WINGS OF DANGER / HAPPY ACTUAL 35OOTH POST

Zachary Scott and  Naomi Chance

WINGS OF DANGER (aka Dead on Course/1952). Director: Terence Fisher.

Pilot Richard Van Ness (Zachary Scott of The Unfaithful) has a secret: he gets black outs that come on without warning. For this reason he has delayed in marrying Avril (Naomi Chance of The Gambler and the Lady) but keeps on flying. Avril's brother, Nick (Robert Beatty) flies off one afternoon and is presumed dead after his plane crashes into the drink. Richard discovers that Nick may or may not have been involved with a gang who cleverly smuggle gold that has been disguised as tools. Nick has a girlfriend, Alexia (Kay Kendall), who may also be involved with the dangerous smugglers, and there is more than one murder. Zachary Scott was one of a number of American leading men who went to England to make "B" movies where their names still had marquee value. Scott deserves better than this TV-type "thriller" that is rather dull despite Terence Fisher's very brisk and efficient direction. The performances by all the named actors are fine, and there is good work from the supporting cast as well, but despite a positive conclusion relating to Richard's condition and his relationship with Avril, the movie is strictly ho hum. This was another of Lippert's Hammer studio "film noir" non-classics. Diane Cilento [Stop Me Before I Kill!] has a small role as a woman who gets involved with Nick. Malcolm Arnold's music helps a bit.

Verdict: You can't say it's awful but it just doesn't excite despite the occasional car chase and crash. **.

NOTE: A while ago I erroneously reported that Great Old Movies had reached its 3500th post. Well, I was never good at math! This is the real 3500th post for GREAT OLD MOVIES (wish it had been about a better picture)! 

THE GAMBLER AND THE LADY

Dane Clark

THE GAMBLER AND THE LADY (1952). Directors: Patrick Jenkins; Sam Newfield, Written by Sam Newfield,

After getting out of jail for manslaughter, Jim Forster (Dane Clark) sets up operations in London, where he owns a nightclub, a boxer, a racehorse, and several illegal gambling dens. Jim is on a self-improvement kick, and wants to be just like, and accepted by, the titled lords and ladies with whom he wishes to mingle. He falls for Susan Willens (Naomi Chance), the sister of Lord Peter Willens (Anthony Forwood), a patron of one of Forster's gambling dens. But two things stand in the way of Jim achieving all of his goals: his nasty ex-girlfriend, Pat (Kathleen Byron); and a business deal with the Willens family that may blow up in all of their faces. The Gambler and the Lady has a 1940's style script -- one could easily see Bogart or Gable in  the lead role -- but the picture is still quite entertaining and Clark [A Stolen Life] gives a very memorable performance. The above-mentioned ladies are also notable, as is Eric Pohlmann as Colonna, one of Jim's business "rivals."  Anthony Forwood, who has a pleasing screen presence, later became the life-partner of Dirk Bogarde. [Mr.] Meredith Edwards, George Pastell [The Stranglers of Bombay], and Martin Benson [Battle Beneath the Earth] also give flavorful performances as, respectively, Jim's good right-hand, Dave; a nasty character Jim fires named Jacko; and Tony, Pat's dancing partner.

Verdict: Snappy British crime picture. ***.

HEATWAVE (1954)

Hillary Brooke and Alex Nicol

HEATWAVE (aka The House Across the Lake/1954). Writer/director: Ken Hughes.

"Carol's in love with Carol."

Mark Kendrick (Alex Nicol) is an American writer in England who is trying to start his latest novel, but is distracted by a neighbor across the lake, the beautiful Carol Forrest (Hillary Brooke). Carol carries on her love life as if she weren't married to her wealthy husband, Beverly (Sidney James), a suffering millionaire with a heart condition. Carol adds an initially resistant Mark to her trophies and suggests that it might be nice if Beverly could kick off sooner than later ... Ken Hughes not only directed this entertaining, if minor, film noir but wrote the screenplay from his own novel. With all of the standard elements -- weak hero, duplicitous female (the strongest person in the movie), rich, equally weak husband and so on -- it still manages to hold the attention. One surprise is how good Brooke is as the femme fatale. James [Carry on Cruising] and Nicol [Because of You] are also good, although Nicol perhaps underplays a bit too much considering everything his character is going through. Heatwave is at times illogical, with Carol acting as if she thinks Mark has her over a barrel when she can always fall back on the old "he said/she said" and get a good lawyer. This was a co-production of the American Lippert pictures with the famous pre-horror Hammer studios. Ken Hughes also helmed Wicked As They Come with Arlene Dahl as the femme fatale.

Verdict: Absorbing, if lower case, film noir. **1/2.

WESTERN PACIFIC AGENT

Kent Taylor

WESTERN PACIFIC AGENT (1950). Director: Sam Newfield.

