Tag Archives: Douglas Kennedy

Horror Film Review: The Alligator People (dir by Roy Del Ruth)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know what the worst bayou is?

Bayouself.

Thank you!  I’ll be here all night and don’t forget to tip your server!

Anyway, the 1959 film, The Alligator People, largely takes place in the bayous of Louisiana.  Nurse Jane Marvin (Beverly Garland) is suffering from amnesia so she allows two psychiatrist to give her a dose of truth serum and then, when she’s in a hypnotized state, she proceeds to remember her former life as Joyce Webster.

Joyce married a handsome and seemingly perfect man named Paul Webster (Richard Crane) but, right when they were about to go on their honeymoon, he received a telegram that disturbed him.  After he made a phone call, he vanished from Joyce’s life.  Joyce did some research of her own and discovered that Paul’s former home was the Cypresses Plantation in the small town of Bayou Landing, Louisiana.

When Joyce travels down to Bayou Landing, she discovers that there’s really not much there, other than a bunch of hungry alligators.  She meets the owner of the plantation, Lavinia Hawthorne (Frieda Inescort).  She also meets the handyman, Manon (Lon Chaney, Jr.), a one-handed brute who spends most of his day shooting at alligators.  And, eventually, Joyce comes across her husband but Paul is no longer the man that she remembers.

Paul’s skin is scaly and he only comes out at night.  It turns out that Paul was, long ago, injected with a serum that would allow him to grow back a missing limb.  The serum worked as far as the limb was concerned but an unfortunate side effect is that Paul is now turning into an alligator!  Dr. Mark Sinclair (George Macready), the man who came up with the serum in the first place, is hopeful that he can reverse the process but, to do so, he’s going to need a lot of radioactive material.

Complicating things is that Manon has decided that he wants Joyce for himself and he’s certainly not going to compete with some alligator man for her attention.  Of course, Joyce despises Manon from the first moment she sees him but Manon’s not that smart.  Can Paul be cured before Manon destroys everything?

The Alligator People is one of those 1950s B-movies that is probably better-known for its name than anything else.  That said, when taken on its own terms, it’s an entertaining watch.  It was one of the final films to be directed by Roy Del Ruth, who had previously been one of Hollywood’s top directors of musicals and comedies.  There’s not much music or deliberate comedy to be found in The Alligator People but Del Ruth does manage to capture the humid stillness of the bayous.  As always, Beverly Garland gives a strong performance as a determined woman who isn’t going to be told what to do and Richard Crane is about as convincing as one can be while turning into an alligator.

As for Lon Chaney, Jr, he plays Manon as being a total monster and he gives a convincing performance, even if it is hard not to mourn the loss of the shadings that he brought to his monster roles while he was with Universal.  Manon is a rough and determinedly unintelligent character, one who exists only to destroy.  Significantly, he’s not one of the Alligator People.  Instead, he’s just a man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

The Alligator People is an effective B-movie, full of a bayou atmosphere.

Wyoming Renegades (1955, directed by Fred F. Sears)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Brady Sutton (Philip Carey) used to be one of the most feared members of the Hole in the Wall Gang.  He robbed banks with Butch Cassidy (Gene Evans) and the Sundance Kid (William Bishop) and he developed a reputation for being a ruthless outlaw.  But that’s in the past.  Brady has spent three years in prison and now, he’s ready to return home, marry Nancy (Martha Hyer), and go straight.  Though most of the townspeople don’t trust Brady, he’s managed to find a sponsor in newcomer Charlie Veer (Douglas Kennedy), who has given Brady the money to open his own blacksmith shop.

Unfortunately, Brady might be done with the Hole in the Wall Gang but they’re not done with him.  When Brady spots some members of the gang in town, he realizes that they’re casing the bank.  Despite Brady’s attempts to warn the sheriff, the town assumes that Brady must be in on the plot.  Brady grows so frustrated that he finds himself tempted to go back to his old ways.  Meanwhile, Charlie is suddenly very interested in being introduced to the infamous Butch Cassidy himself.

