Reviews

Noble attempt by director Harold Becker to do a Sidney Lumet style tale of NYC institutional corruption, especially relevant today when you consider the travails of Eric Adams. Unfortunately, it pretty much flounders in a sea of sluggish pacing, over acting from Pacino, flat acting from Bridget Fonda and a botched story from the too many cooks screenwriters assembled, including such luminaries as Bo Goldman and Paul Schrader, which is way too heavy on Fonda and John Cusack playing Woodward and Bernstein and woefully light on Pacino's charismatic, morally challenged Mayor John Pappas. We know more than we need to know about scuzzball snitches and paroled wise guys and the slimy NYC Probation Department but never really understand why Pappas felt the need to be involved with them in the first place. It would have been nice to have a scene with Pappas and his wife to tackle that question. But for some reason the screenwriters have not given BAFTA winner Lindsay Duncan, who plays Mrs. Pappas, any friggin lines!

Anyway, the cinematography by Michael Seresin is good with some lovely shots of iconic bridges and Danny Aiello and Anthony Franciosa remind you in their scenes together what this movie could have been. C plus.

A moving documentary of one of twentieth century America's most inspiring political and cultural figures. In many ways Milk transcended the very important issue of Gay Rights to encroach on the land of Being For The Little Guy, territory staked out by Bernie, among a very few others. Had he lived into the twenty first century I truly believe he not only would have been able to speed up AIDS awareness and gay marriage but, ironically, would have had the same career arc as Dianne Feinstein, whose rise was started with his death, but with a much greater social impact.

Alas, it was not to be, thanks to the dark forces in American society embodied in Milk's enemy, Dan White. I try not to use the word "chilling" too often because it is such a hoary cliche but that is exactly how it felt to listen to this guy's dead voiced confession of his evil acts. That a jury could find him not guilty of murder one or two is even more shocking than OJ. Although, given the level of homophobia in America in the late 70s, perhaps not so shocking.

My only criticism of this excellent doc from Rob Epstein is that, even in a film titled "The TIMES of..." I would have liked more on Milk's personality, family background and partners. One actually comes away from this film knowing more of the inner life of White than of Milk. Something wrong with that. B plus.

Art direction to die for, acting and dialogue to cry for pretty much sums up, for me, this typical 50s, paranoid, body snatcher-esque, sci fi pic. This is not surprising since the film was directed by probably the single most influential art director and set designer in Hollywood history, William Cameron Menzies, creator of, among other things, the burning of Atlanta in GWTW and the surreal dream sequences in "Spellbound". And indeed the film is consistently sumptuous and gorgeous to look at, be it set in a police station, cave or country field.

However, once the actors open their mouths the art recedes. How far? Well, mid level "Outer Limits" episode would be my general assessment. At no point does it even encroach on "Twilight Zone" territory which, under Serling's tutelage, had consistently good and occasionally great writing and acting. Give it a generous B minus since film is, after all, a visual medium.

PS...I thought, at first, since she had a vaguely Brit sounding accent, that Helena Carter was Helena Bonham Carter's mom. Then I Googled her and found out she was born in NYC. So why the Limey tones? Alien invasion, perhaps?

Brilliance and banality walk hand in hand in this pre code Legosi pic very, very loosely based on Poe. The former, as some previous reviewers have noted, mainly resides in the dark, twisted, haunted cinematography of Karl Freund, most notably evident in the film's best scene, by far, the torture, murder and disposal of the Seine-side streetwalker, (played by the future "What's My Line?" panelist Arlene Francis, if you can believe that), a killing with religious imagery that makes it all the more horrific. Also well done are the expressive eyes of Erik, The Ape, as interpreted by Charles Gemora, a wonderfully wordless characterization that pre dates "King Kong" by five years.

As for the banal, there are several examples. You have Leon Ames before he learned how to act, Sidney Fox, who is gorgeous, but never learned how to act, and lame comic relief from Bert Roach. As for Legosi, I feel about this campy fellow's performance the way I feel about all his work, namely that a little bitta Bela goes a long way. B minus.

Like most seventies TV movies it wears a general air of PG sanitization that is quite resistible, especially when compared to grittier, more hard hitting Westerns in theatres at the time, like "Will Penny", "McCabe And Mrs. Miller" and, of course, anything by Peckinpah. It feels like something that would have been shown in a 1975, eleventh grade U. S. History class following the unit on The Westward Movement; that is, if you had a semi cool teacher.

