SHAKEDOWN (1950)

Howard Duff plays an over-confident, womanizing con man with a camera who despises the low income of society, of which he is currently a part. The opening beating he takes sets the tone for his well-known lack of character. Among other things, the love of money is the root of all evil, and he will use anyone as a stepping stone for financial gain. A newspaper photo editor, Peggy Dow, falls for Duff's smooth, charming manner and ambition, then vouches for him to the editor-in-chief, Bruce Bennett. With a nose for news, honesty, and integrity, he does not like Duff from the outset—something rotten is developing. Nevertheless, due to her persistence, he is hired. In time, his uncanny ability to be in the exact spot to capture a newsworthy happening suspiciously lacks authenticity. Like the time Duff happens upon an apartment fire and spots a lady breaking a third-story window for escape. He tells her to pause,  then yells, "Now jump." Click! I assume there were firemen to catch her. Not an issue for Duff.

Duff surviving until the end of this film seems highly unlikely. His cocky, yet naïveté get him involved with organized crime. He is well paid for his darkroom skills, going to work for a racketeer, Brian Donlevy, who provides him with inside information about a rival's activity. Duff just "happens" to be in downtown San Francisco to capture Lawrence Tierney during the bank robbery. Duff later approaches Tierney to offer him a deal—he will keep the negative in safekeeping for a substantial fee. If that is not enough, he later hides in a parking garage to capture him in the act of installing an after-market accessory to Donlevy's limo: a bomb. The unscrupulous shutterbug now has the blackmail image of his dreams. Duff is free to swoop in for Donlevy's widow, Anne Vernon.

During the rapid climax at a high society formal event, Duff's true colors are revealed to Vernon, and Tierney suggests that he was responsible for her husband's death. But those negatives, hidden within a picture frame at Dow's apartment, will prove otherwise. Duff's frantic call proves fruitless. She is fed up with his fabrications and hangs up on him. Duff is a marked man. After being shot three times, he still manages to squeeze the shutter release cable hanging from his tripod to photograph Tierney firing the fatal bullet.

Duff lived for a “shot” at immortality. His photographic evidence brings the mobsters to justice. Yet the newspaper staff knew he was a "skunk of the first odor" all along.

Note: The eighty-minute film was released by Universal Pictures and directed by Joseph Pevney. It is a better-than-average B-movie noir. Fine performances all around. The powerful scores are from a stock library by several well-known composers. Duff effortlessly delivers numerous sarcastic, witty quips throughout—like a guy who memorized the excellent screenplay by Martin Goldsmith and Alfred Lewis Levitt. Ignore the poster. At no time did Donlevy attempt to punch out Duff. The viewers, on the other hand....

There is at least one gullible moment in the film. Duff desperately wants that image few could capture. As a taxi fare, he notices the car in front is weaving left and right and thinks it might lead to something. The erratic car does plunge into shallow water, balanced precariously on its side—the driver in a panic. Rather than help the driver, Duff tells him to stick his head out the side window and then stretch out his arms in a show of desperation. Why the driver would comply with these commands is difficult to fathom. 

FALLGUY (1962)

This one-off, sixty-four-minute, independently produced, crime drama is probably the most forgotten theatrically-released film of the Sixties. It opens in a highly interpretive manner as we watch a pair of slacks and a briefcase enter a house. The producer should have hired a taller cameraman. The camera pans to show three female bimbos lounging around. Naturally, the obligatory saxophone intrudes as accompaniment. The pants pick up an overstuffed envelope. The film cuts to another house, where a guy comes down the stairs, followed by another female companion, and hands cash to the slacks—now with a hat. The scene cuts to the exterior of a downtown building, then abruptly to a minimalist office of a newspaper editor/mob boss. He smugly tells his two operatives, Louis Gartner, the pudgy police chief, and Don Alderette, the weasel-of-a-doctor in a bow tie, that the Indian is set to deliver his contract tonight. Crank up the jazz theme and graphics. This intriguingly quirky opening may have you wondering if it is an Indian from New Mexico or New Delhi. Like passing an automobile accident, refusing to gawk at this film might be difficult. This is literally a dark film with hardly any location night lighting. Darkness eliminates a lot of potential reshoots. The following paragraphs highlight the myriad of awkward or funny elements, right to an amusing ending.

