Hell's Outpost.

Review #1871: Hell's Outpost.

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.

Undertow (1949).

Review #1703: Undertow.

Cast: 

Scott Brady (Tony Reagan), John Russell (Danny Morgan), Dorothy Hart (Sally Lee), Peggy Dow (Ann McKnight), Bruce Bennett (Reckling), Gregg Martell (Frost), Robert Anderson (Stoner), Dan Ferniel (Gene), and Rock Hudson (Detective) Directed by William Castle (#369 - House on Haunted Hill (1959), #1071 - 13 Ghosts, and #1418 - The Night Walker) 

Review: 

Honestly, if you didn't know that the director was William Castle, would you bat an eye for this film? From 1943 to 1974, he made 56 films as a director, but it is strange to think that the films that you would recognize from him came in the last third of his career, one that saw him move past low budget crime affairs to low budget B-movies with sensational showmanship. But hey, the important part is that Castle was not just a director with one trick. He honed his desire of wanting to scare the pants out of audiences as a teenager to work in Broadway in a variety of jobs to a shot at Columbia Pictures before he was even 25 years old, and his first feature was The Chance of a Lifetime (released in 1943 as part of the Boston Blackie series of crime dramas). He moved to Universal Pictures with Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949). There isn't exactly a great deal of facts to talk about this feature, one where I can't explain why it is called Undertow, since that apparently sounded like a better one to market over the working titles of Frame-Up and The Big Frame (I guess framing is like a current of water?). The film was written by Arthur T. Horman (a busy writer for two decades) and Lee Loeb.

Honestly, for the brief sentences one can struggle to think about a movie that falls along the line of Castle's extensive early work, it proves to be a decent filler kind of movie. For a film noir, it works alright in generating tension in the moments that try to give off a sense of claustrophobia, one that has a selection of clichés you would see from a noir (such as the femme fatale or a race against time) that for the most part manages to not flub itself in getting to the finish line at 71 minutes while packing in a few nice shots of Chicago. Brisk is not a bad word to describe a movie, if you think about it. Granted, there are things to quibble about a movie involving a guy on the run having to prove his innocence for the murder of a kingpin where you don't even see the kingpin. It really is the kind of movie that focuses on the dry side of plotting that is exactly what you would expect from a programmer kind of movie. If you don't have that many cast members to begin with, the mystery can only go in a few directions that are more passable than clever; besides, having a small run-time means you can't have too much time spent on motivation, which affects Dow's character more so than anyone. It manages to have no terrible or great moments present, which means that the highlights really come from little sequences, such as a chase sequence with some steps or perhaps its quick climax that relies on a little confusion. Brady fares pretty well in one of his early roles in film, partaking in a slew of tough-guy roles while eventually adding on television to his line of work, which also can apply to Russell (each had a star role in a Western show in the following decade), who plays it pretty lean and fair. This was the first feature film for Dow, who had dabbled in modeling and radio before having a brief feature career; she does okay with a quiet part, one that can't be too contrived in innocence without seeming completely out of touch with the attempts at thrills and chemistry with Brady that pales when thinking of the allure generated in parts by Hart. Having Bennett's character be the way he is in the script is a bit of a stretch (an old buddy detective), but he at least makes it seem passable to what is needed in dry company. As a whole, one will either find comfort in its accomplishments of making a decent thriller with no frills or find it just a bit off their tastes. But one cant deny that Castle was the kind of director capable enough to try and make something out of nothing, and I suppose that makes it more than enough for the curious. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Pale Rider.

Review #1476: Pale Rider.

Cast:
Clint Eastwood (The Preacher), Michael Moriarty (Hull Barret), Carrie Snodgress (Sarah Wheeler), Richard Dysart (Coy LaHood), Chris Penn (Josh LaHood), Sydney Penny (Megan Wheeler), John Russell (Marshal Stockburn), Richard Kiel (Club), Doug McGrath (Spider Conway), Chuck Lafont (Eddie Conway), and Jeffrey Weissman (Teddy Conway) Produced and Directed by Clint Eastwood (#1252 - Space Cowboys and #1310 - Million Dollar Baby)

Review:
"You have to trust your instincts. There's a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it. Behind the camera you can feel the moment even more clearly. And once you've got it, once you feel it, you can't second-guess yourself. You can find a million reasons why something didn't work. But if it feels right, and it looks right, it works. Without sounding like a pseudointellectual dipshit, it's my responsibility to be true to myself. If it works for me, it's right."

