THE CAT BURGLAR (1961)

This sixty-five-minute film opens with night moves by a petty thief, Jack Hogan, climbing on balconies and roofs in his cat burglar apparel, a black sweatshirt, and a flat cap. The film feels promising with an opening title theme by Buddy Bregman. The jazz score is cool in the beginning yet becomes stale as the movie progresses with the same riff repeated over and over. Hogan shines in the last of his short film career as the burglar, giving the distinct impression that his delivery style is that of James Caan. When his character audibly shares his inner thoughts his vocals pull it off with a natural flair. The location shooting helps bolster the limited budget. The story, written by Leo Gordon, prolific television actor, screenwriter, novelist, and all-around burly guy, has a subplot that I did not see coming so some kudos are in order for this. But expect the usual awkward scenes which have now become amusing. Beyond Hogan's excellent performance, the others do a decent job, except for June Kenney, whose untrained voice and stage presence hurts her performance. Admittedly, Greg Palmer is a bit over-the-top.

Hogan steals a briefcase from Kenney’s apartment hoping to find something of value. His usual pattern is to fence his take at a local pawn shop run by Gene Roth. Roth is effective here as the cigar-smoking owner with an annoying cough. Hogan’s contents are not of much value except for a notebook he thought worthless. He leaves that behind in his trash can.

Kenny, the unsuspecting briefcase courier, tells her boss/boyfriend, John Baer, about the theft and his only concern is that notebook. Without telling the viewer how, Kenny manages to locate a rotund, unkempt man in a sleazy apartment complex. He is downtown’s official informant and takes her to the pawnshop. After telling her story, Roth knows to contact the cat burglar. After paying Hogan for the briefcase contents, Roth returns the briefcase back to Kenny. Baer is not amused that the notebook is still missing and verbally assaults Roth assuming he knows where it is.

Greedy mastermind, Palmer, (below) learns of the missing case and questions his partner, Baer. In surprisingly low camera angles, we have a detailed view of his waistline and trouser cut as he comes down on Baer’s recklessness in commanding form. It demands we see his face. But the cameraman cannot find Palmer’s face in his viewfinder. When we hear Palmer’s threatening words as he thrusts a newspaper’s damaging headline at Baer, it is immediately followed by six descending notes of doom from a trombone, da-da-dum, da-da-dum. It is the funniest element in the film and is repeated often when expected. The very same quintessential notes of doom used for years in many comedy skit parodies.

Before dumping the notebook, Hogan tore out a couple pages to level his teetering dresser which his motel owner refuses to fix until he pays his rent. He arranges to get the notebook back to Kenney after a rather ambitious plan for a guy who calls himself a “crumb.” He painstakingly writes out several fake pages to fill out the notebook and get a fast hundred-dollar reward.

Baer meets with Palmer who is enraged by the pages of gibberish in the notebook. No engineering plans for a new ICBM propulsion unit he expects to trade on the black market. Suddenly, the national security subplot. They immediately head for Hogan’s motel room and Palmer’s muscle gives Hogan a thorough beating. But the thug is not quite comfortable enough. Wanting to get down to business, he takes his suit coat off, slowly rolls up his sleeves, and intends to finish him off before Palmer tells him to stop. With this vicious beating, Hogan realizes that the notebook must have a high value.

Kenney, assuming the benefit of the doubt, tells Baer that Hogan thinks he is involved in espionage. Da-da-dum! Da-da-dum! With lies spewing left and right, she soon finds that Palmer is not a police lieutenant, either. Hogan is waiting in a warehouse full of empty, blank boxes. As the last to enter the warehouse, Palmer releases Baer of any future scenes and seriously wounds Hogan. At the clichéd elevated position, he and Palmer struggle, both stuntmen falling onto the aforementioned empty boxes to break their fall. Both die from severe paper cuts. Blood everywhere. Perhaps. You will have to watch it yourself.

Note: Billie Bird, the daffy Mrs. Prattle, is the motel owner. She insists everyone pronounce it Praytel. The Praytel Motel does have a ring to it. Comically, she grumbles about being interrupted in the middle of nothing important. Drag racing legend, Tommy Ivo, plays her somewhat dimwitted son who garners some unintended laughs with his weak performance.

JET OVER THE ATLANTIC (1959)

With obvious roots in The High and The Mighty, this B-movie uses the first few notes of that film's main theme. Not exciting enough to be a thriller, the film does fall into the disaster category. The script perforations are numerous and the only storyline of importance is whether Guy Madison will be arrested by FBI agent, George Raft, who resembles Inspector Gadget in the opening sequence.