As a result of the above censoriousness, with one or two exceptions, like the scene where the title character is forced into a premature abortion by the cruelty and venality of her fellow homesteaders, there are no scenes that have much of an impact. Two in particular, the death of Mrs. Sergeant's husband (played way too broadly by Capt. Kirk) and the prairie fire, are remarkably bland and forgettable. Buzz Kulik, at his best, say in "Warning Shot" and "Yellow Canary", is a fine action director but you wouldn't know it from this too polite look at the hardships of farmsteaders in the West. It is all summed up, for me, in the performance and look of Joanna Pettet, with her well modulated tones, perfectly coifed hair, and duds that look like they came out of the J. Peterman catalog. Especially that oh so cute Army Hat. Give me any of the lonely Kansas farm wives in any random episode of "Gunsmoke", instead. C plus.

PS...Best performance is turned in by Helen Hunt who, at age 10, not only acts rings around everyone else in the cast but, in the process, really exposes the lousy kid actor who plays her brother.

The first of the seven Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott Westerns and, to my mind, the best since it set the pattern and high standard for all those that followed: The harsh yet at times beautiful high desert landscape, in this case wonderfully captured by DP William H. Clothier. The bitter, alienated, revenge seeking "hero" powerfully played by Scott. The oleaginous yet weirdly likable "villain" equally well drawn by Lee Marvin. His none too bright sidekick (a very good Red Berry). And a welcome study in warm, intelligent femininity in this sea of toxic masculinity, here essayed by Gail Russell.

All of the above characters are given fine, terse, perceptive and, at times, quite funny dialogue by the screenwriter of the majority of the seven films, Burt Kennedy. And, of course, whipping all these disparate elements together into a tense, seamless seventy eight minutes is Boetticher, not only one of the great Western directors but a great director period. Indeed, my only criticism is that the title song is fairly hokey. Give it an A.

A romantic relationship between a charming, erudite gambler/hood and a wayward rich gal. Sounds like it could be promising, especially when the girl is played by Virginia Mayo with whom it is almost always worthwhile spending time. Unfortunately, the clunky screenplay by William Sackheim resolves the central conflict between these two halfway through the friggin picture so that the second half lacks any dramatic tension whatsoever. Plus, Sackheim's dialogue is, with the exception of a few Tom D'Andrea zingers (the future Gillis on "Life Of Riley" is here playing the Eve Arden role), humorless and stiff with lines like: "We are two trains meeting in a depot and now going separate ways". Oh, lordy. Also not helping matters is overscoring from David Buttolph (a poor man's Bronislau Kaper) and undistinguished cinematography from the usually good Ted McCord that gives the film a most generic back lot look. Give it a generous C plus, mostly for Mayo.

If, as Eddie Muller said in his Noir Alley intro, director Curtis Bernhardt regarded this as his finest film then he must have made some real dogs because this is a most undistinguished work. Aside from a good, if under utilized, Herbert Marshall villain turn and effectively moody night time and rain cinematography from Paul C. Vogel there is nothing that grabs one's attention or, as great noirs do, gets under your skin. The story, centered around copious amounts of sodium pentathol and breaking into and out of two storey windows, is on the ludicrous side as is having Bob Taylor's wartime PTSD instantly cured by "brain surgery". A better film, of course, would have had Taylor carrying his WW2 damage around with him throughout, a la Robert Ryan, say, in the much better "Act Of Violence", made at the same time. And Bernhardt's direction and Lester Cole's dialogue captures exactly none of the feel of a bleak, depressing state mental institution, choosing instead to present the inmates as dotty eccentrics who like Chopin and sing "Home On The Range" during hydrotherapy. Again, for comparison, check out Sam Fuller's treatment of this milieu in "Shock Corridor". As for Taylor and the usually good Audrey Totter let's just say they have both had better darker roles in the noir genre, she in "Lady In The Lake", he in "Undercurrent". Give it a C plus.

This final film from director Edward Yang, who depressingly died at only fifty nine, is both insanely long and sluggishly paced. Indeed, there were several times when I was tempted to bail on it. Glad I didn't, though, because at film's end you realize that you have watched one of the better cinematic studies of a dysfunctional family.

The main symptom of this Taiwanese household's defectiveness is, of course, their uttter inability not only to make meaningful connections with each other but to communicate beyond the most basic level ("I'm leaving", "Take out the trash", You're on your own"). It is in dramatizing this lack of attention toward each other where Yang excels, both as writer and director. Rather than make this brood a bunch of inarticulate, platitudinous, insensitive boors, as would a lesser family conflict film, he shows that they are quite capable of eloquently expressing themselves, just not to each other!

