A STRANGE ADVENTURE (1956)

A decade before this film's release, William Witney was directing Republic Pictures cowboy serials, so he may have felt at home in the mountain setting of “Suspended Disbelief,” my alternate title for this film. The official title works. It is every bit that. It comes off, at times, like a filmed stage play with everyone knowing their cues and what expression to provide. The opening score is appropriate...if it were a soap opera. The score may also burst onto a scene without warning. Some abrupt edits give the impression that the film reel may have broken and been spliced together. This actually complements the film’s pacing.

An apparent “upper teen,” the twenty-three-year-old Ben Cooper (speaking of Westerns) assists his mom in running her mountain motel. His hobby is a souped-up 1939 Mercury coupe for which he is always in tinkering mode. His other tinkering hobby is gawking at the visiting Marla English, poolside. Her intentions are rather obvious, except to Cooper, who plays it cool like a naive high-school senior. She says she is a nightclub singer—we have no evidence of this—and completing her trio are Jan Merlin (known for many despicable characters) and Nick Adams. I am not sure how much the boy really knows about cars after these two arrive in a new Lincoln. He is "gosh-darned" impressed and heard it will do zero to sixty in six seconds. Even Road&Track found this hard to believe.

Cooper is pretty suspicious of these two after noticing that the Lincoln is actually registered to Woody Wilson, the trio's "booking agent." He is supposed to arrive at a later hour, but Cooper informs English that the newspapers say he has escaped from a midwestern jail. Golly! She is “shocked” and cannot figure that one out. Her real shock is suspecting Woody knows Merlin double-crossed him. Cooper soon discovers the trio’s new gig: an armored car robbery. He is pressured into driving his “faster than a Lincoln” hot rod as the getaway vehicle. I will say, the stunt driving convinced me of its custom nature. Nothing phony about the speeds or cornering up the mountain roads. The actual car was somewhat of a celebrity, a genuine early Fifties customized model completed some two years prior. I digress. The robbery should move that fast because Woody is in town! While English gazes at the blurred flora and fauna up the mountain, she gets something in her eye. After they stop, she tells Cooper, “I think a pebble hit my eye.” The only thing funnier would have been using the word “rock” instead. I think an ophthalmologist is needed. With all the talk and fear of Woody, I looked forward to seeing the actor. But the role was never cast.

Merlin’s character is certainly dangerous. A momentary wise mastermind and a man-child prone to temper tantrums. Things do not always pan out like he thinks they should. So frustrated, he takes it out on whoever is nearby with bursts of angry yelling, using a gun for gesturing. After the robbery, a contrived radio broadcast centers on the lighter side of the news. The amused newscaster mentions Cooper’s mother (startled, he blurts out, “Mom!”). She figures her son eloped with that 'swimming pool Delilah. Everyone in the car has a good laugh at the son's expense.

Merlin demands Cooper take a particular turn off the main highway. They come to a halt. Merlin yells, “It’s a dead-end!” The “Road Closed until Spring” sign should have been an earlier clue. The entire cast is now at an electric company’s weather reporting station, which is about to experience its first big snowfall of the season. No one in or out for six months. Merlin’s brilliance tells him this will be the ideal hiding place. Six months without anyone ever making contact with the station and stretching the food supply for two to five. Suspended disbelief at its essence. The station is run by a brother and sister team of Peter Miller and Joan Evans. For some unknown reason, Evans falls head over heels for Cooper. She knew him for his weekend races, but they had never met. He is on the same page. More tinkering. There is plenty of acting silliness until Miller purposely destroys the communications radio. With communication down, a ranger in a snow tracker heads in their direction.

The final scene is a most rushed segment, as if the director had to say, “Cut. That’s a wrap!” at the seventy-minute mark, no matter what he had intended to film. With no time left to properly resolve the film, the viewer has to settle on another radio broadcast from the car Cooper, Evans, and Miller are traveling in. 

Note: Nick Adams brings an early comedic note to the film as a guy with sinus woes due to the higher elevation. Merlin is intolerant of his constant sniffles, yelling, or throwing things at him like a child. With his black shirt, white tie, and white suspenders, Adams looks like he is part of a clichéd comedic gangster skit. He is a funny sight, later, with a “scarf” under his fedora, tied under his chin, to keep warm. But his I.Q. is a bit higher than “Merlin the Yeller” and outwits him by incrementally depositing all the loot in a "snow bank," exchanging pine cones for the money inside the bag. Neither Merlin nor English could figure out why the money turned hard and lumpy. Must be the altitude.

DIAL 1119 (1950)

Some today find this film a sort of lost treasure, but it is not innovative. It is well-acted with enough mystery to hold the viewer in suspense for the usual Hollywood hostage staging. The script bounces around the subject of mental illness in mid-century fashion. Critics of the day generally seemed to like it. This MGM features a powerful opening score by André Previn, suggesting a winner. But despite an obviously low budget, the movie still lost money at the box office. There were no big-name stars to draw an audience, and it is almost entirely filmed on a studio backlot. I also wonder if audiences accepted a nice-looking boy, Marshall Thompson, in this early lead role. He gets on a bus with its scrolling destination sign above the canted windshield to Terminal City, a name associated with New York's Idlewild Airport. That might have been an omen, yet hardly justifies shooting the bus driver with his own personal security device.

Initially, Thompson appears only to be a chronic sleepwalker. His cold, unemotional search for his former psych doctor, Sam Levene, goes nowhere, and he eventually wanders into a bar where we meet a slice of society with their own personal foibles. Virginia Fields, Leon Ames, and Keith Brasselle (bartender) are the more notable actors, along with the bar owner, William Conrad, who knows each patron well, holding contempt for a few regulars. On the bright side, his bar is equipped with a state-of-the-art, remote-controlled television monitor suspended over the counter that would be the equal of most sports bars today. This had to cost a pretty penny. And for what? Wrestling. And the newsbreak about an escaped mental patient whom Conrad recognizes at the end of the counter. When he calmly goes to the back to call the police, Thompson is right behind him, putting Conrad’s life on permanent hold with a bullet. This instantly gets the attention of all the patrons, and the previously invisible young man becomes larger than life itself. This innocent-looking, unassuming, and perspiring man happens to have no regard for human life. Especially his own. This initiates the stereotypical hostage situation with the police plotting their next move to end the situation.

Through clichéd interaction between the killer and hostages, Thompson lays out his mental disqualifications, blaming the military for teaching him to kill. The Army was referring to the enemy, by the way. In his eyes, all the patrons are pitiful excuses, and he is not impressed with their petty problems. His comments put the patrons in a reflective, albeit terrifying mood. His only demand, other than having the patrons not move a muscle, is that he talks with Dr. Levene. Though unadvised repeatedly by the police, Levene sneaks inside the bar where Thompson confronts him about his historically bad advice. The doctor’s blunt assessment quickly reduces Thompson to a frightened child. He shoots Levene when pushed too far (below).

The revolver that Conrad kept behind the counter is spotted by Fields, whose character seems to know her way around firearms. She wounds Thompson, who then tells her she had no right to do that. The patrons disagree wholeheartedly with his assessment. After a seventy-five-minute running time, all hope was seemingly gone with the words, “The End” approaching. He slowly escapes out the back entrance and well covered by armed police. Welcome to Terminal City.