Wyoming Renegades is a straight-forward, B-western.  The plot is nothing special but Philip Carey and Douglas Kennedy both give good Western performances and Gene Evans is memorably evil as Butch Cassidy.  For those who only know the characters as Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s performances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the most interesting thing about Wyoming Renegades will be seeing Cassidy and Sundance portrayed as being sadistic and humorless villains.  The truth about Cassidy and his gang is probably somewhere in-between the fun-loving rogues played by Newman and Redford and the unforgiving bastards presented in Wyoming Renegades.  In reality, it’s said that Butch Cassidy always tried to avoid killing people while Sundance rarely hesitated to draw his gun and start firing.

As for Wyoming Renegades, the ending does feature an unexpected twist, with Nancy proving herself to be more than just a docile love interest.  Fans of classic television will want to keep an eye out for a young Aaron Spelling, playing a loathsome outlaw named Petie Carver.

Jack McCall, Desperado (1953, directed by Sidney Saklow)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On August 2nd, 1876, the legendary western lawman “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota Territory.  His murderer, who shot Hickok in the back, was Jack McCall.  McCall was known for being a local drunk and it is believed he shot Hickok because he had lost money to him in a previous game.  After shooting Hickok, McCall attempted to flee but ended up falling off of his horse.  When McCall was put on trial for Hickock’s murder, he clamed that it was revenge for Hickok having murdered his brother in Kansas.  Since no one knew much about McCall’s past, he was acquitted.  (Modern historians believe that McCall grew up in Kentucky and never had a brother.)

Unfortunately, for McCall, it was later determined that the Deadwood courts didn’t have legal authority to try anyone and he was hauled into federal court.  After first claiming that he had been too drunk to remember why he shot Hickok, McCall then claimed that he was actually wasn’t Jack McCall at all and that the wrong man had been arrested.  The judge didn’t believe either one of McCall’s claims and Jack McCall was subsequently hanged on March 1st, 1877.  It’s believed that he was 24 years old.

The life and murder of Wild Bill Hickok has been the subject of many books and films, the majority of which have portrayed Hickok in a heroic light while Jack McCall has typically been portrayed as being a low-life coward.  Jack McCall, Desperado, however, takes the opposite approach.  In this film, George Montgomery plays McCall as being an upstanding hero while Douglas Kennedy portrays Hickok as being a cruel and sociopathic murderer.

Jack McCall, Desperado comes up with a backstory for McCall and Hickok, one that I don’t think has ever been suggested by any of the many books written about Hickok’s life and death.  The movie portrays McCall as being a Southerner who, during the Civil War, joined the Union Army.  Because of his Southern heritage, he is distrusted by most of the other men in his unit.  When a group of rebel spies trick McCall into revealing the location of the Union army’s headquarters, McCall is accused of treason and sentenced to death.  McCall manages to escape but, upon returning to his family’s plantation, he discovers that both his mother and his father have been killed by Hickok and Jack’s cousin, Bat (James Seay).  When McCall discovers that Wild Bill and Bat have headed up to the Deadwood, plotting to swindle the Native Americans out of a gold mine, and that they’re accompanied by a former Confederate who can clear Jack’s name, Jack purses them, intent on getting revenge for his family and justice for himself.

It’s a pretty standard western, one that is notable mostly for its portrayal of Wild Bill Hickok as being a bloodthirsty outlaw.  While Hickok may not have been the hero that he was often made out to be (and let’s not even talk about the reality of Wyatt Earp), he probably wasn’t the mustache-twirling villain that he’s portrayed to be here.  Still, Douglas Kennedy is an effectively dastardly villain and George Montgomery is an adequate hero.  Even if it’s in no way based on fact, the Civil War subplot, with Jack supporting the Union cause despite his Southern heritage, is occasionally interesting.  If you’re already a fan of B-westerns and not a stickler for historical accuracy, Jack McCall, Desperado is a decent enough way to pass the time.

Gun Belt (1953, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Outlaw Matt Ringo (John Dehner) escapes from prison and reunites with his old gang.  Riding out to Tombstone, Matt tracks down his son, Chip (Tab Hunter).  Chip is now living with his uncle, Billy Ringo (George Montgomery).  Billy was once a member of Matt’s gang but he’s gone straight, he’s given up his guns, and he now has a ranch of his own.  Billy tries to keep the naive Chip from idolizing his father but Chip is bored with life on the ranch.  Matt not only works to turn Chip against his uncle but he also frames Billy for a bank robbery.  With the town convinced that Billy has returned to his outlaw ways, Billy has no choice but to reach out to the most honest lawman in town, Wyatt Earp (James Millican).