Clint Eastwood has cultivated a unique and prolific career for himself over half of a century. Ther have been quite a bit of actors who have become stars in both television and film, but there have not been as many actors who have also sprung into star directors. Eastwood has had a breakthrough project in each decade since the 1950s, whether that involves television (Rawhide, 1959-65), starring roles (The Dollars Trilogy, Dirty Harry), or directing (debuting with Play Misty for Me (1971), the first of over thirty films), with influence coming from directors he had worked with such as Sergio Leone and Don Siegel with a quick pace. The Western certainly had declined in stature for the 1980s, but Pale Rider was certainly a high point for its decade (being one of the most profitable Westerns released for that era). This was the third Western directed by Eastwood and his first since The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and it certainly isn't the first of him playing a nameless and mystical drifter (such as with High Plains Drifter over a decade earlier). In general, the film seems to cover ground that was done with Shane (1953), which also had a stranger that came into a town wracked with intimidation over settlers by a baron and his minions that soon escalates into hiring a gunfighter to combat the stranger (in this case, a group of marshals), and the stranger leaves town after it has been settled to stay with its settlers. Of course there are quite a few differences between the two (namely in gold miners as opposed to homesteaders), with the most key being in the quiet details of this film, which has a mystical quality to its title hero, practically seeming like a ghost when engaging in action (which Eastwood subsequently confirmed). In that sense, it makes for an interesting experience of 116 minutes with careful precision. No matter how familiar one is with Eastwood as an actor or director, it isn't too much of a stretch to enjoy what we see without feeling like one is watching a greatest hits Western or something without a competent athmosphere and support to go with it. Eastwood may always grit his way through a role, but it doesn't mean he can't be curious to view regardless, a sardonic presence of careful words. The others prove fairly adept with making this small town setting come forward with careful interest. Moriarty proves an affiable leader of the folks with calmness. Snodgrass and Penny do fine when paired with others, while Dysart and Penn make fair adversaries to view involving greed. Russell (known for his work in the TV show Lawman) makes for a useful presence of old eyes that carry menace. The film proves diverting in its own look upon the mysterious stranger lurking on the frontier with its own kind of mythic nature that make a quietly effective time - whether in thinking about a man we see with bullet holes in the back at first glance or in how he operates with these folks without really needing to show much of himself and cut the ambiguity. There is always a place for a Western that wants to cover a frontier worth looing upon, and this is a fair film in its genre that sets itself up well with atmosphere and a cast worth viewing at least once for its era.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Rio Bravo.

Review #1399: Rio Bravo.

Cast: 
John Wayne (John T. Chance), Dean Martin (Dude), Ricky Nelson (Colorado/Ryan), Angie Dickinson (Feathers), Walter Brennan (Stumpy), Ward Bond (Pat Wheeler), John Russell (Nathan Burdette), Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (Carlos Robante), Estelita Rodriguez (Consuelo Robante), and Claude Akins (Joe Burdette) Directed by Howard Hawks (#951 - The Big Sleep and #1352 - His Girl Friday)

Review:
"A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes."

Collaborations can make for an entertaining film if in the hands of the right people, with this being particularly true for Howard Hawks and John Wayne, who made five films together (all but one being a Western), which began with Red River (1948). The film was written by longtime screenwriter Jules Furthman and science fiction writer/screenwriter Leigh Brackett as a loose adaptation of a short story of the same name by B.H. McCampbell. The plot outline may seem familiar to those who have viewed High Noon (1952), which Wayne and Hawks both criticized, with Wayne calling it "un-American" since he viewed it as an allegory against blacklisting and Hawks disapproving the idea of a sheriff "running around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking for help, and finally his Quaker wife had to save him". For his part, Gary Cooper (star of said criticized film) thought it was phony (which to me seems like the key side in a triangle of eye-rolling statements). Quibbles aside, Hawks would go on to make two further films that were variations on this film in the next eleven years with Wayne as the lead and Brackett as writer with El Dorado (1967) and Rio Bravo (1970) and inspiration can be found in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976).