Thus we have the father speaking movingly of his unhappiness to his ex girlfriend. Or the daughter opening herself up to her next door neighbor's boyfriend. And everyone in the household giving touching soliloquys to the grandmother who, in a stroke induced coma, cannot hear them. Occasionally there are cries of pain, such as the mother, just before leaving for a religious commune, bemoaning her dull, married life or the brother in law's comically botched suicide attempt (Yang is very good with comedy, so much so that I wish there had been more in the film). And occasiopnally there is a held hand, like the father and daughter at the film's end, or a fumbling attempt at marital reconciliation between the parents. But such stuff is fleeting and offers only a thin ray of hope that this family will ever be even halfway together. B plus.

It's ok. Weighted far too much toward the rom end of the rom/com spectrum for my taste. Indeed, at times it's downright somber, like when our shipboard couple docks in what I guess is The Canary Islands and visits the guy's grandmother. And the movie gets oppressively Catholic and heavy, a mood that it never quite manages to shake off. I also could have done without those operatic songs Irene Dunne sings in the worst, melodramatic Jeanette MacDonald manner. And Boyer is suave as hell but way too gloomy. Much preferred Cary Grant in director Leo McCarey's better remake. Give it a generous C plus mostly for Dunne, whose bemused intelligence shines through even this slog of a film.

Reminds me, both in story and mood, of Francis Ford Coppola's 1975 film, "The Conversation", only not quite as good. As previous reviewer boblipton noted it's too long, about thirty minutes so in my opinion. You don't need the coda that deals with the characters' fates in a newly freed East Germany. And the two chief Stasi bad guys are a bit too cartoonishly evil, sort of successors to the comic, evil Nazis played by Walter Slezak and Conrad Veidt in 1940s cinema. And as long as I'm airing out the film's few pieces of soiled linen, I could have done without the heavy handed, "meaningful" dialogues between the conscience wracked playwright and his equally tortured actress/girlfriend, exchanges which smack of Abby Mann on a bad day.

Where this movie achieves greatness is in its subtle depiction of an awakening political consciousness, a transformation that is embodied in the character of Wiesler, a Stasi spook tasked with surveiling a "suspect" couple and who slowly comes to sympathize and then empathize with these "enemies of the state". There is no scene where the lightbulb of freedom suddenly shines for Wiesler as there would have been if this had been a Stanley Kramer or OIiver Stone movie. Instead, we get the sense that to this lonely apparitichik who must hire hefty hookers the happy conjugal life of Georg Dreyman and Christa Sieland is what first attracts them to him and works its way into his being so that his purloining of a forbidden book by Brecht, his first overt act of rebellion, feels natural rather than clunky. And, of course, the magnificent performance of Ulrich Muhe, with his ability to express pain, regret, interest and contempt with a twitch of the lip or eye, aids enormously in making his political and moral journey a credible one. B plus.

There have been many fine films about the Vietnam debacle ("Apocalypse", "Platoon", "Deer Hunter", "Full Metal Jacket") but none finer than this somber, searing documentary. It drives home the lesson that the British learned in 1781 and the Confederacy in 1865 but which The United States seems doomed to be taught repeatedly, namely that if your cause is unjust so that you go to war without the moral high ground and, thus, the support of your civilian population then you will be assured of a long, bloody slog and victory will prove elusive, at best. And, at worst, a mirage, forever taunting The Leaders onward so that they futilely keep increasing the bombing and the military personnel. And the moral fabric of the aggressor country is slowly, inexorably torn apart. As is the physical fabric of the invaded society.

The attention of the viewer will be grabbed by the horrendous battle footage and destruction of Vietnamese homes and villages, as well as director Peter Davis' ability to delve into areas hitherto off limits to war documentarians, be it a brothel or a Saigon country club. For me, though, this film's main value is the array of talking heads Davis assembles to drive home the above lesson. Usually in documentaries one puts up with the talking heads in order to get to the raw, dramatic stuff. Not here. What a fascinating gallery of faces and voices we have, from guilt ridden bombardiers to bitter but defiant peasants to gung ho ex POWs to arrogant Ivy League armchair warriors enamored of the Domino Theory to a senator from Arkansas who calls that theory bunk. And if the voices are weighted toward the anti war side of the spectrum, well, history has shown that point of view to be the correct one. Give it an A.

