GUN CRAZY (1950)

This movie fits into the “human-noir” category where childhood can be a dark affair affected by circumstances, psychological issues or the influence of others. Any number of B-movie actors would have brought justice to each character, yet it turned out to be the defining film for both John Dall and Peggy Cummins. A superstar couple may have clouded the natural interpretation of the script by these two. Though well-acted, it is the cinematography that stands the test of time, however. The film's premise could be used in any decade and to support my theory, this film is based on a 1940 story of the same name from The Saturday Evening Post by MacKinlay Kantor. He also wrote the screenplay along with Dalton Trumbo. The film features a gun-shooting husband and wife on their short crime spree honeymoon. It never consistently hits the bull's eye but it still racks up some points.

I found the opening backstory about Dall's childhood obsession with guns drawn out more than necessary when narration over key filmed segments would have sufficed. Victor Young's opening score fits these scenes which may be the only rushes the prolific composer ever saw. His music seems absent during the balance of the film. The opening does make it clear Dall is crazy about shooting guns. Peggy Cummins, on the other hand, is just plain crazy. Her first scene in this film—clad in Spandex-like pants borrowed from television's Longer Ranger—she appears to be far more dangerous without a gun. She is a crack shot in a traveling carnival and Dall is enthralled. He has found his shooting-mate for life. His psyche is triggered then betters her in an on-stage challenge, using a gun he has never fired before. He is that good. Dall's future is in her hands—though he tries to reign her in—they are both on an anticipated downward spiral. Her character flits from charming to disturbed in the midst of a robbery. What he does not know about her past—she occasionally has to shoot somebody—the FBI is well informed. Their “undying” love will have them running until death do them part.

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Frank and Maurice King of King Brothers Productions, the eighty-seven-minute film took thirty days and 400 grand to make. It was released by United Artists. Without a doubt, the most engaging element of the film is the periodically astounding cinematography by Russell Harlan. His extraordinarily realistic in-car camera work has the viewer riding in the back seat on a typical day of robbery as Dall and Cummins seem to be unscripted as their dialogue fades in and out as if they were ad-libbing. Harlan's famous one-shot bank robbery sequence from a car's back seat is another trend-setting example. These scenes appear out of place among other routine scenes seemingly shot by another cinematographer. Yet his camera placement under the dash—shooting through the steering wheel spokes—appears likely to be a wacky experiment that actually worked. Also of startling note are the extreme close-ups near the end as we watch the quivering lips of the sweaty couple. As to be expected during the first century of film, the editing by Harry Gerstad slips in a “chase” with a studio prop police car that should have been left on the editing room floor.

At least three things are a puzzlement. When the gun-crazy couple is being tailed by the police, Dall shoots the patrol car's front tire cleanly through their own rear window with nothing to suggest he broke out the backlight before shooting. For another, I found the drive to the top of the mountains strange—where Dall spent time as a youth. Not so much the drive as the foggy swamp at the summit. I had no idea there were swamps on California's mountaintops. Finally, seventy-year-old forgettable films may garner new fans when dissected through Twenty-First Century thinking. The cheap or implausible scenes are invisible to these commentators, preferring to zero in on content that was not appropriate to comment on in 1950. By this measure, some of today's forgettable films may one day be considered great by the hindsight of the more enlightened.

Note: Dall's movie career and his life were short. His only other notable films before settling into television were Alfred Hitchcock's, Rope, two years prior to this film and a significant role in Spartacus (1960). He died at the age of fifty. This is Irish-born Cummins best known and last American film. Her film career ended in 1961 but she lived a long life with personal involvement in other ventures. She died at age ninety-two in London.

FORGOTTEN FILMS: TV TRANSITION

Though typically overshadowed by Hollywood's A-list, there were respectable performances by numerous actors and actresses who never became major film stars. A common career shift was to the new medium of television. These periodic posts offer insight into their transition.

