HIAWATHA (1952)

Based on Longfellow's 1855 epic poem, at times this film seems sincere about its treatment of the story with filming locations setting a wonderful tone. Composer Marlin Skiles' score takes the film up a notch, mostly complimenting the location and light action scenes. The movie opens with beautiful visuals and a soothing voice-over reading of a poem, after a fashion. Considering its potential, the low budget is pretty well hidden. Until the actors show up. As an uninterrupted segue from poem to film, the main credits are uniquely held until the end so the viewer stays in the moment. This was the last film produced by Monogram Pictures.

The casting department's budget was thin. An obvious reason for a forgettable film. Most of the cast sound like they just completed their first month at a New York school of drama. The actor pictured (above, top) may be a Manhatten insurance salesman. The main leads, Vincent Edwards, Keith Larsen, and Yvette Dugay, each wearing identical non-gender Indian wigs, do not totally embarrass themselves, however. Edwards seems to fit the part of the even-tempered, peaceful tribesman after a right-of-passage ceremony stripped him of all his chest hairs. He definitely has more charisma than a cigar store Indian. Larsen delivers his lines as if it were the opening night of a melodramatic stage play. With tribal names like Pukkeewis, Megissogwon, Chibiabos, and Mudjekeewis, you better have an encyclopedia handy. Hats off to the canoes. I liked their period appearance though adapted from modern ones. I will say, the arrows shot into a couple of barebacks are very realistically done.

Selected by the Ojibway council, Edwards/Hiawatha is sent on a peace mission to the Dakotah tribe. Fellow tribesman, Larsen, insists Edwards is a weak coward because he is so nice and even-tempered. Larsen constantly spreads fake news and real arrows to undermine Edward's mission so he can elevate himself in the eyes of the tribe. Edwards has a choreographed fight with a black bear costume and you will burst out laughing when the bear takes an arrow from one Dakotah, who comes to Edwards' aide. While recovering, you witness one of the fastest courtships in film history as Dugay/Minnehaha falls in love with Edwards after only their second scene together. She is all "gitche gumee" about him. The subsequent wedding is clouded by a manufactured war between the two tribes, instigated, naturally, by Larsen, who prefers to make war, not love. Acceptance and peace win out and war is averted as Larsen gets justice thrust upon him once and for all. Rest assured, Edwards and Dugay will one day have a tribe of "mini-hahas" running around.

CITY OF FEAR (1959)

This is a decent, eighty-one-minute Columbia Pictures film that hides a limited budget from a week's worth of filming. Director Irving Lerner creates a fast pace from a script that lacks total believability. A creative score by Jerry Goldsmith adds excitement, bringing the crime thriller up a notch or two. The middle of this thriller is filled with the usual angst in trying to track down an escaped convict. An eighty-four-hour search unfolds with the police, a nervous environmental authority, and a scientist working in concert to find him and his stolen canister. A suspense drama that bears a striking similarity to so many later television disaster-of-the-week movies. For the automobile historian, there are in-car cameras that put the viewer in the back seat. Several competent actors with familiar faces lend their credibility. The director brings together Vince Edwards, Cathy (aka Kathie) Browne, and screenwriter Steven Ritch from Murder by Contract, the prior year.

A night scene opens the film with a speeding ambulance driven by a known drug pusher, the aforementioned escaped convict, wanted for murder, and especially a stolen canister from the prison hospital. The driver is annoyed by the constant moaning from his mortally wounded partner, who dies in transit. Edwards actually stars as Vince, whose only interest is a sealed canister that he figures is worth a million dollars of experimental heroin. In reality, it is a radioactive synthetic, cobalt-60. Unless in a lead container, it is highly contagious. It appears in this film as aluminum. Opened, it could wipe out a city, according to the film. See my note below on cobalt-60.

Edwards’s acting solidifies the movie as he becomes completely drained from fits of coughing, sweating, and feeling stupid for not getting a seasonal flu shot. The character is as one-dimensional as can be mustered. He is despicable in every scene, trusting no one who does not appreciate the beauty of a stainless steel canister. Edwards feels rotten and wants to be left alone. With the canister. Which cannot be opened without special tools. Few things can put one in a bad mood more than not being able to open a simple jar from the supermarket.

Waiting two years for "Geigerman" is his girl, Patricia Blair, who thinks she might have better luck opening the canister. “I'm tellin' ya' honey, it can't be opened!” When later questioned by the police, she repeatedly denied any contact with Edwards amidst profuse sweating and a “smoker's" cough. We find out about a nervous shoe store owner, Joseph Mell, who has profited from Edwards’ past drug deals. Driving a 1958 Lincoln "Land Yacht" is a dead giveaway that the Buster Browns could not be moving that well.

I found the rapid ending not well thought out, but at least funny. When Edwards stumbles out of a diner and collapses, the authorities keep their distance. They fail to convince Vince that there is still a chance he could survive. Slim. At best. They actually ask for the canister. Bad idea. Though Edwards may be barely breathing, they immediately cover his body with a blanket and place a “high radiation area” sign of caution on top of it...carried in the trunk of an officer's patrol car just in case. I burst out laughing. The police captain then says to the scientist with relief, “Come on. I want to go home.” Someone will be by later to shovel him up, I guess. Dead or alive.

Note: Beginning in the 1950s, cobalt-60 was used to treat cancer and to sterilize medical equipment. It is a byproduct of nuclear reactor operations. Most exposure to cobalt-60 takes place intentionally during medical tests and treatments. Such exposures are carefully controlled to avoid adverse health impacts and to maximize the benefits of medical care. However, mishandling of a large industrial source of cobalt-60 could result in an external exposure large enough to cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness, or death. A small container would unlikely wipe out 3 million people. The bigger mystery, then, is why the drug pusher thinks heroin is kept at a hospital.