Sorry to be the skeleton at the Bogie bash here, but when you devote twice as much time to an utterly forgettable film like "Battle Circus" as you do to a masterpiece like 'In A Lonely Place" and leave out such good films like "Barefoot Contessa" and "Desperate Hours" but include generous swatches from mediocrities such as "Knock On Any Door" and "Underworld USA" then you know you're deep in the land of the disappointing bio/doc.

Also, the talking heads, with the exception, of course, of Ms. Bacall, kinda suck. They are either, like Bogdanovitch, not given enough to say or, in the case of John Huston, tend to pontificate or, in the case of Richard Brooks, tell you at great length stuff that is painfully obvious. I also blame Brooks for the inclusion of the three Bogie clunkers above to the exclusion of his better films, since Brooks was the director of said clunkers.

The parts with Bacall talking about the person who was obviously the love of her life are quite touching, though, and lift this film ever so slightly above the ho hum line. C plus.

Top 10 Bogie Performances

10) Duke Mantee "Petrified Forest" 9) Capt. Queeg "Caine Mutiny" 8) Roy Earle "High Sierra" 7) Harry Dawes "Barefoot Contessa" 6 ) Philip Marlowe "Big Sleep" 5) Sam Spade "Maltese Falcon" 4) Charlie Allnut "African Queen" 3) Rick Blaine "Casablanca" 2) Fred C. Dobbs "Treasure" 1) Dixon Steele "Lonely Place"

Eddie Muller, in his Noir Alley intro, opined that the film's location shooting in Havana "distracts" from its overall quality. My response would be, "And that quality is what, exactly?" I mean, even Eddie admits that this Joseph H. Lewis offering "doesn't amount to much" because of a "derivative" screenplay. I would add to that the fact that the John Hodiak/Hedy Lamarr pairing has all the sexual chemistry of Mr. And Mrs. Louis B Mayer about to retire for the evening as well as the fact that, while Lamarr in real life had a high IQ, on screen she is strictly of average ability. So, yeah, let's have a travelogue. At least there's something interesting to watch. C plus.

This is the best of the three films Anthony Mann, James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy made together and a standout entry in the 1950s psychological Western sub genre. The first two thirds is a tense ode to ambiguous, treacherous male friendship as Stewart and Kennedy are both drawn to and repel each other in their shifting allegiances to both their bright and dark stars. Once Kennedy's character unambiguously turns pure evil, about three fourths of the way through, the film loses much of its appeal and becomes a rather standard revenge pic and scenarist Borden Chase's hitherto fine, laconic exchanges between the two turn cliche as Stewart snarls at Kennedy"You'll think it's me and one night it will be" which, of course, is ripping off John Wayne's speech to Monty Clift in "Red River" which would be utterly shameless except that Chase wrote that fine Western too. Up until then, though, it's good, ambivalent stuff with expert performances from the two male leads, lovely Oregon cinematography from Irving Glassberg, and the usual crisp pacing and deft handling of action from Mann. Indeed, I was so engaged that I didn't even mind Jay C Flippen's boring anti civilization speeches, the usual Hollywood view of Native Americans as faceless killing/dying machines or Stepin Fetchet's usual dumb, racist schtick. B plus.

Alexander Payne, on TCM, called this film a "companion piece" to Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair", but "distant cousin" strikes me as a more apt phrase. Yes, both films were shot in Berlin in 1948 and both deal with the moral and physical devastation of that place and time. But where Wilder's film delivers glancing blows and is constantly cutting away from Marlene Dietrich reality to a rather lame Jean Arthur/ John Lund service comedy, Rossellini rubs our collective noses in it, so to speak, so that we hardly have room to breathe, let alone time for comic relief. And while "Germany Year Zero" could do with a bit more black humor, considering the setting and subject I will take somber over tongue in cheek anytime.

I also disagree with Payne's assessment that the film's ending is hopeful. Yes, the most admirable character in it, Edmund's sister Eva, survives but, gazing at the body of her brother, is she contemplating rebirth or an endless cycle of toxic propaganda and death?

Bottom line: A gut wrenching film that makes one think. Not too many of those around. A minus.

Very interesting bio doc of one of Hollywood's few notable movie producer/auteurs (some others being Thalberg, Selznick and, if you're feeling generous, Robert Evans). As Kent Jones' film nicely brings out, what separates Lewton from other producer/purveyors of scariness, like Corman or Castle, is that the fear and terror lie not in the monster without, the one with scales, antennae or fangs, but rather in the realization that, unbekownst to us, the Beast In The Jungle has burrowed inside our collective consciences. Which is what makes Lewton's best films like 'Cat People", "I Walked With A Zombie" and "Curse Of The Cat People" so utterly unsettling. And why the loss of this cinematic genius at forty six feels so tragic.

