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. 

A FEVER IN THE BLOOD

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Jack Kelly

A FEVER IN THE BLOOD (1961). Director: Vincent Sherman.

"I'm only allowed a minute so I'm going to change the habit of a lifetime and be brief."

When a woman is suffocated in her home, her estranged husband (Rhodes Reason of Voodoo Island) is arrested and put on trial. He is almost a supernumerary in a three-way battle for governor between Callahan (Jack Kelly), the D.A. prosecuting the case; Hoffman (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), the judge assigned to the trial; and Senator Alex Simon (Don Ameche), who wants to give up his seat for personal reasons. The audience knows who the real killer is from the first, but Callahan seems determined to win this case -- and his chance at a governorship -- no matter who is convicted. Then Senator Simon offers Hoffman a bribe if he'll declare a mistrial, postponing Callahan's chances for a prosecutorial and political victory. A Fever in the Blood features a few Warner Brothers contract players who are sometimes effective and sometimes not. Zimbalist isn't bad, but aside from playing Stu Bailey in 77 Sunset Strip, he's a trifle bland, as usual, and strictly a small screen personality. Jack Kelly [Drive a Crooked Road], also a TV regular, is surprisingly good as Callahan, as is Don Ameche [Guest Wife], who manages to overcome his miscasting. Angie Dickinson scores as Simon's wife, who is really in love with Hoffman (she has a very good scene with Zimbalist early in the film), and there are also notable performances from Herbert Mashall as the defendant's father, Carroll O'Connor as a publisher, Ray Danton as defense counsel, and Robert Colbert as the murdered woman's gardener and lover. If there's any problem with the movie it's that with this excellent plot the movie should have had a lot more tension and excitement, but it merely plays out in standard fashion while managing to hold the attention. Ernest Gold's Herrmann-like score is effective.

Verdict: Not bad, but perhaps its temperature should have been raised. **1/2.

VOODOO ISLAND

VOODOO ISLAND (1957). Director: Reginald Le Borg.

TV host Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) who debunks the supernatural, is asked to travel to a certain island where a group of people who were planning to build a hotel resort disappeared. Only one man came back, Mitchell (Glenn Dixon, pictured), and he's been in a trance-like state of shock ever since. Knight agrees to go to the island, along with Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye) who works for the hotel concern; Sarah Adams (Beverly Tyler), Knight's gal Friday; and Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom), a designer who seems to have a yen for Adams. [There are a few heavy-handed hints to her being a lesbian.] Also traveling to the island are Martin Schulyer (the inimitable Elisha Cook), who owns a boat, and Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason), his pilot. On the island the group encounters one foot-long spider-crab, but the main problem appears to be carnivorous plants. There are rubber fronds that wrap themselves (quite unconvincingly) around their victims, as well as club-like plants that try to thwaaap down and knock out their unwilling human meals. One scene has a small native girl being swallowed up and consumed by another killer plant that ensnares anyone who steps upon it. There are also voodoo dolls, witch doctors, and the like. Richard H. Landau's script makes a real attempt at presenting interesting characters with back stories, although those stories tend to the cliched. Karloff gives a game performance; the others are at least adequate. Rhodes Reason is the brother of Rex Reason, who starred in This Island Earth; Rhodes is not a bad actor. Adam West of Batman fame has a small part as a weather station radio operator. The main problem with Voodoo Island is that it makes no real attempt to create a scary atmosphere or sense of fear and wonder over its sinister setting.

Verdict: A perfect triple bill with Womaneater and From Hell It Came. **1/2.