Hellcats of the Navy (1957, directed by Nathan Juran)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

At the height of World War II, Commander Casey Abbott (Ronald Reagan) breaks up with nurse Helen Blair (Nancy Davis, the future first lady) and takes command of a submarine that has been tasked with mapping out Japanese mine fields. Abbott struggles at first with commanding his submarine. After a popular diver — and Helen’s new boyfriend — is killed during a mission, much of the crew holds Abbott responsible. While Abbott is able to win back the respect of the crew, he still struggles with his second-in-command, Don Landon (Arthur Franz). Landon wants to command his own submarine but when Abbott gives him a negative recommendation, Landon is forced to consider his past actions. Landon eventually discovers just how difficult it is to be in charge.

Full of stock footage and chintzy special effects, Hellcats of the Navy was the movie that Ronald Reagan considered to be so bad that it led to him retiring from feature films and devoting himself to mastering the emerging medium of television. Gene Hackman had his Welcome To Mooseport. Ronald Reagan had his Hellcats of the Navy. It’s definitely on the cheap and predictable side but, when I watched it earlier today, I discovered it wasn’t as bad as I had heard. Reagan actually gives a pretty good performance as Abbott and the film does show that even a good commander will make mistakes. The main problem is that it’s just not a very exciting film and a good deal of the undersea footage was clumsily lifted from other movies.

Hellcats of the Navy was the one movie that co-starred both Ronnie and Nancy and it’s worth watching for curiosity’s sake. Nancy isn’t in much of the movie and it’s really a role that anyone could have played. There’s not a lot of romantic chemistry between Ronnie and Nancy, they’re both too reserved for that. This film still shows the likability and the natural authority that led to Ronald Reagan launching a second career in politics.

Just think, if Hellcats of the Navy had been a better movie, the past 45 years might have been very different.

30 More Days of Noir #10: Death in Small Doses (dir by Joseph M. Newman)

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, speed.

I have to admit that I always find films about amphetamines to be fascinating because I take them for my ADD. I’ve been taking Dexedrine since I was in middle school and it has always amused me how people who don’t have ADD seem to think that the meds will give you super powers. For instance, every season of Big Brother, there’s people online who get outraged over certain houseguests taking Adderall. “She had an unfair advantage!” someone will say, “Because she’s taking Adderall!” What can I say? People who don’t have ADD just don’t get it. Yes, if you have ADD, the meds can help you focus but it’s not like they’re going to give you any sort of special power that’s not available to any other person.

(I will admit that there is a slight difference between me on my meds and me off my meds. Actually, my family says that there’s a huge difference but I think they’re exaggerating. It is true that I’m a lot more focused when I take my Dexedrine. My mind wanders a bit less than usual and I’m also usually in better control of my frustrations. When I take my meds, I can finish any project. When I don’t take them, I can talk about finishing any project.)

Dexedrine focuses me but apparently, it does the opposite for those who don’t have ADD. The 1957 film, Death in Small Doses, features a truck driver named Mink Reynolds who, despite not having ADD, pops too many capsules and ends up playing really loud music and trying to force a waitress to dance with him. He also hallucinates seeing a car and then grabs a knife and tries to kill another truck driver. To be honest, that seems a bit extreme to me. In fact, I’d almost argue that Mink’s behavior would indicate that the filmmakers really didn’t know much about amphetamines. Making things even stranger is that Mink is played by Chuck Connors, who was a remarkably inexpressive actor. Watching Connors, with his stone face, trying to dance and jump around is an interesting experience. Mink is supposed to be a jazz-crazed, speed-abusing hepcat but instead, he comes across like an animatronic mannequin. You can almost hear the gears shifting whenever he has to move across the screen.

Mink’s fellow truck driver is Tom Kaylor (Peter Graves), a seemingly upright man who is usually seen wearing a tie and who looks like he would be more comfortable working behind a desk than driving a truck. Of course, that’s because Tom is actually an FBI agent! He’s working undercover, pretending to be a truck driver so that he can smash a ring of drug dealers! Of course, the problem here is that everything about Peter Graves’s screen presence shouts out, “Narc!” With his square jaw and his perfect haircut and his stiff but authoritative delivery of his dialogue, he seems like he was created in a lab that specifically set out to develop the most stereotypical FBI agent imaginable. There’s not a single rough edge to him and it’s hard to buy that the other truck drivers wouldn’t see straight through him.

