THE HOUSTON STORY (1956)

William Castle offers up his final noir about an ambitious oil driller who discovers a way to steal oil and then sell it to distributors or foreign interests for huge profits. The film's first half is the stronger section, as one is not sure of the main character's intent, played by Gene Barry. The opening morgue scene involving a female's body gets the intrigue award. Barry purposely misidentifies her. The script can be complicated in laying out the benefits of underworld “investing” and whose pipes are being gleaned. It starts to disintegrate during the last third of the film, however, offering a commonplace resolve. There is enough backstabbing in this film to be another Castle horror movie.

Barry puts the con in conniving. A greedy, unscrupulous businessman who romances a nightclub singer to infiltrate a Houston mobster's organization. He is a decent fit for this role as a womanizer. More believable than the original choice, Lee J. Cobb. Barbara Hale—the aforementioned (in name only) morgue lady—is now a nightclub singer with a different name. Her single vocal number is quite mesmerizing and convincing. No dubbing. Her bleached hair and facial features are also stunningly perfect.

Mob boss Edward Arnold, in his next-to-last movie, could play corrupt like few others. Barry needs his financial backing. Arnold goes along with Barry's scheme, vouching for their newest board member, chaired by “Mr. Big,” John Zaremba. But Arnold never wavers from his plan to dispose of Barry once the funds start rolling in. Apart from Houston's temperatures, Barry begins taking heat from investigators. He sets up nightclub owner Paul Richards, another Arnold associate, to take the fall for an oil well sabotage to get them off his back. But Richards shifts the blame to Arnold, putting him on a slippery slope. For the first time in his career, he is a hunted man with no place to go. Out of nowhere, instantly, Arnold spits out his startling confession to Barry, “Now I gotta run! I never had to run before! I don't even know how to run!” At his weight and age, he was accurate. Zaremba wants Barry removed “peacefully” from the “board of elders” and sends a gangster, Chris Alcaide, to...uh...find him. 

Barry's passed sweetheart, Jeanne Cooper, runs a cafe in oil derrick territory. She expects a future with him. Now in big trouble, he tells her to go to his house and get the 100 grand from the safe, then they will meet up later. Cooper arrives to find Hale already removing the money, which she does not plan to share. A lightbulb turns on for Cooper. With all his shrewd and detailed planning, Barry would have made an excellent professional organizer some fifty years later. Organized for him will be a trial. Sentencing for graft, corruption, and an itty-bitty murder. Digging himself out of prison might be his next drilling adventure.

THE SCARLET HOUR (1956)

This ninety-five-minute film's premise is what God meant by His Tenth Commandment. Though the title is a bit of a mystery—no scarlet noted in a black and white film. The suspense is handled pretty well by director Michael Curtiz. The only thing new about this film is the debut of some future television regulars. Paramount's Vista Vision gamble, Carol Ohmart, stars with Tom Tryon, Elaine Stritch, David Lewis, and James Gregory in their first film, along with seasoned actors Ed Binns and E.G. Marshall. In fact, this movie might have played better on the small screen by being shorter. It would have been free, too. Ohmart's successful husband, Gregory, knows his wife will do just about anything behind his back. Straight-arrow Tryon proves to be a real sap by succumbing to the devious female and her plan to have him intercept jewels after thieves steal them from Lewis's house. 

On the night of the theft intercept, the abusive Gregory follows his wife, catches her, and spots Tryon. Obvious to her, he would like to kill her, as he had threatened before. He pulls out his gun and enters her car. They struggle as Ohmart pleads with him. Gregory's gun goes off in the wrong direction, and he is shoved out onto the pavement. Though she despises him, she plunges into hysterics, calling out his name in sorrow. How could her plan possibly have gone this wrong? This segment is hard to fathom as she drives off, arms shaking, with Tryon trying to figure out what happened back there as he was dodging burglar bullets. Surely Gregory was shot with a stray one. 

Ohmart becomes jealous of Tryon, guessing he is secretly seeing her late husband's secretary, played by Jodie Lawrance. She, by the way, had more movies under her waistline before 1956 than the other stars combined. Lawrance wants to protect him for the decent man he is, as she hopes for a future together. Ohmart drops a none-too-subtle suggestion to the police that she might have killed Gregory. When Tryon finds this out, he is...how to put it...livid. He arranges for the police to gather at Ohmart's estate as he gives her a big dose of verbal reality. She stares out a second-story window as Lawrance and Tryon embrace in the courtyard below. As for Ohmart, I am not sure how severe the charges will be, given her husband's accidental death and the theft of fake jewels. Perhaps a series of counseling sessions and a year of community service. She has issues.

Notes: At least for this film, Ohmart is Madame Tussaud's, Barbara Stanwyck. Given her resemblance along with a similar storyline, one might assume it is a re-think of a famous Stanwyck role. But in this case, “Double Dumbidy” might be a better title. Her face is a mash-up of seventy percent Stanwyck and thirty percent Meryl Streep. Even at one hundred percent, it would not have helped Ohmart's movie career, which quickly transitioned to television. Her over-the-top acting quirks come off as if she is trying to steal any scene she is in. Constantly fidgeting some part of her body. None worse than her scene poolside with Lewis, in which her character has all the femininity of Marlon Brando, nervously shakes in between severe drags on a cigarette. She is the weakest link in the movie, and Hollywood noticed.

Hard to believe there would not have been a script change, so I found this amusing. When the police come to the office to question Tryon—portraying E.V. Marshall—he meets the lieutenant, played by E.G. Marshall. I thought I saw E.G. smirk a bit, but only wishful thinking. E.G. seems to have sucked some helium before filming certain scenes.