Woman They Almost Lynched (1953, directed by Allan Dwan)

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

At the height of the Civil War, the small town of Border City, Missouri has declared itself to be neutral ground. Mayor Delilah Courtney (Nina Varela) announces that anyone who enters her town looking to recruit for either the Union or the Confederacy will be arrested and will face the possibility of being hung from the noose in the middle of Main Street.

That doesn’t stop Charles Quantrill (Brian Donlevy) from coming to town. Quantrill is a former Confederate officer who now terrorizes the Arkansas/Missouri border with his gang of thieves. Accompanying Quantrill is his wife, Kate (Audrey Totter), who once lived in Border City and who still enjoys singing a song at the saloon.

Another new arrival is Sally Maris (Joan Leslie), who comes down from Michigan to help her no-account account, Bitterroot Bill (Reed Hadley), run his saloon. Sally attempts to bring some order to the rowdy saloon, which makes an enemy out of Kate. When Bill is killed in a gunfight, Sally takes over the saloon and soon, she is being challenged first to a fight and then to an actual duel by Kate. With the disapproving Mayor Courtney watching all of the action from her office, it is obvious that one of the women is eventually going to be taken to the noose in the middle of the street but which one?

This is one of the best of the many B-westerns that Allan Dwan directed in the 1950s. Though much of the emphasis is on the usual western action — Quantrill wants to take over a mine, there’s a Confederate spy in town, and both Frank and Jesse James appear as supporting characters — the film is really about the rivalry and eventual partnership between a group of strong-willed woman who aren’t going to let anyone tell them how to live their lives. As tough as Kate is, Sally proves to be stronger than she looks and, in the end, they realize that they are stronger working together for a common goal than trying to tear each other down. Audrey Totter and Joan Leslie both give sexy and tough performances as Kate and Sally. They’re equally believable hanging out in a saloon, flirting with a cowboy, or drawing guns on each other in the middle of the street.

Along with taking a strong stand against vigilante justice, Woman They Almost Lynched features an exciting stage coach robbery, an intriguing story, and two very interesting lead characters. It’s a western that deserves to be better known.

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

Posted on October 15, 2023 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.

30 More Days Of Noir #12: No Man’s Woman (dir by Franklin Adreon)

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1955 film tells the story of a murder.

When we first meet Carolyn Elleson Grant (Marie Windsor), she refuses to give her husband, Harlow Grant (John Archer) a divorce, despite the fact that they’ve been separated for several years and Harlow now wants to marry Louise Nelson (Nancy Gates) and Carolyn is now involved with an art critic named Wayne Vincent (Patrick Knowles). Carolyn only married Harlow for his money and, while she has other rich lovers, she just enjoys making Harlow’s life as difficult as possible. It’s hard to blame her because Harlow is kind of whiny.

However, Carolyn has grown bored with Wayne Vincent and she’s now decided that she would rather get involved with Dick Sawyer (Richard Crane), who is rich and owns a boat. However, Dick is engaged to Carolyn’s personal assistant, Betty (Jill Jarmyn). Carolyn thinks it would be perfectly amusing to not only seduce Dick but to also destroy Betty’s happiness.

Why?

As one character put it, Carolyn is “a witch!”

(Someone then adds that Carolyn is a word that “rhymes” with witch. They don’t actually say the word because this film was made in 1955 but still….)

With Carolyn casually trying to destroy everyone’s lives and happiness, is it really a shock when some unseen person shows up at her art studio late at night and shoots her?

With Carolyn dead, it falls to Detectives Colton (Louis Jean Heydt) and Wells (John Gallaudet) to figure out the identity of the murder. They immediately suspect that it had to have been Harlow Grant. Not only does he have the motive and the opportunity but his name is Harlow Grant and I defy you to find anyone named Harlow Grant who hasn’t subsequently turned out to be involved in something shady. Harlow, however, insists that he’s innocent and the investigation is about to get a lot more complicated….

Well, okay, maybe not a lot more complicated. To be honest, it’s really not that difficult to figure out who the murderer actually is No Man’s Woman but that’s okay. The investigation itself only takes the last third of this 70-minute film. No Man’s Woman is a like a low-budget version of Gosford Park. The murder is less important than all of the drama surrounding it.