Bill Stuart (Robert Lowery), a payroll agent for the Western Pacific railroad, is murdered by a hood named Frank Wicken (Mickey Knox). Agent Rod Kendall (Kent Taylor) investigates this murder as well as the death of an elderly railroad worker, also attributed to Wicken. Frank's father, store owner Joe Wicken (Morris Carnovsky of Cornered), suspects what his son has done, but loves him too much to turn him in. Kendall organizes a manhunt for the desperate Frank among the "bindlestiffs," or migrant workers who ride the rails, that doesn't end well. Western Pacific Agent is a minor film from Lippert that boasts a stand-out performance from Mickey Knox and a nice score from Albert Glasser. Kent Taylor [Gangbusters] is fine, and there are also small roles for Sheila Ryan and, unfortunately, Sid Melton [Lost Continent], playing a comedy-relief character who wears out his welcome almost immediately.

Verdict: Acceptable minor B movie but little more. **1/2.

ROARING CITY

Hugh Beaumont and Richard Travis

ROARING CITY (1951). Director: William Berke.

"You couldn't find an ingrown toenail if it was on your left foot." -- O'Brien to Bruger.

Hugh Beaumont had played private eye Michael Shayne in several films when he was cast in another, briefer series playing another tough P.I., Dennis O'Brien; Roaring City is the second of the three films. O'Brien is hired by a manager to place bets against his own boxer, who doesn't take a dive as expected and winds up murdered. Suspected of the crime, O'Brien convinces Inspector Bruger (Richard Travis) of the San Francisco police department that someone else is the guilty party. In the second of two stories, Irma Rand (Joan Valerie of Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum) hires O'Brien to pretend to be the husband of a friend, Sylvia (Wanda McKay), whose hood boyfriend, Rafferty (Anthony Warde) is back in town and looking for trouble. In both cases, O'Brien winds up in dutch because his clients are as shifty as any bad guys, and O'Brien seemingly won't say no when there's money concerned. Roaring City comes off like two TV episodes spliced together. The acting is sufficient, with Warde [The Masked Marvel] especially vivid as the nasty Rafferty. Edward Brophy [Romance on the Run] also makes the most of his role as O'Brien's pal and assistant, the professor. There's too much narration. From Lippert pictures.

Verdict: Watchable, but ultimately quite dull. **.

STOLEN FACE

Lizabeth Scott and Paul Henreid

STOLEN FACE (1952). Director: Terence Fisher.

While on vacation Dr. Philip Ritter (Paul Henreid). a renowned plastic surgeon,  meets and falls in love with concert pianist Alice Brent (Lizabeth Scott), but discovers that she is already betrothed to another. When Ritter is enlisted to give a disfigured female criminal, Lily (Mary Mackenzie) a new lease on life by giving her a new face, he uses Alice's countenance, and tries to turn her into Alice [sow's ear, silk purse, and all that]! Further complicating matters is Alice's decision to return to Philip, meaning the two women in his life now have the exact same face. This is certainly an intriguing idea [with some echoes of A Woman's Face, not to mention Vertigo, both of which are vastly superior]] but it is astonishing that no one ever calls Ritter out on his completely unethical and highly unprofessional behavior, making this a movie that seems to operate in its own weird little dimension. [The movie seems to find Ritter's bizarre obsessive actions to be reasonable!] On the other hand, Stolen Face is well-acted by the leads and Andre Morrell, has a nice score by Malcolm Arnold, and is completely absorbing.

Verdict: One of the best of the Hammer studio melodramas released in the U.S. by Lippert. ***.

THE UNHOLY FOUR

William Sylvester  and Paulette Goddard

THE UNHOLY FOUR (1954). Director: Terence Fisher.

"I don't like people very much -- not even the people I like."

Philip Vickers (William Sylvester), who has been missing for four years, shows up unexpectedly at a party being thrown by his wife, Angie (Paulette Goddard). Philip claims that years ago in Portugal a blow on his head from one of his alleged friends, possibly working at his wife's request, gave him amnesia, and now he is back to discover who it was who tried to kill him: Harry (David King-Wood), Job (Patrick Holt), or Bill (Paul Carpenter)? Also in the household is Angie's friend Jennie (Kay Callard), who feels Philip is up to no good and possibly out to harm his wife. When one of the aforementioned suspects is murdered, Inspector Treherne (Russell Napier) is called in, and soon everyone is sniping at everyone else and accusing each other of assorted malfeasances. While Terence Fischer's direction is solid, the talky screenplay is the problem with this half-baked melodrama, in which the characters, none of whom are likable or even that interesting, are one-dimensional, and the plot confusing. This was Goddard's last movie but one -- she also did several TV assignments in her later years --   and even at 44 she looks a bit haggard. Her performance is okay although, like Fisher, she isn't given very much to work with. Cast against type as an arch, suave, borderline villain, Sylvester at least gets an A for effort. Russell Napier is the British version of Lloyd Nolan. The supporting cast is good, with particularly good work from Carpenter and Callard. Leonard Salzedo's score does a lot of the work to keep this even mildly interesting. Another Hammer studio mystery released in the US by Lippert.