The most interesting thing about this western is the way that it blends real people, like Wyatt and his brother Virgil (Bruce Cowling), with characters who were obviously fictionalized versions of the participants in the gunfight at the OK Corral.  The Ringos are obviously based on Johnny Ringo who, as anyone who has seen Tombstone has seen you, never went straight in real life.  Meanwhile, the head of the gang is named Ike Clinton.  Did someone misspell Ike Clanton’s name while writing the script or was the name really changed for some unknown reason?  Ike Clanton wasn’t around to sue over the way he was portrayed in the movie.

Beyond the mix of a little truth with a lot of fiction, Gun Belt is a traditional western with bad outlaws and upstanding lawmen and a naive cowpoke who has to decide whether he wants to follow the path of good or evil.  George Montgomery has the right presence to be a believable as both a retired outlaw and rancher and James Millican brings quiet authority to the film’s version of Wyatt Earp.  Western fans will be happy to see Jack Elam in the role of one of the gang members.  The only really false note is provided by Tab Hunter, who comes across as very young and very callow and not believable at all as someone who could work on a ranch or successfully pursue a career as a professional lawbreaker.

Seven years after it was released, Gun Belt was remade as Five Guns To Tombstone.

Horror Film Review: Invaders From Mars (dir by William Cameron Menzies)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The aliens have arrived!  They landed one night in the middle of a thunderstorm and now, they’re hiding underground in a sandpit.  Only David McClean (Jimmy Hunt) was awake to witness their arrival.  He was supposed to be asleep but who could sleep through all that thunder and lightning?  (Not to mention the sound of the flying saucer!)  Unfortunately, no one’s going to believe David because he’s only 12 years old!

That’s the premise at the heart of Invaders from Mars, a nicely surreal science fiction film from 1953.

In order to humor David, a few people do go to the sandpit to look for this supposed UFO.  They include his scientist father (Leif Erickson) and a few local cops.  They all return saying that they found nothing.  They also all return in a really bad mood.  David’s formerly loving and humorous father is suddenly distant and rather grumpy.  And he no longer speaks like himself.  Instead, he is now rigidly formal, like someone still getting used to speaking a new language.  Maybe it has something to do with the strange mark on the back of his neck….

David goes into town and soon discovers that several townspeople are acting just like his father.  It’s almost as if something is controlling them!  Well, what else can David do but go to the local observatory and get the U.S. Army involved!?

Invaders from Mars may be disguised as a children’s film about a flying saucer but it actually deals with some very adult issues.  What do you do when you know that you’re right but no one is willing to listen to you?  Do you stubbornly cling to what you believe or do you just become a mindless and unquestioning zombie like everyone else?  Do you remain independent or do you get the mark on your neck?  Of course, it should also be pointed out that Invaders From Mars was made at a time when people were very much worried that America was being invaded from within by communists and subversives, all of whom would rob Americans of their individual freedoms just as surely as the aliens in David’s town.  Invaders From Mars came out two years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers but they both deal with very similar issues.

What sets Invaders From Mars apart is that it’s told from a child’s point of view.  It plays out like a nightmarish fairy tale.  The film was directed by the famous production designer, William Cameron Menzies and he gives the entire film a nicely surreal look.  The town is just a little bit too perfect while the inside of the spaceship is a maze of corridors, all overseen by a ranting head in a crystal ball.

The film’s ending was probably chilling to audiences in 1953.  For modern audiences, it’s a bit of groan-inducing cliché.  Still, the ending itself makes sense when viewed in the context of the entire film.  (It’s literally the only ending that makes sense.)  Still, ending aside, Invaders From Mars is a classic sci-fi film and one well worth watching this Halloween season.

 

Halloween Havoc!: THE AMAZING TRANPARENT MAN (MCP 1960)

Posted on by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Director Edgar G. Ulmer made some astounding contributions to the horror/sci-fi genres: THE BLACK CAT, BLUEBEARD, THE MAN FROM PLANET X . Unfortunately, THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN isn’t among them. The below-low budget movie (shot on location in Dallas simultaneously with BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER) tries to throw too many things at the wall, and nothing really sticks, thanks to a weak script and short 57 minutes running time.

