THE BLACK PARACHUTE (1944)

In 1942, the Nazis occupy a small European country led by King Stephen. Radio broadcasts from the king ask his people to cooperate with the Nazis, but the leaders of the underground movement suspect that he is being coerced into making these statements—and we discover indeed that the Nazi general Von Bodenbach is holding the king in "protective custody" and having a voice double make the broadcasts. American reporter Michael Lindley, in Europe to cover the war, is asked by resistance leaders Kurt and Erik to help free the king. He agrees and is parachuted into the country with a black parachute, supposedly less visible in the night, but the Germans still see him and try to chase him down. He gets help from a reluctant farmer and his daughter; the man Michael had arranged to contact is now dead, and the farmer is suspicious. But they offer him refuge in a cellar and then test him by undertaking a fake raid. Convinced of his loyalty, the group accepts him, and after they kill a small Nazi convoy, Michael takes the uniform and ID papers of Captain Mir and gains entrance to King Stephen’s castle. Bodenbach is fooled, but his mistress Marya knew Mir in the past and knows he's not Mir, but she doesn’t give him away. She asks Michael to take her with him when he frees the king (with the help of some resistance fighters who are present in the castle), but can she really be trusted? The title of this unassuming B-movie ultimately means nothing, as the black parachute doesn't really work. But it is kind of a cool title and the reason I watched this when it came up as a YouTube algorithm suggestion. At seventy minutes, it's about the right length for what it sets out to do, which is to tell a story about a resistance rescue. Larry Parks (pictured), who plays Michael, is not exactly the heroic type in build or voice, but he suffices for a B-movie lead. John Carradine is the Nazi general, and of course, he could do this kind of role in his sleep. Osa Massen is very good as Marya, keeping us guessing about her loyalty and motivations until the climax, though at times she sounds like Madeline Kahn's character in Blazing Saddles. Charles Wagenheim (Kurt) sounds a little like Groucho Marx. Busy character actor Jonathan Hale is King Stephen. It's a decent propaganda piece, as most wartime films were, and builds to a tense conclusion. [YouTube]

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)

A folk music theme, sung by Kingston Trio imitators, tells us that men known as the Mighty Sons of Hercules, "once thundered through the years"; they were "men as men should be"; they "could never feel the curse of a coward's fears"; they come around "to show that might and right still survive." In a time thousands of years ago, a glacial ice cap spread south, turning some tribes into nomads escaping the cold. We see a group of sun worshipers, led by Doric and his son Aydar, build a new village, but nearby is a lake with a giant sea serpent. When it threatens Aydar and his wife-to-be Raia, wandering loinclothed muscleman Maxus (Reg Lewis) comes to the rescue, slaying the beast. But the Sun People's problems have barely begun. That night, a tribe of moon worshipers, led by the dark and hairy Fuan, attacks, burning homes, killing many of the men, and carting the women off to be human sacrifices to the Pale Goddess at a ritual to be held at the next full moon. Doric is killed and the tribe's central fire pit is extinguished. All is not well among the Moon People; Fuan's woman Moah resents Fuan for killing off her family and staking a false claim to the throne. Maxus finds the Sun People, restarts their fire (how in the world do these people not know how to make fire?), and agrees to go off and try to free their women. He does, with some help from Moah, but Fuan catches them and buries them both up to their heads in the ground. Luckily, a volcano (or earthquake, or both) erupts, saving the two. The Moon People go off to get help from a nearby tribe of cannibal barbarians, leading to a climactic battle in which Maxus and Fuan have a knock-down, drag-out fight before Fuan is killed by a gigantic stone carving of the sun.

