Cast:
Rod Cameron (Tully Gibbs), Joan Leslie (Sarah Moffit), John Russell (Ben Hodes), Chill Wills (Kevin Russel), Ben Cooper (Alec Bacchione), Kristine Miller (Beth Hodes), Jim Davis (Sam Horne), Taylor Holmes (Timothy Byers), Barton MacLane (Sheriff Olson), and Ruth Lee (Mrs. Moffit) Produced and Directed by Joseph Kane.
Review:
Admittedly, the action movie is in more forms than just big-budget adventure or costume drama. No, one can also encounter action flicks in cheap B-movie form, courtesy of studios like Republic Pictures. Republic, if you were wondering, was the motion picture company behind many, many Westerns, serials, and B-films (with occasional A-features like The Quiet Man), which just happened to have a select number of films that featured John Wayne, Gene Autry, or Roy Rogers. It came about in 1935 as the result of merging six Poverty Row studios together, as devised by founder Herbert J. Yates that was focused on low-budget product with his laboratory to counter the lack of need from major studios to have his lab. As for the director for this film...Joseph Kane naturally ended up behind the chair because of his experience with Republic. The San Diego native actually went from an interest in cellist to directing, and he took up jobs with Mascot Pictures and Republic Pictures with serials in 1935, and he would stay with the latter studio until its demise in 1958, serving as an associate producer on numerous films along with editor and screenwriter. While he did not get to serve as primary director much in the years after the 1950s ended, he continued with second-unit work until his death in 1975 at the age of 81.
Sure picked a winner, huh? Technically, it is more of a noir than an action movie, but at least there are a few fistfights (lasting less than five minutes each) to go along with a little bit of action involving loony rich guys and oddball heroes writing false letters in which both actors look like more famous ones if you squint a bit. There really isn't anything particularly great about the movie in any sense or form, and it definitely seems a bit too packed at 89 minutes, but one interested in B-movies or things to pass by on a long summer day could tolerate it. The only thing that sounds fun is the fistfight, because who doesn't want to hear about it? It happens, naturally, in the dark, and one hopes you have a good eye to see with the print (or video, if you like easy-to-find old movies). It isn't anything too special, but again, it satisfies the basic requirement when it comes to stomaching the rest of medium product that makes only the slightest of sense (rich guy decides to fight a guy, agrees to giving him $10,000 in a loan if the other guy wins and then does wild things to stop him enjoying using the money for a mine). This was based on a Luke Short's book Silver Rock, with Kenneth Gamet serving as screenwriter. Truly it fun to be talking about tungsten mines and guys trying to circumvent the other while middling relationships lurk in the background. Cameron (born in Canada but raised in New Jersey) kind of looks like if an old studio executive tried making a discount Randolph Scott, particularly since he did plenty of Westerns to go with other genres you might expect in cheapie fun; beginning in 1953, he ended up doing syndicated television over the course of three different shows in the span of eight years that made him a nice amount of money. He grits his teeth like it was a modern Western rather than the action crime drama hodgepodge, and it doesn't really gel greatly for anything besides mild stares and the occasional attempt to make a gray-shaded hero but having a guy who makes a few false letters isn't really as interesting as it could be for hustle quality. The sillier a movie like this, the better it seems...so it doesn't quite work with a stiff lead. Hey, what do you know, the villain is also a television presence: Russell is best known for his starring role on two shows that ran in the late 1950s involving adventure. He is mildly effective here in chewing the bland ham thrown to him in dastardly ideas, looking more like a guy trying to convince himself to pick apart the wings of baby birds because of boredom. Honestly, Wills might be the only name that sticks out today, albeit one who didn't grow to acting by Westerns, since he had his own singing group in the 1930s that he quit to go for acting, and his deep rough voice certainly wishes for something with riveting material to bite on rather than the mush here. To be nice to Leslie, one hopes that the assignment was a decent experience for them. As a whole, all one might enjoy is the occasional action bit, whether that involves drunken antics or the final sequence involving dynamite that goes...kind of the way you would expect from a cheapie needing to end quickly. It's a humble movie, where names go in one ear and out the other for nothing too special for a mediocre result. But, as a comparison to say just how action movies stack up from different eras when it comes to mushy foundations trying to hold it together with middling actors or effect, it fits the bill adequately.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
I know sometimes it is ideal to say what is next for a themed month but cobbling together a list is easier said than done...That said, next up is Motorpsycho.
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