That pounding opening jazz score by Jaime Medoza-Nave will remind those familiar with the then-current television series, Checkmate, and its cool theme written two years earlier by John (Johnny) Williams. The graphic title sequence is an obvious knock-off of the genius work of Saul Bass, then breaking new ground with film title graphics. These “inspirations” end up being the only classy elements of the film as the jazz score pops up throughout. The film's lack of creativity represents a good example of a wasted low budget. It had no chance of being noticed, with unknown actors indicating their apparent limited experience in community theater. The film’s star, Mr. Ed Dugan (top), saved his best performance for his final film. This was also his first film. There are moments when one more retake might have helped his delivery. 

Driving home one night in his Triumph TR3, Dugan comes to the aid of a badly injured motorist (assumed dead by the Indian in a drive-by shooting). The head laceration of the targeted man is well done. Hats off to the makeup department. At gunpoint, however, the thug forces Dugan to take him to the syndicate's doctor, Alderette, working out of his white, plywood-paneled basement. Looks sterile enough. Recognizing the man, the doctor knows the Indian’s contract was unsuccessful. The injured driver collapses, and the doctor struggles with the gun, which goes off, killing the thug. The syndicate attempts to frame Dugan as the title character. The crooked police chief, Gartner, grills him under a single 65-watt bulb. The double-chinned chief is miffed that Dugan has not changed one word of his testimony. That would make total sense, actually.

Due to a freak collision while transporting Dugan, the twenty-one-year-old "teenager" escapes the squad car. As the chief attempts to chase him, Dugan slams the car door on his hand. The film actually improves slightly at this halfway point as the shaved-head Indian is now in pursuit, giving "The Dugan" a chance to shine as he pantomimes fear. An improvement over delivering any dialogue. The jazz score helps out these dark, lengthy scenes. The Wile E. Coyote of Indian hitmen hangs his head in shame as he reports to the enept boss. Gartner suggests 'Chief Broken Head'—as he sarcastically calls him—go back in front of a cigar store. The only funny dialogue in the film.

The oddest scenes occur at the mob boss's home, played by G. J. Mitchell, aka George Andre, where he is constantly lounging and enjoying the finer things of a middle-class lifestyle. His delivery is noticeably better than the rest of the cast. His partners are talking syndicate business when an irrelevant and bizarre catfight breaks out between two ladies on the editor’s “payroll.” Andre cannot bear to watch, comically peeking between his fingers. The doctor complains that there are women all over the place when they come here. Ignoring the obvious distraction, the police chief is also angry with the boss. Not because he is dressed in a “Hugh Hefner” lounging robe on his Sears massage recliner, but because of the music volume on his radio. Gartner yells at him, 'Will you shut that thing off and listen to me!' The boss obliges, clicking off the radio. Yet the "radio music" film score continues.

An embarrassed George Andre (Carl Ramin) during the catfight

One of the funnier sequences, however, has all three operatives again at the mob boss’s home, mostly arguing about how the Indian is a lousy shot or Gartner complaining about Alderette fretting over his daughter’s well-being, constantly phoning her in near panic. Amid all the petty squabbling, there sits Andre in his recliner, preparing to shave. Now he decides to shave?! Unique and totally uncalled for, suggesting a product placement. His shaver of choice is a portable, non-electric wind-up shaver from the era. In case of a shaving emergency during a blackout. In actuality, they were developed by NASA for their early space flights. He yanks on the tiny cord several times, making a high-pitched “zip-whirr” noise. 