MURDER BY CONTRACT (1958)

From the film’s opening scene, you experience the seemingly mundane life of an ordinary man. Perry Botkin’s minimalist guitar score, befitting an avant-garde film, fits the quirky central character, played cooly by Vince Edwards. Not since the Zither from The Third Man film has an instrument defined a film more. Botkin slightly changes the tune and tempo during the climax to good effect. You may have the tune plunking in your head for another twenty-four hours. Added with some great camera points of view, this eighty-one-minute film has "cult classic" written all over it. The shoestring-budgeted film may bore you or suck you in. You will probably find the unlikely premise at least amusing.

Although Edwards, or simply Claude, has a decent job and pension, he wants to be a “contractor” to make money faster. He has a meeting with an undercover mobster. Out of respect for his occupation, Edwards is very well-mannered and admits he knows nothing about contract killing—never done it before. But in a CareerBuilder upgrade, he would like to kill people. After waiting nearly two weeks for a return call, while staying fit doing pull-ups and push-ups in his apartment, Edwards’ first contract has him posing as a barber in a period white banded collar shirt with its three-button closure on one shoulder. It would appear to be a costume screen test for his television series Ben Casey. In fact, he is dressed the same for his second assassination, actually set in a hospital. His third contract is the operative who hired him. Directed by Irving Lerner, the actual assassinations are never filmed. The viewer's assumptions are sufficient, coupled with "Claude's Theme" by Botkin.

Now that Edwards has reached an acceptable level of murder, he is sent to Los Angeles, where henchmen, Herschel Bernardi and Phillip Pine pick him up at the train station. Pine is already disgruntled because Edwards took a train rather than an airplane. With a tight window to do the hit, Pine's patience is running thin. I sensed Pine doing an exasperated Jack Lemmon. Quite uncanny. He is beside himself with Edwards’ superior attitude. Bernardi's reasoned character seems totally out of his element. However, Edward's wise observations strike a positive chord with him. He likes the way he thinks. Some truly humorous moments between these three, mostly ignited by Edwards. Barely acknowledging his companions, Edwards, in sunglasses and a calm, restrained voice, foreshadows the likes of Dirty Harry. Claude just wants to see the sights of Los Angeles before doing any killing. He is smart, cautious, and creative, and it scares Bernardi. Edwards soon takes command of the daily routine and will do the hit when he is good and ready.

Edwards is visibly upset when he is informed that the hit is not a man. Men are creatures of habit. Predictable. Women are unpredictable. Hard to read. They are always moving about. His target is a high-profile witness, played by Caprice Toriel —her only acting role—before testifying against the henchmen and Edwards's boss. She has a pretty nasty and ungrateful attitude toward her in-house police protection. To be fair, her lack of acting experience may be partly due to her over-the-top performance, making it difficult for her to find the right balance between frayed nerves and anger.

Reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote, in a complicated process, he wires her TV to explode when she turns it on. But he did not count on a remote control keeping her at a distance from the set. Drat! Next, Edwards searches a sporting goods store for the right weapon. A rapier? No. He considers a Gatling gun. Too much. He settles on a bow and arrows. Bernardi goes through "intensive" archery practice at a target inside Claude's motel room. A lot of woodwork damage will be noted later. Security is tight at the witness’s home. The only way to kill her is to shoot her as she instinctively opens the front door despite Edwards’ aversion to guns. As a distraction, Bernardi's bull's eye training allows him to shoot kerosene-tipped arrows randomly into the nearby brush, potentially setting half of California to flames. Claude pulls the trigger on the high-powered scoped rifle as the door opens. She falls. 

The three operatives meet to share the good news based on the newspaper's headline. Then a shift that may leave you scratching your head, thinking the DVD skipped ahead several minutes or hours. Somewhat out of the blue enters Kathie Browne—a female escort when not typing by day. Edwards called the agency she worked at, but why he is in such a foul mood is equally odd. Obviously, he has issues with women in general. His disrespectful comments roll right off her, however. No one could possibly live up to his superior expectations. Her role as a slightly ditsy, unassuming lady is noteworthy in her film debut. But odd, when after only a couple of swallows of wine, she instantly becomes a little loopy. She freely shares inside information about who was actually murdered at the door and that the newspaper headlines were faked. All of which reveals why she was written into the script. Visibly rattled, Edwards now knows he actually killed the undercover policewoman. Double drat!

With this second foiled attempt, Bernardi and Pine now have orders to take out Cool Claude—and not to dinner. He suspects as much, and the tables are turned. He obtains "ACME" survey blueprints of the estate and spots a large drainage pipe some 500 yards from the house. Once near the house, he then crawls through an outdoor grate that miraculously leads to the very room where a policeman is dozing. At this point, the film starts falling way short of a perfect ending. Overtaking the officer with a blow to the head, he assumes the relief officer on duty as Toriel enters the room. Their scene together is implausible. An accomplished musician, she begins playing the piano to help calm her nerves. In fact, Edwards demands she play. And look straight ahead. But the rifle is a bit much at close range. She sees him take off his tie, yet still able to play the correct notes. I said she was accomplished. Claude does not have the nerve to strangle her. Or maybe he also considers that his boss will be put behind bars. She vows not to scream if he leaves. Thanks so much! The police fire tear gas down the drainage pipe during his escape. Triple drat! It makes for an abrupt ending.

Note: This is a B-movie that seems a decade ahead of itself in a number of ways. I recommend it. One of those quirky gems that few remember or have heard about. Edwards's laid-back performance is disturbing. An angry human with no regard for the sanctity of life. Overcompensating for his aberrant behavior, he has developed a superior attitude toward everyone else. I imagine this film disturbed a lot of young minds, including Martin Scorsese, who was highly influenced by it.