George McCready plays a wealthy deranged man who feels responsible for his young daughter’s death. We are not told why. McCready had a distinctive voice, a menacing growl of respectability that sounded like he has not gotten over a massive head cold. He is convinced that killing all the people on the plane, including himself, will make amends. He meets a character before the flight who does his best Peter Lorre impersonation and hands over a wrapped chemical bomb or is it a deli-wrapped ham? As deadly as a five-pound frozen ham can be upside the head, this device triggers a toxic chemical into the cabin to kill the pilots but drowsiness is the only danger to the passengers. Apparently. One asphyxiated pilot informs the passengers of their status in a voice of groggy, unintelligible doom. I suspect not very comforting. Autopilot saves the day.

There are the usual annoying characters onboard. All may remind you of the famous Zucker Brothers' air disaster comedy without the intended humor. There is a wedding for Madison and co-star Virginia Mayo during the flight in a "rear lounge" large enough for a cruise ship. Raft is nearly shot by McCready but Madison saves his life. Gunshots ring out several times while in flight. The script is bound and determined to bring the plane down one way or another. Fortunately, Madison flew 4-engine planes during the war. The airplane's interior studio cockpit has no windows for the pilot yet he still lands the plane safely. We learn that he was framed and having saved everyone on board, Raft has the last words of the film, “Yeah. Quite a guy.” Madison, that is.

This over-long ninety-five-minute film was typically a cornerstone of a double feature. Meaning the bottom. The production team includes director Byron Haskin, noted for the original The War of The Worlds classic, and was produced by Benedict Bogeaus. Distributed by Inter Continent Releasing Organization, Irving H. Cooper is responsible for the screenplay as is the soap opera score by Louis Forbes. Guy Madison bailed out of American films after this flight.

Notes: A pet peeve of mine is the inconsistent editing of airliners in most B-movies. There were other ways to transition a scene without splicing in the wrong airline or aircraft. This film is a prime example. The pilots begin taxing a Bristol Brittania airliner. The pilots are completely unaware that when their plane takes off, it becomes a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. Continuing the poor editing trend, the plane is cruising at altitude but the insertion clip shows the landing gear down. They probably will not have enough fuel to make New York City anyway with all that drag.

The British-built Brittania, the pinnacle of turbo-prop travel, arrived too late to be a success. Jet airliners dominated the market. So the title of this film is out of whack. To be fair, many referred to turbo-props as jet-props in the day. Admittedly, “Turboprop over the Atlantic” does not roll off the tongue and the advertising department could not use “Turbo-prop” in place of “Jet-Hot.”

PITFALL (1948)

Opening in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Dick Powell is an insurance agent who is weary of his predictable life template. He and his wife, Jane Wyatt, trade humorous quips and verbal jabs in the early going as many couples might do. A son completes the family album. When he begins investigating an embezzlement case this typical family man soon changes to a life of secrets and danger and all humor is gradually abandoned. The plot of this B-movie suggests that the average family is not immune to a disruption of marital bliss.

Powell is to recover some expensive gifts given to Lizabeth Scott by her boyfriend embezzler who's serving time in prison. With no particular place to go, they end up spending the day on her speedboat gift which becomes the catalyst for Hank Panky. Powell is in a business suit with a fedora that stays put without chin straps.---the miracle of projected backscreen scenery. For me, Scott falls into the Lauren Bacall category of actresses who are not classic beauties but have a niche appeal. Not sure if it was a speech impediment or she was born with bad dental development, but her lip snarls on her right side and her pronounced “esses” are especially annoying when whispering, resembling someone with a serious overbite. Nothing attractive or sultry about this.

Raymond Burr is cast this time as a private detective working for Powell and the insurance company. True to form, however, one soon learns he is once again a bit psychotic with his obsession over Scott. He wants her all to himself. In probably the largest suit in show business, he tails Powell and pummels him good. Scott wanting to help and knowing Powell’s home address, spots Wyatt at the door from curbside, and yells, "I must have the wrong address." Awkward.

As the day of her jailbird lover's release from prison approaches, Scott fears for her safety. Powell is beginning to see the errors of his ways and longs for the days before he got involved with her. He has had enough of Burr as well and gives him a bit of his own medicine. Burr tells the jealous jailbird about him and he attempts to kill Powell in his darkened study. However, Powell permanently removes any chance of him ever serving additional prison time. Confident all competition has been eliminated, Burr expects Scott to go away with him. Instead, she puts him in the hospital.

Powell gives a full confession to the police department but a tougher confession is forthcoming for Wyatt. She reluctantly gives him a second chance but is not sure their relationship will ever be the same. No definitive outcomes are revealed and those are left to the viewer’s imagination. At best, a shaky happy ending.

VIOLENT SATURDAY (1955)

The early, low-budget Richard Fleischer movies were noted for realism through location shooting and in-car cameras, giving credence to the scripts. Violent Saturday has the realism front covered but this time with a larger budget worthy of the then-popular CinemaScope. Hiring Hugo Friedhofer to do the score settles the issue. From the opening scene of the obligatory bus arrival, Fleischer does not let your attention wander. Cameras weave in, out, up, and down setting up scenes and characters with no loss of continuity. Each bank robber is stationed in pivotal locations of anticipation. All ideal for CinemaScope. It is not without its faults, as a few sequences may generate a few chuckles in the truest soap opera sense. There is at least one illogical scene that thrusts the suspension of disbelief on you. The script involves a myriad of character subplots, not unlike many of today's television dramas. But the film is first-rate.

