CHARADE (1954)

Pamela Mason and James Mason 

CHARADE (1954). Director: Roy Kellino. Produced by James Mason.

Actor James Mason had founded a film company with the director Roy Kellino and his wife, Pamela, in the thirties, and did so again with the same principals in the fifties. In the interim Roy and Pamela got divorced and Pamela then married James Mason, with whom she'd had an affair, and Mason produced this trio of stories co-starring his wife -- with the cuckolded ex-husband doing the directorial duties. Okay. The first story concerns a lonely lady artist whose neighbor, another woman, is strangled one night. The artist does a sketch of the man she sees coming out of the murdered woman's apartment. She sees the man (Mason) again when he moves into the now empty apartment, and the artist and the stranger become friends. The artist becomes mesmerized by the stranger and is not at all horrified by the fact that he's also a strangler. This can't lead into anything good and of course it doesn't. The premise is interesting but the people are too unpleasant to fully engage us, and as a story of erotic obsession it's too tepid. The second story, "Duel at Dawn," (from Dumas) concerns a Major Linden (Mason) who is engaged to the Baroness Tanslan (Pamela Mason of The Navy vs the Night Monsters). Captain Stamm (Scott Forbes, who appeared on Zane Grey Theater with Joan Crawford), whose proposal of marriage to the baroness had been rejected, so insults the major that the latter challenges him to a duel -- although the terms set by the captain are outrageous. This is the best of the three stories and is suspenseful and intriguing in equal measure. The last story, apparently scripted by the starring couple, is a dull mess about a wealthy man in New York who quits it all to become a butler back in England, where he meets the maid Lily, marries her, and winds up back in his office in New York. Meant to be funny, this segment is merely tedious. The Masons would have been better off if they had done a full-length version of "Duel at Dawn," which is terrific. James and Pamela are both excellent actors, and Mason is especially good as the major. Forbes, Paul Canavagh as Colonel Heisler. Bruce Lester as Captain van Buren, Sean McClory [Valley of the Dragons] as Jack Stuydevant, the wealthy man's friend in episode three, all give excellent support, as does the uncredited actor who plays Mason's employer in the final story. Pamela and James appear as themselves at the opening and ending and in introductions to each segment. They divorced ten years later.

Verdict: This vanity production is one third all right. **3/4.

RING OF FEAR

Mickey Spillane falls asleep during the movie

RING OF FEAR (1954). Director: James Edward Grant.

Dublin O'Malley (Sean McClory of Valley of the Dragons), a former ring director for Clyde Beatty's circus, escapes from prison and commits murder while on his way back to the circus. Clyde Beatty (playing himself) decides to rehire O'Malley, who not only has a grudge against Beatty but is still carrying a torch for high-wire performer Valerie (Marian Carr of Indestructible Man), who now has a husband named Armand (John Bromfield). Fearing his circus is jinxed, Beatty asks Mickey Spillane (also playing himself) to investigate, along with an undercover cop named Jack Stang (also playing himself). Two other characters are a stereotypically stupid Latino named Pedro Gonzales (played, believe it or not, by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez) and a hand named Twitchy (Emmet Lynn), who is a little too fond of the bottle. Ring of Fear seems to be a 90 minute ad for both Clyde Beatty's circus and Mickey Spillane's novels, as there's no other reason for it to exist. There are some splendid acts in the circus, especially those extremely well-trained elephants, but there isn't much of a plot, little suspense, hardly any excitement, and absolutely no surprises. Nine years later, Spillane played his creation, Mike Hammer, in The Girl Hunters, but he is only passable playing himself. He played a lawyer in Mommy (and its sequel) in 1995. Clyde Beatty played himself years earlier in the serial The Lost Jungle. The best performance is by Emmet Lynn.

Verdict: Almost as bad as Circus of Fear. **.

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS (1961). Director: Edward Bernds.

