THE STEEL TRAP

THE STEEL TRAP (1952). Director: Andrew L. Stone.

A bank officer named Jim Osborne (Joseph Cotten), with a wife, Laurie (Teresa Wright), and a small daughter, hits upon a scheme of stealing a million dollars and taking his family to Brazil, where no extradition treaty exists. But getting out of the country with the loot proves no easy feat, as there's one complication after another involving passports in locked offices, missed flights, curious customs men, and the like. The Steel Trap is extremely suspenseful, especially at the nail-biting climax, and the two leads give superlative performances; Cotten is particularly effective. What perhaps prevents this from being a masterpiece is that the characterization is comparatively minimal. Johnathan Hale is fine as Osborne's boss, Mr. Bowers, and there are short appearances by two of the cast members of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman: William Hudson is a bank teller, and Michael Ross, who played the alien giant and the bartender in that film, is a building guard in this one. Wright and Cotten were most famously teamed in the earlier Shadow of a Doubt while Hale was in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. 

Verdict: Quite memorable and tense thriller. ***.

THE LADY GAMBLES

THE LADY GAMBLES (1949). Director: Michael Gordon.

While her husband David (Robert Preston) works on a dam in Nevada, Joan Boothe (Barbara Stanwyck) wiles away her time in a gambling casino. There she meets Corrigan (Stephen McNally), the pit boss who is attracted to her, and uses her in certain schemes and high-stakes card games. But Joan's bigger problem is a growing addiction to gambling, which eventually jeopardizes her marriage and even her life. While today we would simply refer to Joan as a "gamblaholic" and be done with it, The Lady Gambles comes up with some dime store psychology involving Joan's neurotic sister Ruth (Edith Barrett) to explain her addiction. In spite of that, the movie is absorbing, in no large part due to Stanwyck's typically riveting performance. McNally is also excellent as Corrigan, adding some interesting dimension to an underwritten role. Barrett certainly delivers as the tormented, jealous sister. Preston is fine in the least interesting role of the husband. Dyspeptic John Hoyt (Attack of the Puppet People) is his usual acerbic self as a doctor. Tony Curtis has a bit part as a bellboy, and William Hudson also has a bit. At one point in the film Corrigan tells the two sisters that his first name is Horace, which is how McNally was originally known when he appeared in such films as Laurel and Hardy's Air Raid Wardens.

Verdict: Stanwyck is one hell of an actress and this is a very interesting story. ***1/2.

THE SHE-CREATURE

THE SHE-CREATURE (1956). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

AIP certainly collected an unusual group of actors for this weird little movie. Chester Morris (who gives a very good performance) is the mentalist Carlo Lombardi, who claims that he can regress his beautiful assistant Andrea (Marla English of Three Bad Sisters) three hundred years into a past life. For reasons that are never made clear Lombardi also regresses her back even further in a -- as he puts it -- "transmigration of the soul of a living woman into her first life body." Apparently her soul first inhabited a female prehistoric sea creature of some kind (at least it keeps coming out of the sea) that is alternately invisible, transparent, and finally very much solid and homicidal, leaving many battered corpses in the movie's best scenes. Timothy Chappel (Tom Conway), whose wife (Frieda Inescort) is a fan of the occult, teams up with Lombardi to make him a household name and both of them rich even as the murders of the she-creature continue. Cathy Downs, the wife of The Amazing Colossal Man, plays Chappel's daughter Dorothy, who is dating Dr. Erickson (Lance Fuller, who was in This Island Earth), another doubting Thomas. Rounding out the cast, Ron Randell is a police lieutenant, Frank Jenks is a sergeant, Jack Mulhall is a lawyer, and William Hudson (from Colossal Man and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) is a snickering party guest. Paul Blaisdell both designed and plays the she-creature; her appearance is amusing and scary at the same time. This oddly likable movie has atmosphere and some creepy scenes, even if it doesn't make much sense.

Verdict: For monster/horror/B movie aficionados only. **1/2.

THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE

THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE (1957). Director: Leslie Kardos.

Flat, uninspired direction is the main problem of this otherwise intriguing horror film set in a girls’ reformatory. A couple of female administrators can’t help but notice how many of the young women are dying of heart failure, and that the deaths occur the day after screams are heard in the night. William Hudson of Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman and Amazing Colossal Man fame plays a psychiatrist who’s called in and winds up spearheading an investigation into the problem. SPOILER ALERT: The people who run the school are all over two hundred years old, and use an electrical process to take life energy from one person (it works best with nubile women – don’t ask) and give it to another. The shame of it is that Victory Jory and some of the other actors give excellent performances, with Paul Cavanaugh a stand-out, especially during a scene when he’s told by the others that he is not going to receive another "treatment" but will be allowed to die. One of the sinister group is a hulking mute who grabs the girls in the night but is beginning to be more trouble than he’s worth. Some interesting notions in this film, but the pace is too slow and everything is presented in a dull matter-of-fact way that doesn’t exactly pull you into the story, which needed a lot of fine-tuning in the first place. Ann Doran (It, The Terror from Beyond Space) plays a bitchy headmistress (and one of the 200 + club) but she really isn’t very good. The title refers to the fact that the skin of the "old folk" starts to turn rock hard just before they need another treatment.

Verdict: Interesting ideas, mediocre execution. **.

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958). Director: Nathan Juran (Nathan Herz).

Blond floozies hanging around hotel bars, a neurotic, dipsomaniac multi-millionairess who clings to an unloving husband, bald giants from space, and the biggest boob fetish of all time combine in a microcosm of 1950's Americana such as has never been seen before or since. Seriously, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a hoot! Rich Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) has a run-in with a giant man (Michael Ross) from outer space who is after her diamond (he uses the gems to power his satellite) and becomes infected, growing to giant-size. As a giantess she tears out of her (rather unimpressive) mansion and takes off for town where her hubby Harry (William Hudson) is hanging out with his honey, a tramp named, well, Honey (Yvette Vickers). The "attack" doesn't last long but it's as much fun as everything else in this highly-entertaining tongue-in-cheek sci-fi flick. You can see through the giant people and the 50 foot woman's prop hand isn't very convincing, but it's all drenched in dramatic, attractive music by Ronald Stein, and the acting of the two ladies is very vivid if a trifle overwrought at times. Very fast-paced. Written by Mark Hanna, who also did the screenplay for the more serious Amazing Colossal Man (which also featured actor William Hudson). That same year director Nathan Herz had a big, technicolor hit with The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which he directed under his own name, Nathan Juran; "Nathan Herz" was no more. Otto Waldis and Roy Gordon play Mrs. Archer's doctors. 

Verdict: Not to be missed if you're in a silly mood and love "big people" movies. ***.