Dugan somehow finds the doctor’s house, where he tries to convince his daughter that he is being framed. She is skeptical and assumes he will take advantage of her. Gartner arrives with Daddy and takes a potshot at Dugan from outside the house, wounding him in the shoulder. His second shot mistakenly hits the daughter (D'oh!), and the scene shifts to the surgical basement ward, where four cast members are conveniently staged. In his great-grandfather’s tradition, no one hears the Indian tiptoeing down the basement's wooden steps. He fires one chamber of his shotgun at his two current hits. He then succumbs to simultaneous return fire, as his second chamber accidentally goes off...hitting Dugan’s knee. Whoops!

One Indian and two oafs down, Andre somehow remains an editor. Finally, the police figure out who and where he is. He makes a run for it—for some reason, now limping—as the police move in. He attempts to step into an out-of-service elevator and discovers the passenger cubicle is several floors below—narrowly escaping death. It is a genuine, startling scene assisted by blaring trumpets. He wisely takes the stairs. Ironically, he stumbles on the very top step and dies instantly by the time he hits the first landing. A genuine fall guy.

The final scene has the parentless daughter off to school via a TWA Boeing 707. She and Dugan part ways. There is a profile close-up of Dugan's head as the opening jazz theme cranks up. For a suggested cool ending, the camera pans away as Dugan turns toward the camera with a full-body shot of him hobbling away from the airliner on crutches. Job well done, Ed Dugan. Well done. 

Note: This film, typically found online with about three minutes omitted, was part of a triple-billing feature to help ease the embarrassment of buying a ticket for any one of them. The director and producer, Donn Harling, vanished after this, his one and only film. It is a debatable assumption, but he may be more to blame than the story and screenplay by Richard Adams and someone named George Mitchell. Most sources mistakenly use a photo of character actor George Mitchell (1905-1972) as mob boss Carl Ramin. He is not in this film and has zero credits as a screenwriter. Confusing stats indicate that George Andre, aka G. J. Mitchell—the “G” stands for George, apparently—are the same person. Outside this film, I found no images of the main cast online. 

SUDDENLY (1955)

Directed by Lewis Allen, with a screenplay by Richard Sale from his 1943 story, Active Duty, this film was distributed by United Artists. Hardly unknown to anyone with access to the Internet or a Sinatra fan, the crooner capitalizes on his Oscar performance the year before. He is riveting as a big-shot contract killer whose self-imposed bravado in World War II does not quite ring true. My essay goes into more detail than usual to highlight the good aspects and call attention to some gullible moments. Based on today's film buff familiarity, spoiler alerts are unnecessary. The premise falls into the noir slot because of the content. Do not expect dark, shadowy visuals in the sunny California desert.

In his second credited film role, television’s Paul Wexler plays a deputy sheriff who opens the movie with a wooden delivery and bass voice belying such a narrow guy. He gets the film off to a shaky B-movie start with an attempt at local humor about the town's name to a motorist. However, the film quickly gathers momentum as David Raksin’s score fires up. His complex composition during the opening bars features soaring brass and dissonant strings suggesting something is about to happen. The score quickly shifts to represent a bustling small town. In a slice of chaotic realism, the railroad telegraph operator interprets a top-secret message of national significance. Caught off guard by the urgency, he habitually blurts, 'Good. Night. Shirt!' I like his creative use of words. For those under fifty, "nightshirts" were essentially knee-length T-shirts to sleep in.

Co-starring in the film is Sterling Hayden, the chief of police who knows instinctively what to do. Anytime. The Secret Service arrives, headed by the ever-present Willis Bouchey, who coordinates with local officials to make the President's stopover secure. He is surprised to learn that his old boss, James Gleason, lives nearby and would like to see him. Gleason's on-screen daughter and grandson, played by Nancy Gates and Kim Charney respectively, live with him. Her son and Hayden get along quite well. The boy has his eye on a toy gun inside a window display—Gates will have none of it—to pretend he is Hayden or his grandpa, a former Secret Service agent for President Coolidge. A grieving war widow, Gates despises guns and is hesitant to move on with any new relationship. The film's believability is at an all-time high at this point.