Where to start? I guess with the title. Though there are some monsters here and there (none very impressive), they have nothing to do with fire. Maxus is not a literal son of Hercules; Sons of Hercules was a group title for a repackaging of some peplum movies for American television and they were all given the same title song. (See MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES.) In the original Italian version, the hero is Maciste. Reg Lewis (Maxus, pictured above) was a professional bodybuilder—this was his only speaking part in a movie, though he apparently toured in a stage show with Mae West. He didn't need to be a good actor, just have a good physique, which he does. Andrea Aureli is nicely menacing as Fuan, but no one else in the cast stands out. There are a few moderately effective battle scenes with people and boulders tossed about, and the climactic fight is well executed. The fact that it's not set in Greece or Rome is a novelty but I did miss the big palaces and stadiums of the traditional sword and sandal adventures. The presence of a cannibal tribe is promising, but nothing is done with this. The English dubbing is worse than usual, and apparently the original Italian version (the title of which is translated as Maciste Against the Monsters) is a slightly different cut. It was released in England as Colossus of the Stone Age, but never seems to have gotten a theatrical release in the United States. It's not one of the worst peplum films, but approach with low expectations. [YouTube]

GIRL WITH HYACINTHS (1950)

Lovely young Dagmar is playing piano one night at a small party. She seems depressed and after a couple of interactions with guests, she leaves for home, seeming almost suicidal as she looks longingly into a dark river from a bridge. A man passes by noticing her mood and says, "Don’t let it worry you; he's not worth it." She replies, "There is no he." At her apartment, she slumps into a chair and stares at an empty lamp hook on the ceiling. The next morning, she is found dead, having hung herself from the lamp hook. Her neighbors across the hall, writer Anders and his wife Britt, are told she left a note leaving her possessions to them. Intrigued partly because they didn't really know her all that well, they begin an investigation into her life and the possible reason she committed suicide. At her funeral he talks to a rather cold man, a banker, who might be her father and whom Dagmar's mother tried to blackmail over his possible paternity. He finds other people from her past life including Gullan, an actress who befriended Dagmar on a lonely Christmas Eve; Korner, an alcoholic struggling artist who painted a portrait of her (from which the film's title comes); and Willy Borge, a crooner who gave copies of his albums to all his lovers and says that she came from a generation that would "rather jump out a window than acknowledge our need for tenderness." Anders and Britt also meet Dagmar's former husband, a soldier named Brink. He says despite being married to her for four years, he felt he never knew her. He read a letter he found to her from a former lover named Alex, but because Dagmar insisted that there had been no other man before him, Brink felt he could not trust her and they divorced. It seems like Dagmar is going to remain a cipher to Anders as she was to most of the people who knew her, but in the end, Britt discovers the truth.

[Major spoiler follows] Though I'm disappointed that the Criterion Channel has bought into the teasing overuse of the phrase 'film noir' and included this Swedish movie, directed by Hasse Ekman, in a collection called Nordic Noir, I'm pleased to have been able to see it. Much is made of this film's narrative similarity to Citizen Kane, in that it is a search for the secret to a dead person's identity through a series of flashbacks triggered by people from the past. The sometimes stunning shadowy visual style also borrows from Kane which I think is why the noir label has been attached to this. But most of the defining themes of noir are not present. Interestingly, though Kane's 'Rosebud' doesn't really explain Kane, Dagmar's Rosebud moment at the end does, at least on the surface, explain her death. Britt discovers that Dagmar's mysterious Alex from the past was not a man but a woman; Dagmar encountered her at the party seen at the beginning and we see that scene again at the end, able to piece together at least a cursory explanation for the suicide. Apparently, Swedish audiences from 1950 went home from this movie largely unaware of what the ending meant given the absence of gay and lesbian signifiers in pop culture. Viewers today will probably pick up on the gay subtext along the way, though the ending still has a nice frisson to it. The acting is excellent throughout. Eva Henning's Dagmar (pictured)  has a melancholy tinge though she also manages to come off as both simple and complex, as both transparent and mysterious. Ulf Palme (Anders) and Birgit Tengroth (Britt) are nicely grounded as a pleasant, average couple and their scenes together are light in tone. Anders Ek is eccentric as the artist and Keve Hjelm is sympathetic as the ex-husband, despite a moment when he expresses admiration for the Nazis. Highly recommended, though not as a film noir. [Criterion Channel]