And make no mistake, there’s a lot of drama! This is a fun movie, specifically because Carolyn is such a wonderfully evil character and Marie Windsor has so much fun playing her. Carolyn doesn’t really have any deep motivation for why she does the terrible things that she does. She just does them because she can and she believes that she can get away with it. A good deal of the film’s entertainment comes from just seeing how bad Carolyn can be. In fact, you’re a bit disappointed when she’s murdered because Carolyn is the most enjoyable character in the movie. She’s someone who is literally willing to do and say anything and she makes an apologies for her actions. You wouldn’t necessarily want to work with her but she’s fun to watch.

The rest of the cast is adequate. John Archer and Nancy Gates are a bit on the dull side as the “good” characters but I liked the performances of the other suspects. Richard Crane and Jill Jarmyn, in particular, are memorable as Dick and Betty. I loved how going out on someone’s boat was apparently the height of decadence in 1955.

No Man’s Woman is an entertaining mix of noir and soap opera. Find it on Prime!

30 Days of Noir #26: Behind Green Lights (dir by Otto Brower)

Posted on November 26, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1946 film, Behind Green Lights, takes over the course of one night at one police station.

When tough-but-fair Police Lt. Sam Carson (William Gargan) shows up for work, he discovers that a car has been haphazardly parked in front of the station. Inside the car is bullet-ridden body of Walter Bard, a somewhat notorious private investigator. If the brazenness of the crime wasn’t already enough to indicate that there’s more going on here than just a detective following the wrong lead, it is soon discovered that Bard was acquainted with Janet Bradley (Carole Landis), the daughter of a reform-minded mayoral candidate. As Janet explains it to Lt. Carson, Bard was blackmailing a friend of hers. Janet admits that she had a gun with her the last time that she saw Bard but she swears that she didn’t murder him.

Corrupt newspaper publisher Max Calvert (Roy Roberts) views Janet’s father as being a potential rival and he immediately starts to pressure Lt. Carson to make an arrest in the case. Not convinced of Janet’s guilt, Carson refuses. Meanwhile, the crooked coroner (Don Beddoe) comes across evidence that could change the entire case but, as a favor to Calvert, tries to cover it up….

But that’s not all. It’s a very busy night at the precinct. Not only does Carson have to deal with the murder and all of the political fallout, he also has to deal with an escapes prisoner and a collection of snarky crime reports who spend all of their hanging out at the station house and waiting for a big story to drop.

Largely set in one location and featuring a cast made up of fast-talking, quick-witted cynics, Behind Green Lights sometimes feel more like a play than a film. (One could easily imagine it taking place in the same cinematic universe as The Front Page. Call it the MacArthur/Hecht Cinematic Universe, or MHCU for short.) Though the film only has a running time of 64 minutes, it manages to pack a lot of twists and turns into that hour. For the most part, it all works. The mystery is intriguing, the cast is made up of properly tough character actors, and the tragic Carole Landis is well-cast as a character who could be an innocent victim or a dangerous femme fatale. The film and her performance will keep you guessing. (It has been written that Landis, a talented actress who never quite got the roles that roles that she deserved, was heart-broken when Rex Harrison refused to divorce his wife and marry her. Two years after the release of Behind Green Lights, she was found dead at the age of 29. The official ruling was suicide, though members of Landis’s family dispute that.)

Behind Green Lights may be a minor noir but it’s still an entertaining one. And it can be viewed for free on YouTube! Just remember, when doing an online search, that the film is called Behind Green Lights and not Behind the Green Door. Don’t make the same mistake that I did!

Halloween Havoc!: THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (United Artists 1953)

Posted on October 16, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

I’ve seen a lot of horror movies. All the Universal classics, Hammer horrors, big budget, low budget, no-budget, you name it. THE NEANDERTHAL MAN is without a doubt one of the worst I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good. It’s just so-bad-it’s-bad.

This totally unlikeable turkey involves a mad scientist whose experiments in evolution lead him to create a serum that devolves species. After success with turning a cat into a saber-toothed tiger (via stock footage and some really bad fake tusks), Professor Groves injects himself with the stuff and becomes Neanderthal Man. The prof goes on a pretty tame killing spree before getting his inevitable comeuppance. In a part that begs for John Carradine (or better yet, Bela Lugosi!), we get Robert Shayne of TV’s THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN fame. The erstwhile Inspector Henderson is all over the place, overacting in some spots, underacting in others. Whereas a…

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