FASTEN YOUR SUSPENDED DISBELIEF SEAT BELT

Sinatra, along with his accomplices, Christopher Dark, and actor/voice-over artist, Paul Frees, arrive at Gleason's house ahead of schedule with phony FBI credentials. Gleason wonders what the FBI is doing on this type of assignment. As Hayden and Bouchey approach, the trio hides in an adjoining room. Out pops 'ol Blue Eyes with Bouchey going for his gun, who is the first to go down. Hayden takes a bullet in the arm, breaking a bone, which needs to be reset. He asks the smirking Sinatra to do it but he replies, 'You couldn’t take it.' Hayden insists. Sinatra, sensing a gruesome delight coming his way tells him, 'Hold on brave boy.' One hard yank and a smile erupts. Not a peep out of Hayden. A little man in every sense of the word, Hayden sizes him up pretty quickly. It is interesting to note the size difference between the two when standing toe to toe. Surely a subliminal message.

Perhaps overlooked in editing or simply badly staged, the house, when viewed from the depot, appears to be about an eighth of a mile up a hillside. But viewed from the house, the depot is directly across the tracks! Sinatra was counting on a wooden table to screw to the floor and provide stability for his scoped rifle. Instead, he has to settle on Gleason’s metal table. Considering how close Sinatra is to the depot, a scope will be useless. Lazy Frees whines about the hassle of bolting everything down. He suggests that a “Tommy” gun would work just as well. Here is a guy who knows the distance to the depot. Like Tonto to his Lone Ranger, Frees is told to go into town and see what is happening. He whines. Frees gets questioned by Wexler, loses his cool and the deputy gets wounded. The coward does not get far, groaning and whining as he goes down from, ironically, one of his beloved “Tommy” guns.

Gleason was in the process of fixing his television but ended up calling their local repairman. Using his past field training, he sets up the exciting climax by suggesting the clueless repairman clamp the wires—the 5,000-volt ones—to the metal table for better “reception.” Sinatra seems annoyed by all the background electronic gibberish. Gleason fakes an angina attack with the grandson fetching his pills in the next room. After grabbing the pills, the lad swaps his toy gun for Gleason's real one. The geezer “accidentally” spills his cup of water on the floor near the metal table. The shallow puddle goes unnoticed. Dark, who just prior wanted to call the whole thing off and make a run for it, (suddenly) is excited to view the shot through the gun’s scope. He will get a microscopic view of a Philips head screw in the depot's sign! With his soles sufficiently wet and the rifle gripped, his soul is sent into the afterlife. His involuntary reflexes repeatedly pull the trigger and their location is no longer a secret. Sinatra sees the sparks, yanks off the clamp, pushes dead Dark out of the way, and rapidly steps up to the rifle in fear of missing the shot. Hayden throws a heavy ceramic ashtray at Sinatra’s spine, and then Charney, the little pistol, takes an errant shot. He tosses the revolver across the carpet.

Not phased by all the personal attention from the rear, Sinatra grins, suggesting he is locked in, ready to fire. Except the train does not intend to stop thanks to a stool pigeon's tip about the assassination plot. Had it stopped, all passengers would have been hidden from his view by exiting from the opposite side of the coach! His face goes into shock. The scene sets up beautifully delivered lines for Sinatra. In utter bewilderment, almost to tears realizing his moment of glory is gone, he hesitantly and quietly says, 'It didn’t stop. It. Didn’t. Stop.' He quickly pivots, facing the center of the room, and shouts, 'It didn’t stop!' Gates delivers an accurate second bullet (suddenly) realizing a gun can be a crime deterrent.

Note: Though not flawless as noted, it is seventy-five minutes well spent in Suddenly, California. Visually it is a time capsule of small-town America, the storefronts and their interiors, the vehicles, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was an era when a U.S. President made a stop, it was a rare and special event. As a testament to the era, early in the movie, Hayden asks Gates if he can pick her up for church on Sunday. Try suggesting that for any modern action movie. Incidentally, after the television is fixed, it is Paul Frees’ voice-over calling the fake baseball play-by-play.