THE SHANGHAI STORY (1954)

In Shanghai, a crackdown by the Communist government occasioned by an outbreak of spy activity has a number of foreigners interned as prisoners in an emptied-out hotel. Among them: Dan, an American doctor; Paul, a seemingly harmless artist; newlyweds Emilio and Leah; Knuckles, a young sailor; and Ricki, a neutral citizen who is suspected of being an arms dealer. Also among the internees are a minister, an older man with a heart condition, and an American family. There is one internee, Rita, who has a fair degree of freedom in coming and going. Despite some possible sparks between her and Dan, he suspects that she may be the mistress of Zorek, the security officer. The story develops episodically. One of the Communist guards kills a dog for biting him on the ankle; a young girl falls ill and Dan tries to get Rita to use her influence to allow her to be taken to a hospital; an assassination attempt is made on a spy suspect. One man discovers that Paul has a radio hidden in his room, but when he excitedly tries to tell Zorek, it's assumed he is trying to escape and is shot dead. Dan figures out a way to get information out to spy contacts, but has to rely on Rita for help, not being quite sure if he can trust her. This is a B-movie cross between a spy melodrama and a soap opera. It takes place almost completely in the hotel and the two genres do battle throughout. The characters, though well differentiated, aren't all that interesting, with Paul (Whit Bissel) and Knuckles (Richard Jaeckel) brought to life the best. Ruth Roman is fine as Rita, whom you know from the beginning will wind up on the side of the good guys, but Edmond O’Brien (as Dan) is a bit stodgy and their implied romance goes nowhere. The soapy Grand Hotel elements of the film don't build convincingly, but the mild spy action scenes are pulled off fairly well. Taking place on a handful of hotel sets, the whole thing is very much like a play, though it was actually based on a novel. The director, Frank Lloyd, turned in some fine work in the 30s (Cavalcade, Mutiny on the Bounty) but in this, his next-to-last film, he seems uninspired. It’s paced fairly well and at 90 minutes, seems about the right length. Though it's not set on a train, fans of train movies, with various characters stuck together in a limited space, may enjoy this. Pictured are Jaeckel and O'Brien. [TCM]

BLIND SPOT (1947)

In his opening narration, author Jeffrey Andrews (Chester Morris) tells us that we may have seen too many movies about authors living the high life, but writing good books and writing books that sell may not be the same thing. We see a drunken and grizzled Andrews get dressed as he looks at himself in a cracked mirror (pictured at left), takes another slug of booze, and heads off to visit his publisher Henry Small, looking for a loan or an advance. Though Small is in a meeting with successful mystery writer Lloyd Harrison (Steven Geray), Andrews rudely pushes past Small's secretary Evelyn (Constance Dowling) and demands a new contract. Small refuses but gives him twenty bucks and encourages him to stop writing literary books and aim for the bestseller list. Harrison, who is himself looking for a new contract, admires Andrews' books and seems sympathetic to his plight. Andrews mumbles something about how easy it would be to come up with a plot for a locked room murder mystery then hits a bar where he relates his murder plot to the bartender, and later to Evelyn who arrives at the bar upset over Small having tried to force himself on her. Later, even more drunk, he goes to Small's empty outer office and tears up his old contract. The next morning, Small is found dead in his locked inner office and the police arrest Andrews as a suspect since the death is very much like the murder he had outlined the night before. Andrews can't remember the solution to the mystery he had dreamed up. Harrison talks the police into letting Andrews go in his custody. Trying to track down the two people to whom he told the plot, Andrews discovers that the bartender has been found dead and Evelyn has disappeared. He also finds a $500 check in his pocket from Small, indicating that the publisher had heard the whole story and liked it. He eventually finds Evelyn and suspects her (her earring is found near the bartender's body) but they strike sparks. Evelyn: "Do you really think I killed Small?"; [long rough kiss]; Andrews: "Yes." Still, the two join forces to figure out Andrews' forgotten solution and find the real killer.