Speaking of first-rate, Victor Mature gets top billing. An obvious assumption based on his leading roles over the past decade. His supporting cast is equally strong, including up-and-comers, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. Along with stalwarts, J. Carrol Naish and Stephen McNally, are Richard Egan, Sylvia Sidney, and Virginia Leith. They even managed to work in Brad Dexter as his smarmy self.

Tommy Noonan has a creepy subplot as the awkward and emotionally challenged bank manager who moonlights as a voyeur of a nurse, Leith. He peeks into her window at night. He follows her around town to get closer to her. He nearly faints at the drugstore, finding himself in a tight spot exiting, brushing between her and a display rack. It was not meant to be funny in 1955. His character is also married which makes one wonder how that is going. He is wounded on this violent Saturday and Leith is the nurse monitoring him. With a sense of manliness, he confesses his weird behavior to her. She does not give it a second thought. She is actually flattered. What a gal. What an era.

Known for her somewhat wooden acting and with one of the most unfortunate female voices since the silent era, Virginia Leith never made it into the big time. She was attractive but it is hard to describe her occasional goofy voice. When she keeps her volume low, it disguises the real danger when she smiles and talks. Her throat tightens up and all her feminine qualities vanish. Her first greeting to Egan in the drugstore is a prime example. During this era, one would think the producers would have provided some vocal training. That training is not used today as actors and actresses are not associated with any studio demands.

That obligatory bus lets off McNally, the self-proclaimed “traveling salesman.” He is soon joined by two “junior salesmen,” the sadistic nasal inhaler, Marvin, and Naish, appearing to be everyone’s favorite uncle. Naish has been through this routine before and has the presence of mind to keep candy in his suit pocket in case an unruly child in the bank needs to be distracted.

There is a somewhat humorous scene for Marvin. It is a great scene that captures his character. Sometime after McNally has reviewed the bank robbery plans, Marvin is restless. He cannot sleep. He does, however, want to talk about all the women who have messed up his life. He always went for “skinny broads.” Just skin and bones. One wife, in particular, was a record holder for getting colds. Then he would get a cold. Maybe fifty times. That is how he got addicted to nasal inhalers. She left him for a two-bit undertaker. Another character revelation centers on a local boy who accidentally bumps into Marvin, knocking his inhaler to the sidewalk. Uh-oh. As the boy apologizes and attempts to retrieve the inhaler, Marvin grinds the boy’s hand into the concrete with his shoe. He enjoyed it.

McNally fakes a visit to an Amish farm outside town in which Borgnine is the head of the household. Borgnine calls any stranger, “neighbor” and says “thee” and “wouldst thou.” It will be the perfect hideout. McNally later describes him to his partners as “a religious screwball.” McNally is given the customary glass of buttermilk. Nothing more refreshing in the desert! Set in the fictitious town of Bradenville, the southwest Arizona desert seems an unrealistic location for the Amish, given their expertise and dependence on growing and harvesting crops in fertile soil. But it is Borgnine’s magic pitchfork that may explain why the Amish were scripted in.

Mature’s Mercury is what the robbers need and at gunpoint, he is ordered to drive to the Amish farm. Fleischer’s in-car camera goes to work and Friedhofer’s score cranks up the excitement. The final stand-off scene was controversial at the time as the bandits tie up Mature and the Amish family in the barn’s hayloft. Seeing the family lined up with white tape covering their faces is a still bit unsettling as they look less than human. Mature manages to cut the ropes around his wrists and then sets the Amish free—in a nod to Abraham Lincoln. The bandits then position the Mercury in front of the barn doors and with a huge stone over the accelerator, the high-revving engine is remotely shifted into gear with a rake, and the car rams through. They set the car’s gas tank on fire to level the barn. With little fear nor assuming the car might explode, Mature crawls underneath the car and shoots another of the robbers. Marvin kicks his inhaler habit with Borgnine's pitchfork thrust into his back, in a shocking moment.

Mature's young son could not explain why his friends called his dad a coward—a prime example of attacking someone before knowing the facts. Mature was more useful at home in the copper mines during World War II. After his recovery of the stolen money, blowing away two criminals with a shotgun, and getting wounded himself, he becomes a hero to his son, and he gains a few new friends.

Note: Perhaps the jury is still out on how deep a pitchfork could be driven into the upper back to kill a person instantly as suggested in this film. It would take thee one monumental thrust into the spinal column. Based on the effect in the film, passing out would be logical, and with medical attention, it would seem survivable.