Harry Rhett Townes (1914-2001) 

Harry Townes was an American character actor with lengthy credits on stage and television. Yet there was little transition to television for Townes, being involved in the earliest days of the medium. Townes seamlessly became a familiar face to viewers with a wide range of emotions that side-stepped being typecast. His characters could be so real he seemed to disappear within the scenery with his sensitive and genuine performances—whether unlikable or whimsical. Intelligent audiences were more than satisfied with his skill. Unknown to most viewers in the 1970s, the average-looking leading man put himself through seminary to become an Episcopal minister.

Townes performed in several New York and Broadway stage productions, including summer stock. His Broadway credits include Gramercy Ghost (1950), Twelfth Night (1949), Mr. Sycamore (1942), Tobacco Road (1942), and In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1968). His two-year run in the part of a leprechaun in Finian's Rainbow sent him to London. He left the stage to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. There was the occasional film supporting roles. Most notable is Spencer Tracy's, The Mountain (1956). He joined a popular cast in the Dick Van Dyke comedy, Fitzwilly (1967) and played a General in the WW2 yarn, In Enemy Country (1968), followed by a re-edited two-part 1965 Kraft Suspense Theatre political thriller episode released in 1969, Strategy of Terror. All three slipping most moviegoers' minds within ninety days.

Townes found his greatest presence with an endless variety of television characters from the 1950s through the 1970s. Somewhat following a similar path as David Janssen, Townes was most captivating on the small screen. There are simply too many excellent roles to mention but I have listed a few notable performances. An actor's actor was the draw for these popular anthology series, Studio One in Hollywood, Kraft Theatre, Playhouse 90 with nine roles on Climax!. In one of his two appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he played a sadistic murderer with a warped sense of advancing his brother's political career by eliminating the competition in, “My Brother, Richard.” His two appearances on The Twilight Zone are of note. One, in particular, is “The Four of Us Are Dying” in which Townes' character has the ability to change his appearance at a whim, a trick he uses for personal advantage. He co-starred with his good friend, Wright King, in the “Shadow Play” episode. Producers sought him out for multiple roles on popular series: seven times for Gunsmoke, five times for Perry Mason, and The Fugitive. He returned four times on Quincy M.E. to play doctors. He gained popularity with a younger audience for guesting on a two-part episode of The Incredible Hulk, "The First." Townes' defined the episode because of his performance. The mid-eighties cast him in four spots on Simon & Simon and a recurring role on Knots Landing as Russell Winston. Harry Townes retired in 1989.

Townes' Personal Quote: I guess we're never entirely happy with what we do; we would like to do better. I feel I was lucky to get the work that I did. You always feel thankful because there are so many actors for so few jobs that it seems God is being good to you when you get a job. Of course, I would have loved to have done better, we all would. But we always think we can do it better in one more take. On the whole, I'm satisfied, though. As long as the audience was satisfied, then I'm satisfied.

THE WALKING TARGET (1960)

A California State Prison warden opens this crime drama like so many movies before it, warning the prisoner, Ron Foster, that the 260 grand he hid after a robbery five years before will bestow upon him the film's title. Reluctantly he signs the prisoner's release and Foster reluctantly finds himself in the arms of his former girl, Merry Anders, right out of the gate—literally. He cools her jets by asking where she has been for five years. Not one visit. Not one cake. This lady has never used an oven. Like her current favorite boyfriend, Robert Christopher—whose faux excitement of reuniting with Foster is short-lived—she has ulterior motives. They want that money. Unlike these two, Foster later reveals he has a beating heart.

Outside the competent cast, a bit of stunt driving in Ford Motor Company's models feature prominently and the matched studio prop car scenery out the rear window is logical and authentic. Less so is the obvious, poorly edited, stuntmen choreography during two fight scenes. Taking the sting out of any crime film, the misplaced music played under closing credits by an otherwise competent score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter, befits an old Bob Hope comedy-mystery from the past decade.

Attesting to the warden's astute judge of character, a number of people are on the ex-con's heels, most notably Harp McQuire. The two actors team up again after their earlier Robert Kent Production, Cage of Evil. McQuire again plays a detective but this time as a condescending, tough-talking, wise-cracking detective cliché. He stands out in the film for being the only unintended levity in the film. He loathes Foster until the contrived cafe ending. Barry Kroeger, not surprisingly, plays a mob boss with only three scenes to his credit. That is all he needs to establish his character. Weasel Christopher now works as his inside man. Anders, essentially, disappears from the film past the halfway point.

