NO ESCAPE (1953)

A limited-budget movie with opening narration is sometimes a clear signal the film is going to stall out somewhere along the way, not sustaining its “docudrama” setup. There is no escaping that reality here where escape has a double meaning. One, of having all roads out of the city blocked by police for any fleeing fugitive, and the other, trying to escape a homicide rap. This is a rare crime B-movie where none of the principles die. There is a lot of faking in this film, from dubbed singing to a rooftop escape that looks particularly manufactured. One might relish the scenes of vintage San Francisco but only if you grew up there.

The film starts off fairly optimistically thanks to Lew Ayres with a likable performance well suited some five years later for a young Jack Lemmon, perhaps. He appears to be a flippant, carefree songwriter who is eking out a living playing piano at a nightclub. Actually, he cannot get his composing mojo back and wallows in self-doubt and drink. His dubbed vocals are way off the believability chart, to say nothing of the piano “playing” before his hands get near the keyboard.

Marjorie Steele, the girlfriend of Sonny Tufts, is adequate in her role. Her trumpeted, curling upper lip when talking is annoying as if she continued as a thumb sucker through sixth grade. But I digress. While chatting with Ayres in the nightclub, she is whisked away by a wealthy James Griffith, in possibly his briefest role ever. A quarrel later ensues with a lamp base going to Griffith's head. All of which is assumed but never filmed. Learning of his death, she fears she killed him and then becomes an over-the-top bundle of nerves, jumping three feet whenever a phone rings. Ayres later stumbles into Griffith's apartment to return the “pity cash” he received from Griffith in the nightclub. He leaves enough fingerprints to incriminate himself. It eventually occurs to Ayres that she only knocked out Griffith with someone else returning for the kill.

Tufts as a trained policeman seems a stretch, as one gets the feeling he will go into a jealous, maniacal rage at any moment. Slightly unstable roles like this seemed to be more the norm for him in the Fifties as his career self-destructed. But I digress again. Tufts would prefer to pin the crime on Ayres but Steele feels guilty about that. She helps Ayres escape—without leaving town—but there is no escaping the mundane sections throughout this film which are not integral to the plot and make it seem a lot longer than seventy-six minutes. There are a few clever close calls or two but hardly worth mentioning. In a moment to catch their breath, Steele pointedly challenges Ayres to snap out of it and return to being the composer he once was. In the end, he sees a fresh horizon with a newly written song and encouragement from his new girl.

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1969)

Former CIA spy, Adam West, with the cheesy name of Johnny Cain, spends his retirement running a nightclub and is reluctant to leave his comfortable lifestyle. But the CIA's David Brian needs him more than ever. A committee ironically known as W.E.S.T. also wants his services. There is a big build-up of his credentials as if they are expecting to hire Rambo. But one gets the feeling West is about as menacing as Woody Allen.

West's job is to find out who murdered a mob kingpin unceremoniously and literally dumped at his nightclub. The killing is an early step by the committee to have the Communists methodically take over the crime syndicate. So West is out to bring down W.E.S.T. We find him bouncing from one co-star to another to solve the crime and stay alive. Location filming normally helps these spy movies and that is one redeeming quality. Yet in all this excitement, quoting Dirty Harry, West remains quite comatose. A character that is so laid back he simply appears to be lacking sleep most of the time. But what a tan!

The film gets no lively help from deadpan co-star, Nancy Kwan, either. Bland Kwan relies on her attractiveness to the end. So it is up to Buddy Greco's performances to resuscitate the film, doing what he did best in this, the first of his two films. Do not prepare a lot of popcorn for a Buddy Greco Film Festival. Always available and dependable, Nehemiah Persoff, hangs in there throughout the film as the police lieutenant and West's part-time protection.