One gets plenty of engaging entertainment here in this film, with five prominent stars besides Wayne present that come alive with their own quirks that make for riveting moments that fit the hallmarks of a Hawks film. Everything comes together without a stumble, particularly with its silent four minute opening sequence, which helps set the film up nicely and effectively with principle. It is a sprawling film that runs at 141 minutes with solid ambition and useful execution in its warmness. Wayne, playing on a type that he had done for several years (right down to the hat that was worn in several films starting with Stagecoach) does a fine job with a balancing act of stature and reaction to others that make for some amusing moments of chemistry with the others. Singers-turned actors Martin and Nelson do well in following along with Wayne in their own right, with Martin (told by Hawks to not play a cowboy but to just play a drunk) doing well with showing inner demons demanded by this part alongside growing assurance, and Nelson gives off a youthful confidence; each also is given a chance to sing, which comes around right before the climax, which is both unsurprising and not too distracting. Dickinson, in a breakthrough performance after getting her start in television, makes for a playful balance to Wayne, having a fairly believable chemistry, where one doesn't see the 25-year age difference between the two as too much of a distraction. Brennan and Bond fill out their time with warmness (moreso for the former) and capability in the time they are given to shine. Russell, though not given as much time as the others, does make for a fair adversarial presence to drive the tension for the inevitable showdown, which delivers in sealing the fate of a pretty good sprawling Western with folks one will come across plenty when searching for entertainment helmed by someone with plenty to deliver as well.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Legacy of Blood (1971).

Review #1123: Legacy of Blood.

Cast: 
Rodolfo Acosta (Sheriff Dan Garcia), Merry Anders (Laura Dean), Norman Bartold (Tom Drake), Ivy Bethune (Elga), John Carradine (Christopher Dean), Richard Davalos (Johnny Dean), Faith Domergue (Veronica Dean), Buck Kartalian (Igor Garin), Brooke Mills (Leslie Dean), Jeff Morrow (Gregory Dean), John Russell (Frank Mantee), and John Smith (Dr. Carl Isenburg) Directed by Carl Monson.

Review: 
The most interesting thing about this movie is the fact that there isn't one consistent title - there are three. The titles are Legacy of Blood, Blood Legacy, and Will to Die, but I think I will go with the first one, since that one was used for the opening title sequence. It also happened to be featured on Elvira's Movie Macabre with that same title, who I imagine had more fun delivering commentary for a cruddy film like this than I could generate. In any case, this is a movie that is described as a "mystery slasher" - and I put that term in quotation marks because the film is barely a mystery and barely a slasher in any respectable sense. Basked in cliches, the only surprise is how frustrating it operates itself, having minimal gore but maximum tedium. None of the situations or characters presented aren't too particularly interesting. The best thing one can say about the cast is that Carradine is the only one adept at making something watchable - even material boring as this. He's kooky, but he commands attention that the others can't do as well. There isn't anyone to follow with, whether to cheer or hiss at, just a bunch of oddball people who look like they are either doing it for a paycheck or doing it for "the art", whatever that means. Everybody else comes off as stale or not particularly exciting to follow with, unless you count sideburns as something to look at. The body count goes up at a snail's pace while the soap opera type plot serves to irritate its audience, with its best scene being one single shot - a lamp, which relates back to an earlier line about one character's past. How does a movie manage to make a bee sequence come off as boring? Have the setup to said sequence not make much sense. The climax (and its "twist" ending) is like a big joke to its audience, since it comes out of nowhere while bringing itself to a crashing halt - with a last line that breaks the fourth wall that is a sure groaner. Ultimately, this is a dull experience that is more horrible than horror.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.