A flashback explains where the money was cleverly hidden. Both of Foster's partners in the heist did not survive, one leaving behind a widow, Joan Evans—in her final film—whose physical presence is her acting weak point. Foster's deep remorse for the robbery's outcome has weighed heavy on his conscience. He tracks her to an Arizona cafe she operates to give her the share due her late husband. She wants no part of the stolen money. Soon everyone knows where she is and a cafe confrontation between Kroeger, Christopher, McQuire and Foster ignites. Humorously, before going into the cafe, Kroeger instructs his henchmen, “Check the silencers to make sure they're working.” I expected them to place the guns to their ear to confirm this. The bullets are unrealistically quiet with three or four cast members going down just as quietly. Because of return fire, McQuire gets tabbed but the rapid closing suggests he survives.

Notes: Director Edward L. Cahn churned out numerous films like this one. Decent crime films possess all the elements that should make for a memorable movie. Unfortunately, the premise had been done so often—usually, with grit this film lacks—it has been universally forgotten. This tidy film is produced by Robert E. Kent Productions—as Zenith Pictures—for Edward Small, the executive producer. Small or Kent could produce realism in their pictures in spite of stale scripts and a low visibility cast. Talk around the office water cooler probably did not include this film, though television's Foster or Anders might have garnered mention. This film marks three in a row with director Cahn in Foster's sparse movie career. The seventy-five-minute film was distributed by United Artists.

YOU HAVE TO RUN FAST (1961)

The hunting season is about to start in the sleepy mountain town of Summit City and a gangster has the perfect wall for the head of Craig Hill. The actor plays a doctor during an era when their door was always open. In the middle of the night two men—obviously mob-related judging by their attitude and vocal tone—bring in a fellow they “found” on the side of the road. The gangsters are rather murky about their background and quickly leave Hill with the badly beaten victim who does not survive the dawn. The police arrive and Hill is informed the dead man is a detective and the good Samaritans were bogus.

So begins a rather nifty—what should have been—television episode. But this suspenseful crime drama was never edited down from its seventy-three-minute run time. It is well-acted with a "blistering pace" for a routine premise of someone assuming a new identity in another town for his own survival. Dr. Richard Kimball may have had his own ideas after seeing this film. Expect the makeup department's budget to include the obligatory black-rimmed glasses, powdered gray wig, and mustache to facilitate Hill's transformation.

Hill wants no part in being confined under police protection and their eyewitness gets out of town fast. It is one year later and hardly recognizable without the makeup department's help. Now managing a sporting goods store in Summit City, he has taken a room at a lodge run by Willis Bouchey and his daughter Elaine Edwards. A wheelchair-bound World War II veteran, Bouchey is his usual film character doling out wisdom to Hill about making something of himself rather than just running a seasonal hunting store. Awkward. Bouchey is also an expert marksman and is quite pumped about the hunting season when the public flood the small town in the likes of Fairmount, Indiana during James Dean weekend. This is a rare film for the small screen actress, Edwards, who is on the verge of getting serious with Hill. But his “survival secret” offers setbacks. Yet, like Kimble, it becomes impossible to hide his Hippocratic oath. Because of this and other astute research, the gangsters soon get a bead on his location though their old “passport” photo of Hill throws them a few curves. How they got such a photo is questionable. My guess is the prop department.

The townsfolk unwittingly provided the thugs with needed information. Unlikely the two guys in suit, wingtips, and fedora are avid game hunters, it soon becomes apparent to Hill there are bullets with his namesake on them. Edwards cannot figure why Hill has to leave so abruptly, running fast into the wilderness to dodge mob bullets. The banter between Hill and the mob boss lands directly into the cliché territory. Wanting to hunt anything moving, Bouchey grabs a high-powered rifle with a scope and wheels himself to a window conveniently located directly opposite all the filmed action. He kills a five-point buck. No. He kills one of the gangsters about to fire on Hill. In an amazing bit of time-saving editing, the boss is actually captured in his car by the doctor who has been crouching in the back seat for who knows how long. It was the day the running stopped.