HELL BOUND (1957)

This seventy-one-minute Bel-Air Production project is directed by William J. Hole, Jr., produced by Howard W. Koch, and distributed by United Artists. A Bel-Air standby, Carl E. Guthrie is the cinematographer. This crime drama has its quirks and slow sections, but it is another well-acted and filmed offering. Part of its problem is that some scenes extend far too long, which may affect the viewer's attention span. Although not readily apparent at the outset, it is a small film within a larger film. 

As many B-movies did, a voice-over narration provides the background of a coordinated robbery on a freighter entering the port with 250 grand of surplus narcotics from the 1940s. The viewer assumes the drugs have not exceeded their expiration date. Three impostors—a man rescued in open waters on a dingy, a diabetic ship's doctor, and a nurse complete the gang. It is the perfect setup and goes without a flaw as if it might result in the shortest Bel-Air movie of all time. Except that what the viewer is witnessing has never happened. Yet. This opening is the most clever twist of this film, done better nearly a decade later in Gambit (1966). As in that romantic comedy, nothing quite goes as the mastermind planned.

John Russell, with his menacing good looks, is once again a cold-blooded killer with severe anger issues. Do not be fooled by his charming countenance used for the above poster. His smile is turned upside down in this film. He is the fourth impostor in his demonstration film to entice a crooked businessman into financing the plot. His assistant slash girl is played by June Blair, who has a particular knack for imposing herself on any male and sensing a good plan when she hears one. She is competent in her screen debut. Russell turns a cold shoulder to Blair's repeated “come-ons” and is especially not pleased that she volunteers to be the nurse, squeezing out his girlfriend intended for the part. However, the reality of people's personalities has a way of changing one's future. For this film, reality becomes a bit more confusing than the "home movie" he financed.

Speaking of dragging a scene out, Russell beats a drug addict into submission in a convincing fashion to force him into playing the rescued man on a dingy. Between shadows and total darkness, he is pummeled relentlessly. So this beating can wrap up, he agrees to the assignment. But when the heist is mid-cycle, he is so strung out for a fix that he panics and never follows through. Russell pressures Stanley Adams into playing the diabetic doctor, whose character is an actual diabetic. Adams is to inject himself with insulin to put him into diabetic shock. But it is good news, bad news from his doctor. Adams' improving health means insulin injections are not currently necessary. Indeed, an injection could be fatal. The waiting ambulance is to take Adams and the phony nurse to the hospital. Enter Stuart Whitman, in a brief but pivotal role as an intern slash ambulance driver.

One may not be surprised that the actual heist action aboard the ship looks like the very same footage from Russell's home movie—with different actors. Not to go unnoticed is at least one implausible segment with Whitman and Blair sharing ambulance runs while she, somehow, covers for her total lack of medical knowledge. They also share some milk and cookies—no kidding—in his humble apartment. And passionate kisses. Not Hershey's.

Russell is livid that she wants to go legit with the sensible intern. He drops in on her later and viciously slaps her among the furniture before stabbing her, shoving the pocket knife in as far as possible. Russell becomes the useless operative in his "ideal" heist and is now hell-bound to drag out the final segments of the film. In a somewhat clever climactic scene, his demise in a scrap metal yard provides his final disappointment.

Notes: The music score by Les Baxter is a bit overkill at times, as if he is not quite sure what should support a scene. Mundane scenes might be backed by bold, staccato brass, while other parts of the score nearly disappear. The talented musician was noted for providing stock music for numerous projects. Scoring a film was perhaps not his strong suit.

Better known for his many Westerns, Dehl Berti has an uncredited role as Daddy, a heroin supplier, decked out in sunglasses inside a dark strip club (above). He is interrupted by the addicted dingy “survivor” who needs another fix. Ever cool and calm, the unintentionally funny character smirks his way through clipped conversation in a monotone fashion—his head hardly moving. He cannot help the addict. His bizarre scene ends when the camera pivots to focus on the dancer, then to a seeing-eye dog in the wings. Perhaps I made the equally bizarre assumption that it was the canine's eyesight that allowed him to ogle the ladies.