Verdict: One you can easily miss. **.

BAD BLONDE

The two beautiful blonds of "Bad Blonde"

BAD BLONDE (aka The Flanagan Boy/1953). Director: Reginald Le Borg.

Handsome amateur boxer Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright) gets a shot at the big time when he's taken under the wing of promoter Giuseppe Vecchi (Frederick Valk). Unfortunately, Johnny is greatly disturbed by the presence of Vecchi's sexy and much younger wife, Lorna (Barbara Payton of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye), and after initial animosity she can't help but notice the hunky boxer. This leads to expected complications, none of which are especially entertaining. This is the kind of old-fashioned, even sexist movie where the deplorable actions of a "nice guy" are blamed exclusively on the influence of an "evil" woman [attitudes which are still prevalent in some quarters even today]. Although Payton was better known for the scandals she got embroiled in than for her movies, she was not a bad actress and is fine in this, although not given a very dimensional role to play. Wright's inexperience is obvious, but he has his moments as well and Valk is good as the cuckolded Italian. Movies like this should at least be fun to watch but this is just tedious, and even the sexy leads can't save it. Le Borg, whose direction on this is quite stodgy,  also directed Voodoo Island and many other B movies. This was another Hammer studio crime drama released in the U.S. by Lippert.

Verdict: A far cry from The Postman Always Ring Twice. *

BLACKOUT (1954)

BLACKOUT (aka Murder By Proxy/1954). Director: Terence Fisher.

Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) is moping around getting drunk in a bar when an attractive blond named Phyllis (Belinda Lee) pays him 500 dollars to marry her. He later learns that her father was murdered later that night, that she is already engaged to another man, and seeks the help of a painter, Maggie (Eleanor Summerfield), who is doing a portrait of the mysterious Phyllis. Blackout meanders along from scene to scene without much suspense or tension and director Terence Fisher seems as disinterested with the material as the viewer probably will be. There is a very good scene when Casey sees his mother (Nora Gordon/Gorden) for the first time in several years wherein the actress beautifully expresses both her joy at seeing her boy and her suppressed rage at his being out of touch for so long. Clark and the other cast members all give good performances, but the movie is more tedious than anything else. Betty Ann Davies shows some bite as Phyllis' unlovely mother. Another Hammer studio crime drama released in the US by Lippert. The later film Homicidal also had a blond paying a man to marry her but was much, much more entertaining. Lee was in the far superior Footsteps in the Fog the following year, and Summerfield made Man Bait the year before.

Verdict: Watch this during a blackout. **.   

THE GLASS TOMB

John Ireland

THE GLASS TOMB (1955). Director: Montgomery Tully.

"Now turn around and watch the man starve like a good boy."

It's impossible to understand why anyone on earth would have wanted to actually film this hopeless screenplay, nor why anyone wanted to adapt the novel it was based on in the first place. Get this: Pel Pelham (John Ireland) is a promoter who has one act, a "starving man" who won't eat for several weeks. While one can imagine some morbid people lining up to see this guy in the final stages of starvation, why would anyone pay good money to see him at the start of his campaign? A young woman, Rena (Tonia Bern), who was blackmailing a friend of Pel's, is found murdered, and Pel suspects the friend, Tony (Sidney James), of doing the deed. The audience knows he's wrong, because we see the actual murderer dispatching Rena about twenty minutes into the picture, meaning the movie has absolutely no suspense or surprises.The performances by Ireland, Honor Blackman as his wife, and others are good, but they have absolutely no decent material to work with. The movie is only about an hour long but seems longer. This is one of Hammer studios B mystery films released in the U.S. by Lippert.

Verdict: Staggeringly stupid and pointless. *.

MAN BAIT

MAN BAIT (aka The Last Page/1952). Director: Terence Fisher.

The British film The Last Page was given the zestier title Man Bait  -- with the figure of Diana Dors highlighted in the ads -- when it was released in the U.S. John Harman (George Brent, in one of his last theatrical films) runs a book store in London and cares for his invalid wife (Isabel Dean). He has a loyal assistant named Stella (Marguerite Chapman) and a sexy clerk, Ruby (Diana Dors), who is saucy and always coming in late. A minor incident between the two -- Ruby impulsively kisses John when they're working late in his office -- snowballs into tragedy when Ruby's new friend, the sinister Jeffrey (Peter Reynolds), importunes Ruby to make more of the business and even blackmail her boss. Before long, John is being accused of murder. It seems bizarre that John was planning to take his wife on a holiday, when she proves to be so fatally frail later in the movie. Man Bait holds the attention, but is distinctly minor, although Dors is quite good, as is Reynolds, and Brent and Chapman are more than competent. Eleanor Summerfield also makes an impression as Vi, a woman who is crazy about Jeffrey and jealous of Ruby. This was a Hammer film released and distributed by Lippert in the United States.

Verdict: Competent, if unexciting little programmer. **1/2.