In 1881 Algeria two men, Hector Servadac (Cesare Danova) and Michael Denning (Sean McClory) are about to fight a duel over a woman when the earth shakes in a great cataclysm that they manage to survive. After a time they realize that a comet grazed the earth, as it has time and again in the past, and taken a bit of the planet into space with it, along with a chunk from the prehistoric past. When Servadac and Denning realize what has happened to them, they don't seem all that upset, a problem with both the screenplay and the acting. Most of the movie consists of stock footage of One Million B.C. with Danova [Honeymoon with a Stranger] and Clory [Them] cleverly inserted  into the action. Again we have two warring tribes, two women (Joan Staley, Danielle De Metz), and the big lizard cornering some natives in a big cavern in a hill and gulping down and chewing one of the luckless warriors. Three clips from Rodan are also used to fill in for pterodactyls, as well as what appears to be a prop spider from Bernds' World Without End. Joan Staley is a Ruta Lee lookalike. The premise of the film is good, taken from Jules Verne's novel "Hector Servadac" aka "Career of a Comet," although that did not include prehistoric monsters.

Verdict: The producers wrote the book on "How to Make One Movie Out of Another." **.

THEM

THEM (1954). Director: Gordon Douglas.

"A Horror Horde of Crawl-and-Crush Giants Clawing Out of the Earth from Mile-Deep Catacombs!" -- Ad copy.

"You just found your missing persons."

In the desert near where atomic testing took place, several people have gone missing, and a catatonic little girl screams about "Them!" when exposed to formic acid. There are oddly shaped footprints in the sand, as well as strange noises in the distance. Of course, due to the advertising campaign, the audience knows long before the principals do that there are monsters on the loose, specifically giant ants. Sgt. Ben Peterson (James Whitmore), FBI agent Bob Graham (James Arness), scientist Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his daughter Pat (Joan Weldon) are among the people assembled to combat this deadly menace of huge and carnivorous insects. It has to be remembered that Them was the first movie to deal with this subject matter -- not only giant insects, but the mutated results of atomic testing --  and was fresh, original* and frightening for its day. This was the second early fifties "thrill-picture" for Warner Brothers after The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and together the two films, both of which were wildly successful, ushered in what became known as the creature/insect cycle of the fifties. [Oddly the ad campaign for Them is just as lurid as the ones used for subsequent big bug movies like The Black Scorpion and Tarantula.] Although there are moments of humor in the film, the general tone is admirably serious [perhaps making it less" fun" than later films in the genre]. Although they are limited in their mobility, the ants look good and scary, and the sound department has turned them into cackling and chittering horrors. The discovery of the missing persons is still gruesome, and the trip down into the giant ant hole is creepy and memorable. An appropriately eerie musical score by Bronislau Kaper adds to the chilling atmosphere. Smaller roles are taken by the likes of Ann Doran [Meet John Doe] as a child psychologist, Sean McClory [Plunder of the Sun; Valley of the Dragons] as a major, Fess Parker as a man who sees the flying queen ants in his plane, Olin Howland [The Blob's first victim] as a patient in a hospital ward, and, Leonard Nimoy [Zombies of the Stratosphere] as an Air Force sergeant. Joan Weldon had a few movie and TV credits, but was essentially a singer. Gordon Douglas had a long list of credits, but Them was his most memorable film.NOTE: For more about this film and others like it, see CREATURE FEATURES: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. * The concept of giant insects was first used in fiction by H. G. Wells in his novel "The Food of the Gods," which also had giant rats, chickens, and children!

Verdict: A sci-fi-horror -- and very influential -- classic. ***1/2.

PLUNDER OF THE SUN

PLUNDER OF THE SUN (1953). Director: John Farrow.

Insurance adjuster Al Colby (Glenn Ford) winds up involved with two mysterious women, thugs, and murderers while hunting treasure almost by default in Mexico. Seems everyone wants to get their hands on a certain Spanish manuscript. Julie Barnes (Diana Lynn) is a boozy, man-hungry self-described "tramp," while Anna Luz (Patricia Medina) is a more patrician and enigmatic beauty. Francis L. Sullivan and Sean McClory are also involved in the skulduggery. This is a mediocre, standard thriller with a low thrill level, most of the excitement coming from Antonio Diaz Conde's richly-orchestrated musical score, which pulls you in from the opening credits. The acting is perfectly okay, but the movie never really comes to a boil. Filmed on and around the Zapotecan ruins in Mexico.

Verdict: The title is very pretentious. **.