Ulmer does show flourishes of his brilliance in the opening scene, where safecracker Joe Faust breaks out of prison, is chased by hounds through the woods, and is met by a woman who drives him to a deserted looking, isolated farmhouse. But by this time, he had been beaten down from years of Poverty Row work with little to no recognition, and you can tell Ulmer just took the money and ran with this one.

The woman is Laura Matson, one of a nest of spies led…

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B-Girls and B-Movies: CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL (United Artists 1957)

Posted on by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL is just a routine ‘B’ crime drama, one of many churned out in the 50’s. Yet the performances of stars Brian Keith , Beverly Garland , and an above-average supporting cast helped elevate the by-the-numbers material into something watchable. It’s those Familiar Faces we all know and love from countless movies that made CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL work for me.

The story revolves around racketeers muscling in on the Worker’s National Union so they can bring their “numbers rackets and ‘B’ girls” to the city. Politically ambitious State’s Attorney Jim Fremont is dead set on busting them up, and when the union’s treasurer is murdered, the finger of suspicion is pointed at honest Union President Artie Blane. Blane’s been framed by his rival, VP Ken Harrison, who takes his orders from “disbarred attorney” Alan Dixon, “one of the masterminds of the old Capone gang”. Blane is brought to trial and, thanks to some chicanery by an “old derelict” with the…

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Cleaning Out The DVR #16: Johnny Belinda (dir by Jean Negulesco)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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Continuing my effort to watch 38 films in 10 days (and, as of today, I only have 6 days left!), I spent part of last night watching the 1948 film Johnny Belinda.

Johnny Belinda takes place in Canada, on Cape Breton Island.  The residents of the island are a hearty, no-nonsense group of people.  They work hard, they don’t play hard because they never play, they farm, and they don’t have much use for outsiders.  When a new doctor, Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres), arrives on the island, he has to work hard to earn their trust.

Dr. Richardson is fascinated by Belinda McDonald (Jane Wyman), a young woman who is deaf and mute.  Belinda lives on a farm with her father (Charles Bickford) and her aunt (Agnes Moorehead).  Everyone in the community assumes that Belinda is a simple-minded and, because her mother died giving birth to her, she is resented by her father.  Only Dr. Richardson believes that Belinda is in any way intelligent and, over her father’s objections, he teaches Belinda sign language.

Dr. Richardson’s secretary, Stella (Jan Sterling), falls in love with him and grows angry when it becomes apparent that he’s more interested in taking care of Belinda than pursuing an adulterous romance with Stella.  Meanwhile, Stella’s husband, a viscous alcoholic named Locky (Stephen McNally), gets drunk and rapes Belinda.  9 months later, when Belinda gives birth to a boy that she names Johnny, everyone assumes that Dr. Richardson is the father.  Soon, both Richardson and the McDonald family are being shunned by the judgmental community.

Locky, meanwhile, is determined to keep anyone from finding out about his crime, to the extent that he’s willing to commit murder.  Both Locky and Stella are determined to take Johnny away from Belinda and it all eventually leads to further tragedy and, somewhat inevitably, a dramatic murder trial.

Much like Random Harvest, Johnny Belinda is another film that I could imagine being remade for Lifetime.  It’s a well-made melodrama that appeals to all of the emotions and features a cast of talented actors doing good work playing characters that are probably just a bit too familiar.  In fact, there’s really not a single moment of Johnny Belinda that will take you by surprise but, despite that, the film still works.  Jane Wyman does such a good job playing the silent Belinda that it makes the entire movie worth watching.  (It’s interesting to contrast Wyman’s innocent, vulnerable, and sympathetic performance here with her far more severe work in The Yearling.)  Reportedly, Wyman devoted so much time and effort to her performance that it was cited as a reason for her divorce from future President Ronald Reagan.  For Johnny Belinda, Wyman lost the chance to be first lady but she did win an Oscar.

(And, for the record, Wyman voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984, saying that it wasn’t often that you got to vote for your ex-husband.)

Johnny Belinda was nominated for best picture of the year and, with 10 nominations, it was the most nominated film of 1947.  Though it won an Osar for Wyman, it lost best picture to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.