Note: The film was directed by Edward L. Cahn and produced by Robert E. Kent. They were frequent collaborators for films of this nature. Decent but forgettable. United Artists distributed it for the [renowned] production company, Harvard Film Corporation. The bits of location shooting will reveal that the Ford Motor Company volunteered their wallowing automobiles for the film.

BLUEPRINT FOR ROBBERY (1961)

Jerry Hopper directed a couple of notable films including The Atomic City, Naked Alibi, and one notable for not being any better than the original, Never Say Goodbye. His talents were better served for the smaller medium where he kept very, very busy. Sandwiched in between his work on many popular shows was this film, a low-budget crime film where the heist's dry run to test the theft's feasibility is tediously slow. Seeing the British-born senior, J. Pat O'Malley—the film's legendary thief—scooting under electronic sensors on his stomach or back confirms this. Yet the film's focus on this tension is fairly captivating and the music score by Van Cleave pays off throughout the film. The acting is first-rate and I imagine the film garnered some talk over hot dogs after its premiere. In hindsight, this film remains unknown because of all the myriad of more exciting heist movies to follow. But those films owe a lot to this film—what with its smattering of humor and detailed-to-the-minute robbery plans. The robber's masks are creepy if not startling and the robbery goes without a hitch. But the aftermath proves crime—during this era—does not pay.

There are no big-name film stars in this one as if Hopper flipped through his Rolodex for some of his television connections. O'Malley is perhaps the most well-known for his numerous television roles. In-kind, many Boomers would recognize Robert Wilke. What they may not recognize is that he is not a despicable Western outlaw, but a detective. Robert Gist, a frequent player in television westerns as well—particularly Have Gun - Will Travel—adds the only spark to the film outside Jay Barney. Barney spent an innocuous career on the tube. Another key player in the big heist is television actor, the furrow-browed Sherwood Price. Finishing out the television casting call is Robert Carricart, Joe Conley—later snagging a recurring role as Ike on The Waltons—and Henry Corden, more often than not in sitcoms with his trademark black, thick-framed glasses. Unseen, he carried on the voice of Fred Flintstone after Allen Reed's death. 

There is a brief humorous spot for television's future “Mrs. Cunningham,” Marion Ross (below), which initiates a bit of levity early in the film. Barney comes to the prison dressed as a priest simply to convince O'Malley—scheduled for release—to help in the robbery. Ross sets down beside him—both staring straight ahead—and she slowly inches closer as she tearfully confides in the man underneath the rental cloth about her marital “faux-pax” before visiting her incarcerated husband. Father Barney, taken aback, calmly musters up his best advice which she takes to heart. Overhearing his assumed heartfelt consultation, the guard also puts his faith in the cloth on the man and unlocks the main door to the cells.

Counting up their tally after the getaway, they stole far less than anticipated with some useless bonds and newly printed marked bills which simply have to be burned. So be it. With Gist's nerves at bay and the loot under his watch, he suggests Barney and Price lay low by taking a vacation. It is the turning point in the film. Not using his brain's full potential, Price decides to go into a sporting goods store after Barney tells him to stay in the car. He selects some fishing and hunting gear with no intention of paying. The greedy crook knocks out the salesman and heads back to the car as a policeman happens by and tries to convince the two about a great spot for camping. Out crawls the moaning salesman. The vacation (below) ends behind bars though being only an accessory, Barney would seem to be railroaded. Gist is unconcerned as he had figured they would be out in a few months, not the three-year sentence handed down.

O'Malley rents a clerical robe to visit Barney. The scene follows through with an earlier established premise, that the old mentor and the “son he never had” confide in each other. The old codger is soon questioned about his parole violation and his ill-fitting clerical collar. No one will ever call him a stool pigeon and it looks like life behind bars. With good intentions, Barney does something unforgivable. Their falling out comprises the sensitive climax.

Note: The film's screenplay was written by Irwin Winehouse and A. Sanford Wolf, based on the 1950 Brinks' express office robbery in Boston. The eighty-seven-minute film was produced by Bryan Foy with Paramount Pictures releasing this film with opening and closing “exposé” narration.