THE BIG CHASE (1954)

The opening score beneath the title credits and Los Angeles highway footage sounds like music for a 1940s Lon Chaney Jr. horror film—ironically a supporting player in this film. The rest of the music would fit an old action serial. Few films are more aptly titled, as about one-third of the movie is a climactic chase sequence that flits from car to rowboat to motorboat to helicopter, and to dress shoes.

Such as it is, the plot concerns a police officer, his expectant wife, and criminals out to steal a payroll truck. Starring again for Lippert Pictures are actors past their career peaks, Glenn Langan, Adele Jergens, and Jim Davis. The opening amateurish dialogue between the police lieutenant, Douglas “B-movie” Kennedy, and reporter Joe Flynn (in a thankless role) is a weak spot, yet the other unknown supporting actors think their own dialogue is not only important but terrific. As recalled by Kennedy to Flynn, it sets up a backstory about Langan and Jergens (in a role against type) back to his graduation from the police academy and the following months on the force. Kennedy is very supportive of the expectant couple and, as a point of encouragement, visits them periodically. Their dialogue is also clichéd. By the way, Kennedy and Flynn wrap up the film in a hokey style.

Aside from some good location filming on land and sea, there are some cheap high school drama sets during the early prison scenes. A potential riot stirs up the acting extras as they pound their tin cups on a table in front of a blank, "cardboard" wall. Making it laughable are extras casually “photo-bombing” in front of the main actors in slow motion in the prison yard. Jim Davis plays a hardened criminal planning a big breakout. This is the last we hear about that (plot hole number one). Instead, he is released from prison and is looking to reconnect with his wife and a couple of prison pals for a payroll robbery. As the chase begins, the trailing police attempt to shoot someone or something in the convertible getaway car while on the freeway. Davis’s wife is assumed to be shot dead, and he takes the wheel to steer the car. Somehow, he manages to bring the car to a stop. In a surprisingly despicable act, more in tune with movies twenty years into the future, the guys push her from the car and over a cliff. Catch you later, babe! 

Then sit back for an “editing festival” as scenes jump from one location or automobile in a matter of seconds. The railroad yard sequence appears to wrap up the chase after Chaney is shot multiple times, and the music fades. I was wrong. The two remaining criminals are now on foot to an awaiting rowboat to Mexico. Amazingly, they trade their rowboat for a motorboat abandoned in open water. In an impressive supporting performance, a Nash Ambassador patrol car comes in hot, skidding at an angle toward the camera next to a waiting police helicopter. Langan misses his child's birth as the chase continues—in Florsheims.

Note: In contrast to this movie's lead, Robert L. Lippert Senior was probably present at his son's birth. It appears Junior picked up some of his father's traits. Number six of seven in his producing career, this film is by no means horrible. The film was directed by Arthur Hilton, and taking full responsibility for the mundane dialogue is the writing team of Fred Freiberger and the uncredited (by request?) Orville Hampton. The 3-D footage will have no relevance today, but it was thrust upon the viewer willy-nilly during the big chase. The producer edited that footage into this film from his film short, Bandit Island (1953). The twenty-five-minute short had no dialogue. Probably a wise choice. The above poster appears to promote Bandit Island with an overlaying poster.

HI-JACKED (1950)

Unlike last month's Highway 13, this project has a greater element of authenticity thanks to the Lippert team director, Sam Newfield, and cinematography by Philip Tannura. No sped-up film gimmicks nor does it have a 1930s look and feel. Sigmund Neufeld Productions produced this sixty-six-minute little gem, one of the better Lippert suspense-filled crime dramas. Expect commendable performances by low-budget actors and location filming of interstate trucking. This time around, it is not sabotage but hijacking. Iris Adrian (below right) adds her usual spark as the diner waitress.

Jim Davis drives for a company experiencing more than their fare share of truck hijackings. He is also trying to shake the stigma of his incarceration for embezzlement. Now on the up and up, he becomes the unwitting pawn to ship millions in stolen furs. Davis still has a chip on his shoulder, believing his employment future is bleak as an ex-con. His pessimistic, smart-aleck attitude toward a highway patrolman during a trailer inspection is not going to help. The patrolman says as much.

