaiian version of Ma and Pa and their huge brood doesn't help, but leads to even more tedious sequences when these characters attempt to rescue Pa with Ma's super-butch assistance and a lot of coconuts. Okay, there's a cute business with a crab but that's about it.

Lori Nelson returns as the Kettle's grown daughter, Rosie, and goes to Hawaii with them, and her new love interest is Bob Baxter (Byron Palmer), who works for Rodney Kettle. Birdie Hicks (Esther Dale) returns briefly and is back to hating Ma again, leading into a funny sequence involving an air-conditioner that doesn't work the way Pa intended. This script has Ma seeming much more stupid than usual.

Verdict: Some fun, but otherwise a disappointment. **1/4. 

JUNGLE MAN-EATERS

Karin Booth and Richard Wyler

JUNGLE MAN-EATERS (1954). Director: Lee Sholem.

Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) learns that yet another new diamond field has been discovered, and he and others fear the precious gems could be smuggled out to "flood the diamond markets of the world." Jim also encounters the lady doctor, Bonnie Crandall (Karin Booth of Let's Do It Again), who's a cute trick; and Inspector Jeffrey Bernard (Richard Wyler aka Richard Stapley of The Strange Door), who's handsome -- the two do even more smooching than the romantic couple in the previous Jungle Jim picture, but again Weissmuller gets no action. Mssr. Leroux (Gregory Gaye) is a member of the diamond syndicate who hides his true, more nefarious, purposes. In a weird sequence, Prince Zuwaba (Bernie Hamilton), is told that his wife has given birth to a baby boy, but that the mother died. Everyone congratulates Zuwaba on the child, but no one expresses any condolences over the woman! (Zuwaba seems to get over it pretty fast in any case.) The pretty doctor gets along swimmingly with the Inspector, but generally finds the mischievous chimp Tamba to be too much of a pest; Tamba is typically adorable. There are burned villages, angry natives, and a climactic cliff fight between Jim and Leroux that ends as expected. Hamilton later appeared on the sixties Tarzan TV series, and had many credits, including The Devil at 4 O'clock. There are no actual man-eaters in the movie. Although three films remained in the series, this is the last picture in which Weissmuller is referred to, or actually plays, "Jungle Jim."

Verdict: Standard Jungle Jim adventure with some rather attractive players. **1/2.

CANNIBAL ATTACK

Weissmuller and Bruce in a sticky situation

CANNIBAL ATTACK (1954). Director: Lee Sholem.

"Although I've educated (my ward Luora) in European ways, there are times when her jungle blood asserts itself." -- John King.

Ostensibly the 14th entry in the "Jungle Jim" series, Cannibal Attack ushers in some changes. Johnny Weissmuller is simply referred to as "Johnny," and the big chimp Tamba has been replaced by the smaller chimp Kimba. Otherwise everything is the same, What happened is that Columbia temporarily lost the rights to the Jungle Jim character, so Weissmuller simply played" Johnny Weissmuller" for the remaining three films in the series.

In this entry, a man named John King (Steve Darrell) falls under the spell of his beautiful native, but educated, ward, Luora (Judy Walsh). Johnny (Weissmuller) and his cronies try to figure out who is behind recent attempts to steal some valuable cobalt, and he encounters a tribe called the Shendi, formerly cannibals, who wear crocodile skins on their back and skulk around like animals. At one point Johnny and King's brother, Arthur (David Bruce of Can't Help Singing) are tied to poles as a hungry crocodile advances on them with open jaws. There is no romantic couple in this entry aside from King and Luora, but the latter makes advances on Johnny, for nefarious purposes only. One exciting sequence shows several natives and white men on a boat falling into the midst of thrashing and voracious crocodiles. [This picture should have used the title of the previous film, Jungle Man-Eaters.] Judy Walsh is sexy and gives a good performance of the bad girl who wants to be Queen of the Jungle.

Verdict: Not bad "Johnny Weissmuller" adventure. **1/2.

TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL

Vanessa Brown and Lex Barker

TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL (1950). Director: Lee Sholem.