Had Lewton lived to, say, seventy six and been productive into the 1970s how would he have fared? Who knows? I'd like to think he would have moved into TV and perhaps rivaled Serling and eclipsed Dan Curtis. Although ,with his melancholy, overly sensitive persona (which should have been given more extensive treatment in this film), I could also see him going back to writing dark novels. Or maybe he'd have moved to Italy and hooked up with Bava.

Bottom line: Can't wait to see "Leopard Man" again. B plus.

PS...Good narration from Scorsese. His light, feathery, slightly creepy voice matches Lewton's uneasy mood.

Thoroughly conventional biography of a rather unconventional woman. Makes for good irony, that, but a rather dull, flat film. The ennui is especially pronounced in the first half hour which is basically a washing machine cycle of Girl Breaks Record, Girl Gets Lionized, Men Pontificate Upon Girl's Success, Girl Breaks Record...Things get a bit more lively when Robert Newton's self destructive alkie (a Newton specialty, taken from his real life travails) shares the cockpit with her (no pun intemded) but at no point does anything, either in the air or on land, rise to the level of even minimally compelling. Give it a generous C plus for its refreshing for 1942 anti sexist message and for Anna Neagle, a beautiful, intelligent actress who almost breaks through the layers of plaster saintliness encrusting her character.

PS...Lousy title. Sounds like a Buffalo area eatery owned by Kathy Hochul. Brit title ("They Flew Alone") woulda been better.

The best film of its director, Tom Gries, who, sadly, died too young, and its star, Charlton Heston, who, sadly, did not, this is a hard bitten and sensitive (not easy to combine those two qualities , in case you were wondering) tale of the rootlessness, loneliness, violence and physical perils of cowboy life. Its virtues are many and include harshly beautiful cinematography by one of The Masters, Lucien Ballard, which renders every shot the equal of a Bierstadt or a Dixon, a fine, moody, brooding score by David Raksin (maybe a bit too urban sounding for Western afficionadoes like me but faithful to the bleak proceedings on screen) and, principally, a veritable cornucopia of fine performances from an assemblage of fine actors like Heston, Joan Hackett, Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, William Schallert, G. D. Spradlin (nice to see him playing a good guy for a change), Anthony Zerbe and Clifton James. Hell, even Lee Majors (in his first role) is good! And all of these fine acting turns are enhanced by good, intelligent, laconic dialogue, also provided by Gries.

You'll notice that I left the brilliant British actor Donald Pleasance off the above list. That is because he, ironically, delivers the film's worst performance. Indeed, his camera mugging and lack of even a feeble attempt to keep the Limey out of his voice became so iirritating to me that I had an itchy fast forward finger every time he appeared. And cutting away from Heston and Hackett's touching love scene to Pleasance crashing open the door and going full on Jack in "The Shining" has to be one of the stupidest editorial decisions of 1967. Does Pleasance ruin the movie? No. Does he keep it from being great? Most definitely. Give it a B.

Usually, I'm a fan of the early forties films of Jean Negulesco (i.e. "Mask Of Dimitrios", "Threee Strangers", "Humoresque") but this first offering from him is a dull exception. It's basically W. Somerset Maugham with a lobotomy as we sluggishly make our way through a silly, overplotted story with stiff, stilted dialogue and marginal acting from the two leads, both deservedly more famous for their off screen achievements (she married Bill Holden and he was best friends with Errol Flynn). With the notable exception of good art and set decoration that at least gives this thing a properly decadent far Eastern look and a well staged bar brawl nothing even mildly holds one's interest. Solid C.

To put the bottom line on top, this WW2 film about a United States defeat in the Pacific Theatre is a poor man's "They Were Expendable". There are well done battle scenes throughout, both aerial and on the ground, a graveside eulogy worthy of Ford and the last fifteen minutes, detailing the Marines stirring last stand on the eponymous island, is worth the price of admission. A bit too hokey at times? Sure, but what do you expect? It's a propaganda film meant to boost American morale in 1942 when US victory was far from in the bag. My main problem with it is not the patriotism or the sentimentality but the pacing, almost always an issue in a John Farrow film. Way too much lame comic relief from Bendix and Preston to slow the film down and the potentially interesting conflict between civilian versus military, embodied in the scenes with Albert Dekker's hardnosed private contractor and Brian Donlevy's harder nosed general, is way too quickly resolved, as if Farrow and his scenarists W. R. Burnettt and Frank Butler suddenly realized, "Uh oh. We're being too cynical here. Wrong war for that." B minus.