While Tom tries to bust the ring, he also finds time to possibly fall in love with two different women, both of whom seem as if they might know more than they’re letting on. Amy (Merry Anders) is the waitress who has developed a drug habit of her own. Val (Mala Powers) owns the boarding house when Tom and Mink live. Can Tom trust either one of them? And will Tom not only undercover the identity of the head of the drug ring but also survive long enough to bring the dealers to justice?

So, here’s the thing. During its worst moments — i.e., whenever Chuck Connors is jumping all over the place and talking about how much he loves his friend “benny” — this is a campy and rather silly film that makes Reefer Madness look subtle by comparison. However, during its best moments, this is a tough and entertaining noir that features good performances from Merry Anders and Mala Powers. Both Anders and Powers manage to transcend the film’s sillier moments and they actually bring a charge of reality to the story. And while director Joseph M. Newman may not have known much about drugs, he did know how to shoot a fight scene. Making good use of its desolate locations (the truck drivers spend a lot of time driving through the desert) and setting many of the film’s best moments at night, Newman overcomes some of the script’s weaker moments. In the end, it makes for a rather uneven but entertaining viewing experience. Despite the film’s cluelessness about drugs and the miscasting of both Graves and Connors, this lesser-known noir is worth tracking down.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #22: The Cry Baby Killer (dir by Joe Addis)

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

That’s Jack Nicholson with the gun.

Two years ago, there was a rumor that Jack Nicholson had announced his retirement from acting because he was starting to suffer from memory loss. Even though Nicholson’s people later claimed that this was false and that Jack was actively reading scripts, that rumor still left me feeling very depressed. Jack Nicholson is such an iconic actor that it’s difficult to think that there will be a time when he’ll no longer be arching his eyebrows and delivering sarcastic dialogue in that signature voice of his. When you look at a list of his films, you find yourself looking at some of the best and most memorable films ever made. Chinatown, The Shining, The Departed, The Shooting, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Nicholson has appeared in some truly great films.

But every actor, no matter how iconic he may be, had to start somewhere. For Jack Nicholson, that somewhere was the 1958 Roger Corman-produced film, The Cry Baby Killer. The good news is that the 21 year-old Nicholson starred in his very first film. The bad news is that there’s absolutely nothing about Jack’s performance that would give you any reason to believe that he would eventually become one of the best known and most-honored actors of all time. It’s not that Jack gives a bad performance. In fact, it’s somewhat disappointing that Jack doesn’t do a terrible job in the role. When you’re seeing the obscure film debut of a cinematic icon, you always hope that the first performance will either be amazingly good, shockingly bad, or just embarrassingly inappropriate. But, in Jack’s case, he’s neither good nor bad and he doesn’t really embarrass himself. Instead, he’s just bland.

Yes, you read that right.

Jack “HEEEEEEEEEERE’S JOHNNNNNNNY!” Nicholson was bland in his debut film.

As for the film itself, Jack plays Jimmy. We’re told that Jimmy is 17 years-old and he’s still in high school. (Since Jack Nicholson’s hairline was already receding at 21, we automatically have a difficult believing him in the role of Jimmy.) Jimmy’s a good kid but he’s kind of stupid. Also, his ex-girlfriend Carole (Carolyn Mitchell) is now dating an 18 year-old gangster named Manny Cole (played by Brett Halsey, who would later have a prolific career in Italian exploitation films as well as appearing in The Godfather, Part III). Jimmy confronts Manny. Manny has two of his thugs beat up Jimmy. Jimmy grabs a gun off a thug and shoots someone. Scared of going to jail, Jimmy runs into a store and takes three hostages — a stocker and a young mother with a baby.

The rest of the 70-minute film consists of an understanding policeman (Harry Lauter) trying to convince Jimmy to surrender while the crowd of reporters and observes outside the store hope for a violent confrontation. The film does make a still-relevant point about how the media exploits the potential for tragedy but, for the most part, it’s pretty forgettable.

As I stated above, Jack is adequate but forgettable. If I had seen this movie when it first came out in 1958, I would have expected handsome and charismatic Brett Halsey to become a huge star while I would have predicted that Nicholson would spend the rest of his career in television.

However, we all know that didn’t happen. Jack Nicholson became an icon. Sadly, Jack hasn’t appeared in a film since 2010. Hopefully, he’ll give us at least one more great performance. Who knows? Maybe some aspiring screenwriter will write as script for Cry Baby Killer 2: Jimmy’s Revenge.

It could happen.