POOR WHITE TRASH (1957)

Timothy Carey, Peter Graves and Lita Milan

POOR WHITE TRASH (aka Bayou/1957). Director: Harold Daniels. 

New York architect Martin Davis (Peter Graves of Stalag 17) comes down to the bayou hoping to get assigned to a building project, but he's told by the man who called for him (Douglas Fowley) that he has to fight for the job. Martin is an intelligent man who refuses to sink down to other people's levels whether it comes to scrabbling with competitors or in actual fist fights. Martin, however, learns that he may have to fight for Marie Hebert (Lita Milan of I Mobster), a pretty Cajun woman who has innocently ignited the lust of shop owner Ulysses (Timothy Carey of Paths of Glory) and with whom Martin falls in love.  

Lita Milan and Peter Graves

Poor White Trash is actually the 1961 re-release title of a film originally called Bayou, which has some additional footage and a prologue where a man sings the catchy title tune. The most lurid -- and somewhat cinematic -- sequence has Ulysses chasing Marie through the mud of the swamp and finally cornering the exhausted woman. Marie is clearly raped (even if it isn't depicted graphically) but she has no reaction to this, offering Ulysses some money she owes him the next day as if nothing had happened instead of kicking him in the balls or telling her fellow Cajuns. This is clearly the fault of the script, although Milan herself registers nothing but a mild weariness after what would have had to have been a traumatic experience. 

"an orgiastic, self-flagellating dance"

Otherwise, Milan is attractive and appealing in the film. Graves was never a great actor, and this film offers more evidence of that, although he does register competence and likability. Douglas Fowley is fine as Martin's friend but he gets into a bit of trouble when he also essays Marie's dotty father, Emil. Timothy Carey, the Nicolas Cage of an earlier generation, displays his trademark intensity and is quite good as Ulysses, although one doesn't know quite what to make of the sequence when he does a kind of orgiastic, self-flagellating dance halfway through the movie. This uncomfortable sequence goes on for far too long, which is also the case in a love scene over which the storm outside is not-so-cleverly superimposed.  

Ed Nelson has a small role, but although Jonathan Haze of Little Shop of Horrors is also in the film I didn't spot him. There is some atmospheric photography and a vaguely evocative score by Gerald Fried. One of the film's most disturbing scenes is actually a party scene celebrating the marriage of an elderly man to a very young girl who looks like she'd like to run away from the oldster as fast as her feet could take her. 

Verdict: A trashy curiosity indeed. **. 

I MOBSTER

Steve Cochran

I MOBSTER (1959). Produced and directed by Roger Corman.

I Mobster traces the rise and fall of gangster Joe Sante (Steve Cochran of The Big Operator), whose father virtually disowns him and whose mother (Celia Lovsky) eventually follows suit. As a boy (played by an uncredited but talented youngster), Joey was taken under the wing of Black Frankie (Robert Strauss), and later also works for crime boss Paul Moran (Grant Withers of the Jungle Jim serial). Joe takes up with a nice neighborhood gal named Teresa (Lita Milan), who is at first highly disapproving of his activities but ultimately there's no arguing with love. But Joe's ambitions and high-risk lifestyle may become his undoing ...

Saucy Yvette Vickers 

I Mobster is an absorbing crime drama with a fine and charismatic lead performance by the always-under-rated Steve Cochran, who is perfect as Joe. Celia Lovsky does her usual hand-wringing turn as the heartbroken mother; Strauss is quite good as his mentor and associate; and Lita Milan [Never Love a Stranger] turns in a very nice performance as Teresa. Grant Withers also scores as the big boss, and there is a very nice bit by Yvette Vickers as a saucy blond who tries to pay off her gambling debt by coming on to Joe -- fat chance! Ed Nelson, Robert Shayne, Thomas Browne Henry and Bruno VeSota have smaller  parts, and stripper Lili St. Cyr (who is much more attractive than the rather horse-faced Gypsy Rose Lee) does her cameo on stage in a bath tub.

In the long run, however, I Mobster doesn't really rise above all of the hoodlum cliches -- sobbing mother, worried, conflicted girlfriend, rivals and hits -- but the darn thing is too entertaining and well-played for that to matter much. As for Cochran, a hell-raising lover boy off-screen, he died at only 48 under very mysterious circumstances.

Verdict: Fast-paced Corman melodrama with a well-chosen cast. ***. 

NEVER LOVE A STRANGER

NEVER LOVE A STRANGER (1958). Director: Robert Stevens.

Now where have you heard this before? In the 1920's two friends grow up on the wrong side of the tracks, with one becoming a criminal and the other a prosecutor, until their paths cross violently once again. This story was old when co-producer Harold Robbins wrote his bestseller, "Never Love a Stranger" in the fifties, and there's nothing new or original in the film version. Frankie Kane (John Drew Barrymore) is an orphan raised by Catholics who doesn't realize he's actually Jewish, like his buddy Martin (Steve McQueen). Frank becomes "gray and bitter before his time," as the tiresome narrator tells us, but we're not shown what makes him so. In any case, he becomes a career criminal and Martin an assistant D.A. Whatever its flaws, Never Love a Stranger is watchable for no other reason than the cast. Barrymore [High School Confidential] proves that talent runs in his famous family with an excellent performance as the protagonist, and Steve McQueen [The Towering Inferno] is also admirable as his old buddy turned nemesis. Lita Milan and Robert Bray are also notable as Frankie's girlfriend and a mob boss whom he eventually supplants. John Drew Barrymore [aka John Barrymore, Jr.] was the son of John Barrymore, and the father of Drew Barrymore and John Blyth Barrymore, both actors. John Drew Barrymore's erratic behavior prevented him from building on his early promise, as he had the looks and talent to have a more than satisfactory career. Another adaptation of a Harold Robbins potboiler was The Carpetbaggers.

Verdict: Passable melodrama with some very good performances. **1/2.