PS...Want a crash course on American racial attitudes toward the Germans as opposed to the Japanese? Watch how the US soldier with the last name "Goebbles" is made an object of more or less good natured raillery. Don't think that'd fly if he'd been called Tojo.

Those folks who enjoyed "Gun Crazy" or "Badlands" or those who, like me, wondered if this artsy fartsy director would or could ever tell a direct, hard hitting story without any pretentious BS, should be most satisfied with this bleak tale of juvies in Madrid set in the days when Francoism was yielding, ever so slowly, to Democracy.

It has been criticized for "glorifying" the four young sociopaths but I just don't see it. I mean, unless they are holding up banks or burning cars or killing people the quartet are half dead most of the time and, when they do speak, what they have to say tends toward the extremely banal and, though they are successful in their left handed endeavors for a while, three of the four meet decidedly unromantic, violent ends while the fourth is seen at film's end walking into darkness where I doubt if even youthful Spanish audiences in 1981 wished to follow her.

Perhaps it was Saura's jaundiced view of Spanish society, with its high corruption quotient and trigger happy, authoritarian cops a reminder that ol Francisco F wasn't that far in the rear view mirror, that caused film critics to think that he was making his destructive, chaotic teens heroes. But in this film there are no heroes, anti or otherwise. Consequently, this viewer felt very little pity for them as they met their depressing fates. Plenty of admiration for the four actors who portrayed them, though, especially when you consider that two were not professional thesps but rather actual prisoners on day release. A minus.

Very good study of disaffected Gallic youth that, like most such cinematic examinations, is best when it focuses on troubled relationships and weakest when it indulges in philosophizing (a French occupational hazard) and soapbox perching. Fortunately, there is more of the former than the latter and the result is a film that stays with you long after the viewing, especially the performances of the three leads, Vincent Cassel, Said Taghmaui and Hubert Kounde. All three are great but if I was forced to choose the greatest I'd cast my vote for Taghmaui's hustler/everyman who manages to balance himself nicely between Kounde and Cassel's idealistic and sociopathic volatility. It would be easy for an actor to get drowned out by the passion and clamor of these two friends but Taghmaui steers an amused, sometimes puzzled but always compelling course to which the viewer finds themselves drawn for some much needed quirky humanity in what can sometimes feel too much like a Social Problem Picture.

Bottom line: A most impressive film especially when you consider its director was 28 when he made it. I hope to see more of Mr. Kassovitz's work. B plus.

Even though this thing was made two years before "Body Snatchers", it feels like a pale imitation of Siegel's sci fi classic. In other words, instead of getting under your skin it tends to tickle your funny bone, like in the scene where the alien is revealed. Original scenarist Ray Bradbury warned eternal schlockmesiter director Jack Arnold not to do this but instead of wisely listening to someone who knows a thing or two about how not to subvert uneasy moods Arnold ignored him and the result is unintentional hilarity as the Other comes off looking like something a Mardi Gras float designer would create if they had imbibed too many cans of Jax.

Also, it's a footrace to see who turns in the worst performance, Carlson or Rush. I would give the award to Barbara based on the fact that her transformation to alien zombie does not seem all that different from what went before.

Good to see George Selk before he became ol Moss, though. And The Professor before he became The Professor. Oh, and the cinematography is properly desert eerie. So let's give it a generous C plus.

Routine. Standard. Flat. Marginal. Yeah, I'd say the majority of my fourteen, esteemed IMDB colleagues below have this 1956 boxing flic pegged just about right. Nearly everything about it...the fight scenes, the cinematography, the acting of Audie Murphy and Barbara Rush, the dialogue by someone named Sher...screams "mediocrity!" Occasionally, there are flashes of interest, like a smarmy study in toxic wealth by an actor with whom I'm not familiar but soon hope to be, Jeff Morrow. Or real life pugilist Chico Vejar who turns in the film's best, most natural acting job. But just as often the film slips below the ho hum line into the land of serious boredom as in those interminable love scenes between the two leads. Solid C.

PS... Murphy's character says he's Jersey, but every time he opens his mouth I hear Longhorn.