The film has a strong opening sequence in a driving rain. Davis stops to help a motorist, but it is simply part of a gang of hijackers, who leave him in a ditch. Lots of film is used to show Davis in a late Forties GMC ACR 723 tractor during deliveries. An eyeful from bygone days. The mob's goons slip a sleeping sedative in his coffee thermos while distracted at the diner, resulting in another hijacking. He later takes a beating at home, and they hide a fur coat in the room. Rodney Dangerfield could relate. Davis tells his wife, Marcia Jones, that someone must be working from inside the trucking firm. He logically narrows the culprit down to the shipping manager. After a pretty exciting climax of fist-o-cuffs and gunplay, the police arrive to arrest the mob, the finger man, and the fence.

Note: Lippert regulars, House Peters, Jr., and Sid Melton, take their usual spot in this film. “Killer” Melton is the comedic relief as an awkward goon who dreams of having his own gun and someday being a mob kingpin. He is hopelessly in the wrong line of work. Speaking of levity, one cannot ignore Iris Adrian as the quintessential diner waitress. Do not blink and miss Myron Healy as a police dispatcher.

Check out my series on seven other Lippert films that ran from February to July 2022, starting here.

HIGHWAY 13 (1948)

Robert L. Lippert Productions churned out countless low-budget films. I profiled seven of them beginning here. This project's budget came in under Sixty grand and Sixty minutes. It was distributed by Screen Guild Productions. Top billing goes to Robert Lowery, sans mustache. He is supported by Pamela Blake (below right) and Michael Whalen, whom Lippert tapped into more than once, and everyone's favorite sardonic curmudgeon, Clem Bevins (below left), who plays her uncle. Whalen and Maris Wrixon both have pivotal roles.

Trucking was a popular movie theme during the early years of overland shipments with engines that could increasingly go the extra mile. It was a noisy, physical job to pilot a tractor or single-axle truck during the 1940s and 1950s. Sabotage was a sure-bet premise. This film is not subtle about addressing this, as the opening scenes use a constant barrage of trucks—at least one miniature—crashing over a cliff on a mountainous section of “jinxed” Highway 13. Out of sequence is a sedan that enthusiastically powers over a cliff. The driver, Whalen, survives, but his wife, the heiress to the trucking company, does not. After a period of recovery, he returns to the office and expresses to the owner his concern that the rash of driver eliminations is more than accidents. He seems sincere. He later meets the truck driver who found his wife after the fiery crash. Lowery. Imagine his surprise to see that Walen survived.

Bevins, whose age seems to always be pushing ninety, regularly checks the trucks over before the drivers hit the road again. Adjacent to the studio garage set is a diner set where Blake takes short orders. Lowery is a regular customer, and after their back-and-forth teasing quips, it is apparent they are planning a future together. As per usual, Bevins is likable as “Pops” with disparaging remarks about coffee's effect on him. Not entirely on the up-and-up, however, he starts spreading rumors that Lowery may be responsible for the rash of crashes.

Walen hires a private detective to pose as their newest driver to investigate the sabotage. Expect the usual sped-up truck sequences as they power around a curve like a sports car. The climax involves an unconscious Lowery, a stowaway Blake, and the truck pilot, Bevins. With a strong bit of suspended disbelief, you might accept the unlikely and clichéd final sequence.

Note: One interesting historical element is the lost art of using a manual choke lever on the dashboard. Way before electronic fuel injection, a manual choke provided a way to get the right mixture of fuel and air in the carburetor. It was mainly used during cold starts, especially in winter. A full choke at start-up, however, might “flood” the engine with too much fuel, making it nearly impossible to start immediately, and a short waiting game ensues until the fuel drains from the carburetor. Once underway, pulling the choke all the way out would provide enough fuel to keep a vehicle slowly rolling without a foot on the accelerator pedal. Lowery does this early in the film (albeit a studio prop truck) as he opens the door, places his left foot on the running board, and stands to get a better view of an accident ahead. Bevins also uses the manual choke in the movie's climax for his stunt double to jump from a moving truck.