The film is perhaps better titled, “The Film That Blew Too Much.” For a supposed secret agent spy yarn, it is bogged down by a lack of action, a lot of talk and a convoluted plot, and a tiresome script. The opening music reminds one of the typical Sixties beach party films. The score gets more appropriately “007ish” as the credits roll, however. The music editors blew it, though, with some repetitious themes with no benefits to the action. None worse than when our hero is walking through the inside of an airliner while a burping brass score sounds as if the players were sight-reading. Funny, wobbly, if not out of tune. The choreographed scuffles using obvious stuntmen and paper furniture keeps the realism dangerously low. Of note is the one-off Concours USA Mark 1 sports car (above). Designed and developed as his own idea of what a sports car should be by television and screen actor Dean "Steve Canyon" Fredericks, it is Johnny Cain's vehicle of choice. I am suspicious, however, of a possible faked high-performance engine sound effects that may have been mandatory coming a year after Bullitt. Especially at the turtle pace driven by West. Also of note (literally) are the gunshot sound effects. They are impressive in a film where everyone apparently carries a .44 Magnum.

Note: Despite fawning “Batman” fans, Adam West simply does not sell the role in this supposed career upgrade. He never completely leaves Bruce Wayne behind. West fans will probably love it for that very reason. Being filmed in color could be its most noteworthy quality. If filmed in grainy black and white, it would be another B-movie, albeit R-rated. The film may not rank as the worst-budgeted film of 1969 but it still ranks.

DANGEROUS MISSION (1954)

There is no faulting the cast of this colorful B-movie with A-list actors produced by RKO Radio Pictures. Outside of these stars, its main claim to fame might be an early effort by disaster film giant, Irwin Allen. The other fame claim is its use of 3D processing which may have elicited a few oohs and ahhs. In whatever dimension it is not hard to recognize the early Fifties RKO touches. Back-projected scenes and less than realistic special effects. It would appear most of the money was doled out for the cast. Which was a wise move. At the peak of his career, Victor Mature gets top billing, followed by Piper Laurie, William Bendix and RKO's go-to man, Vincent Price.

While working in New York City, Laurie stumbles upon the murder of a mobster. She hits the rails to Chicago, and I assume transfers onto the Great Northern Railway's “Empire Builder” and gets a job at the Glacier National Park gift shop. Who could possibly find her there? Mature, for one, who descends rather quickly after her arrival. His suave demeanor, pants with no rear pockets, and those wonderful eyebrows are attractive to Laurie. She is also fond of Price, who is doing his best impression of a sincere amateur photographer. He arrived before Mature and has already established a budding relationship with Laurie. Both are gentlemen as each trade date nights with fairness and civility. Her dangerous mission is to stay alive until the end of the film as the authorities want her to testify. Never mind the silly subplot involving Price's ever-fawning Indian maiden, Betta St. John, who is evidently from the local "naive tribe."

The title is broad in meaning. Though there is really only one character who fits the title best, the dangerous moments do present some interruptions. All of which have more to do with the producer's plan than the plot. Like so many current movies or television dramas, Irwin Allen assumes the viewer has the attention span of a gnat. There is an avalanche during a party in the mountains. A party essentially intended to further introduce characters to square dancing. The crushing avalanche brings down a power line. Mature does not hesitate to climb one utility pole to curtail a dangerous live wire in the likes of Angus MacGyver. He did this frequently as a Marine. Apparently. Then there is a forest fire in which untrained civilians, Mature and Price, are forced into fighting by a stuffed uniformed ranger, Bendix. Though not particularly dangerous, there is a frame-eating Indian ceremony to perhaps capture Montana's heritage or bump up tourism for the coming summer.

Note: The opening and early scenes set the viewer up for a potential crowd-pleaser. The cast is entirely responsible for this potential, though I found Laurie rather one-dimensional and bland. Overall, the movie's pacing is good at holding your attention thanks to the "hair-raising" sequences. Outside of these scenes, it is a routine adventure/drama. The ending, amid sets with glacier paint and studio lighting, brings few surprises though it is fairly exciting with hidden, snow-covered, crevasses. By this point most viewers had already chosen the cast member they hoped would not survive a fall into an icy abyss.