When people start dropping from an unknown sickness, Tarzan (Lex Barker) leads an expedition headed by Dr. Campbell (Arthur Shields of Daughter of Dr. Jekyll) to find its origins. Meanwhile Jane (Vanessa Brown) and Campbell's nurse, a saucy lady named Lola (Denise Darcel) who is lustful for the ape man, wind up kidnapped with other women by the cult of the Lionians. The women are placed in a harem for their prince (Hurd Hatfield of The Picture of Dorian Gray), whose young son is also dying of the illness. Will Tarzan and party be able to rescue Jane and Lola, save the little boy, and keep everyone from being thrown to the lions? What do you think?  The Lionians camouflage themselves with foliage to sneak up on their enemies, and use blow guns with poisoned darts. As Jane, Vanessa Brown is cute and almost child-like; she has an amusing, if brief, cat fight with Lola over Tarzan. Denise Darcel is a little too plump in this and in some shots resembles a man in drag, although her performance is spirited. Tarzan and Jane rub noses like Eskimos, and the adorable Cheetah gets several good scenes, such as when he (or she?) gets drunk on hooch. Tarzan can put up with a lot of things, but he doesn't like it when Lola picks up a needle and tries to give him an injection. In a thankless role, Robert Alda [The Beast with Five Fingers] plays a colleague of Dr. Campbell's. This was Brown's only appearance as Jane.

Verdict: Kind of ho hum Tarzan adventure, even if Tarzan meets Dorian Gray -- sort of. **.

TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN

Lex Baker took over the role of Tarzan

TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN (1949). Director: Lee Sholem.

Aviatrix Gloria James (Evelyn Ankers of The Pearl of Death) disappeared twenty years before but her plane and diary are found by Tarzan. Since James' testimony is required to free a jailed man, Tarzan goes to a hidden city -- full of what could best be described as white Aztec-Romans -- to bring Gloria back, and discovers she hasn't aged a day in all those years. Naturally there are unscrupulous people who hope to discover the Fountain of Youth, such as Trask (Albert Dekker) and Dodd (Charles Drake). In a development that borrows from Lost Horizon, Gloria ages as soon as she gets home, and returns to Africa with her husband, Douglas (Alan Napier), where the two hope that Tarzan will guide them back to the Blue Valley where she lived all of those years. But Tarzan is opposed to the plan, and some nasty residents of the hidden city -- against the orders of their leader, the High One (David Bond) -- do their best to kill him and anyone else who knows of the pathway to their valley. Tarzan's Magic Fountain was Lex Barker's first appearance as Tarzan, and he's fine, playing it in the nearly monosyllabic mode popularized by Johnny Weissmuller. Brenda Joyce, who replaced Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane in the last Weissmuller movies, returns as Barker's Jane, but this was her last appearance in the role -- and her last picture, as she promptly retired from the movie business. Johnny Sheffield as Boy had already left the series and turned into Bomba, and he was not replaced in the role. Tarzan's Magic Fountain has an interesting premise, but not a lot is done with it, and the screenplay is mediocre, as is the direction; Lee Sholem mostly directed TV episodes. The ever-versatile Henry Brandon plays one of the Blue Valley natives who wants to kill Tarzan for allegedly giving away the secret location of their city; Rick Vallin is another one of those natives. Elmo Lincoln, one of the first Tarzan's, supposedly plays a fisherman, but he is not credited. Cheetah's cutest scene of many is her encounter with bubble gum. When she regains her youth at the end of the movie, she turns into a different species of ape! Albert Dekker and Charles Drake also appeared together in The Pretender.

Verdict: Barker is fine, but it's an inauspicious debut for him. **1/2.

CRIME AGAINST JOE

CRIME AGAINST JOE (1956). Director: Lee Sholem. A Bel-Air Production.

Joe Manning (John Bromfield, pictured) is an unsuccessful painter who's basically supported by his understanding mother, Nora (Frances Morris). One night he goes off on a drunk and encounters a sleepwalking beauty and her father, who refuses to alibi him when a woman is found dead with Joe's school pin at her side. The main suspect, Manning, and Frances (Julie London) a pretty car hop who's in love with him, set about to figure out which guy who's missing the same class pin could be the real culprit. There are some interesting elements in this, but it's given a typically Grade C TV-type Bel-Air treatment. In fact, it's less entertaining than other Bel-Air productions. Bromfield was also in Manfish and Three Bad Sisters, another Bel-Air "mess"terpiece. Bromfield is adequate if unspectacular, and London just doesn't have enough oomph. It's easy to see why she did much more television work than film. Nothing much here, all told.

Verdict: Slight murder mystery. **.