Just as Edgar C. Ulmer would at PRC around the same time, young Phil Karlson turned Monogram's almost nonexistent production values to his advantage in two Charlie Chan whodunits: The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and Dark Alibi (1946). Karlson added touches of film noir to the usual hoary Chan melodramatics and the result was arguably the best of the ...
Columbia Pictures tried to create a tongue-in-cheek American James Bond with this, the first of five motion pictures based on the character of Matt Helm, a spy created in a series of novels by Donald Hamilton. Dean Martin stars as Helm, a boozing, womanizing cad of a spy coaxed out of retirement by ex-girlfriend Tina Batori (Daliah Lavi). His ...
A frequent cable-TV attraction since lapsing into public domain in 1976, The Big Cat is an excellent outdoor drama, beautifully lensed in Technicolor (though most current prints are printed in a washed-out 2-color process). Set in Utah in the darkest days of the Depression, the film stars Lon McCallister as Danny, the citified nephew of rancher ...
In this musical, a struggling young singer falls in love with a nightclub owner whose father mistakes her for someone else and tries to convince her to serve a summons at the club. Fortunately, the love between the youngsters prevails. Music and happiness ensues. Songs include: Stormy Weather" (Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler) and "Just a Little Fond ...
Director Phil Karlson harks back to the no-nonsense, no-thrills directness of his 1950s "B" pictures in Framed. Joe Don Baker, Karlson's star in Walking Tall, plays Ron, a high-rolling gambler with a streak of integrity. Framed by the film's villains--including a cartel of corrupt cops--Ron is carted off to prison. Upon his release, he embarks ...
This standard wartime drama is divided into three chronological segments and is based on the experiences of the real Guy Gabaldon (played as an adult by Jeffrey Hunter, and as a boy by Richard Eyer). In the first segment, Guy is a homeless waif without many prospects when he is adopted by a Japanese-American family. He grows up just in time to be ...
This musical boxing drama finds Walter (Elvis Presley) as a recently discharged soldier looking forwork in New York's Catskill Mountains. He happens across Grogan's Gym, a boxing emporium that helps perfect the "gentle art." Proprioter Willie Grogan (Gig Young) and trainer Lew (Charles Bronson) run the camp for aspiring pugilists. Walter saves ...
One of the most famous of unsold TV pilots, Alexander the Great stars William Shatner in the title role. Nine months in the making, this lavish 60-minute drama recreates the battle between the Greeks and Persians at Issus (filmed near St. George, Utah). Hoping to attract as wide an audience as possible, producer Albert McCreery included an ...
A runaway box-office hit to the tune of 17 million dollars, Walking Tall is the unabashedly manipulative story of real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser. As played by Joe Don Baker, Pusser can either be regarded as a tireless champion of justice or a baseball-bat-wielding hooligan. But with some of the most scurrilous villains this side of a ...
Cahiers du Cinema favorite Phil Karlson may have directed the "Matt Helm" extravaganza The Wrecking Crew, but the only "auteur" around these parts is star Dean Martin, coasting through yet another sexy spy romp. This time, secret agent Helm must prevent a billion-dollar gold hijacking, masterminded by the unspeakable Count Massimo Contini (Nigel ...
Kansas City Confidential, Phil Karlson's low ( low ) budget, B-grade film noir, opens on a Kansas City armored-car robbery perpetrated by cynical, corrupt ex-policeman Timothy Foster (Preston S. Foster). Foster devises an outrageous scheme: he will recruit three of the most vicious and unrelenting criminals he can find (screen heavies Lee Van ...
This sequel to the rampaging-rodent chiller Willard stars Lee H. Montgomery as young Danny Garrison, a neglected kid who finds a new little friend in Ben -- an intelligent rat whose furry minions managed to slaughter most of the cast of the previous film. Proving that one can't teach an old rat new tricks -- just variations on the old ones -- Ben ...
Based on actual events, The Phenix City Story tells the tale of a wide-open "Sin City" in Alabama (across a bridge from Columbus, GA, and just a stone's throw from the Ft. Benning Army base) where gambling, prostitution, and any number of other vices were tolerated openly by the law, most of it centered on the main downtown drag, 14th Street, ...
Crooked newspaper columnist Jeff Mann (James Cardwell), who apparently was blackmailing half the criminal gangs in the city, is murdered in his own office, and a police officer is killed the same night in the alley outside the newspaper's building -- and the prime suspect is the Shadow, the mysterious masked adventurer with the ability to cloud ...
Tight Spot is based on Leonard Kantor's novel Dead Pigeon, which in turn was obviously inspired by Virginia Hill's appearance before the Kefauver Committee. Ginger Rogers plays hard-boiled model Sherry Conley, who is serving a prison term for a crime she didn't commit. Sherry is offered her freedom -- and immunity -- by U.S. attorney Lloyd Hallett ...
In her second film appearance, Marilyn Monroe stars as Peggy Martin, a second-generation showgirl who begins a romance with a rich young man (Randy Brooks), an action that strains her relationship with her mother (Adele Jurgens). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
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