This is a nifty little low-key film noir. There aren't quite enough suspects around so the killer's identity is obvious (as is, if you've ever read a locked room mystery, the solution to Andrews' plot), but the movie is drenched in noir visuals and the acting is quite good. Chester Morris gives a far more layered performance than he was allowed to give in his Boston Blackie detective films, and he's very convincing as a drunk at the end of his rope, though he overdoes the drunk acting a bit in the beginning. In a couple of scenes in which his stubbled face is nearly engulfed in shadows, you can practically smell the sweat on his skin and the booze on his breath. Dowling was in the classic noir BLACK ANGEL and did a Boston Blackie movie with Morris the year before. Though she never broke out of B-films, she's great as the dame who may or may not be a femme fatale. Geray is convincing in a difficult role; as with Dowling, we're not quite sure how much to trust what he does and says. In addition to the opening meta-reference to movies, there's also a brief reference to THE LOST WEEKEND, the famous film from 1945 about an alcoholic writer. Thanks to TCM host Eddie Muller for bringing this to light on his Noir Alley show. [TCM]

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1969)

Two men assault a trash truck driver, knock him unconscious, and send his truck into reverse to crash into a nightclub, killing a crime boss named Grinaldi and his bodyguard (discovered later to have been a CIA agent). Grinaldi's mistress, Revel Drue, had been sitting with him just moments earlier when she went to chat with Johnny Cain, the club owner and a former lover. Cain, who lives on a yacht, is generally known as a playboy adventurer and the day after the crash, he is called to a nighttime meeting in the offices of a department store. Grinaldi had belonged to a small group of supposedly respectable businessmen who are secretly involved in criminal activities. The men, whose group is codenamed West (for the Western United States, I presume), aren't unhappy that Grinaldi is dead, but they are worried about the motivation of the killer so they hire Cain, under threat of death, and give him 72 hours to find those responsible. A starting point: Grinaldi was in the process of smuggling a priceless Tibetan statue called Yama. Cain gets some help from Crawford, a police lieutenant who may not like Cain but is sympathetic to him. Later, the CIA, who are looking into the smuggling, strongly encourage Cain to share what he learns with them—some months ago, a Caribbean CIA outpost was blown up, with all but one agent killed, and the Yama statue may be linked to that incident. Along the way, Cain meets: Grinaldi’s widow, an amateur actress who seems pretty numbed out by booze and drugs; a tired old man named Hash who served as Grinaldi's accountant; an art history professor who works a side gig as a stripper; studly pilot Race Rockwell; and engineer Ah Ling, whose name Rockwell helpfully identifies as "oriental." We're never quite sure who can be trusted, especially the somewhat mysterious Revel. The specter of Communism becomes a MacGuffin, just like the Yama statue, so ultimately, there doesn't seem to be much at stake for the audience to care about.

This is a deliriously fun bad movie that MST3K or Rifftrax should get their hands on. The main reason for watching is Adam West who stars as Cain. West's claim to fame until the day he died was playing Batman on TV in the mid-1960s. His handsome face and oddly deadpan demeanor were perfect for this role, but he never got very far putting Batman behind him, and to his credit, he eventually embraced the stereotyping and wound up with a very long career (with almost 200 credits on IMDb), often playing himself. This was his first movie role after Batman and he's actually OK, coming off as nice-looking and almost hunky but a little dim—he frequently has sort of a dead-eyed look that works with this character, and I'm a little sorry he never got to repeat the role. Online critic Ian Jane says of West here that he’s "kinda charming in his seemingly oblivious way," and that's a great description of what I see as one of the movie's pluses. 

The real problem here is, well, everything else. Though in terms of visuals, it looks good (the Blu-ray print is spectacular), it's clearly a B-movie affair with an incredibly slapdash script that feels like it was written as they filmed, and the narrative goes off the tracks by the halfway point. Nancy Kwan (pictured above right with West) was one of the first Asian actresses to gain Hollywood stardom with her first two movies, The World of Suzie Wong and Flower Drum Song, but she was soon relegated to lesser roles and movies; as Revel (great name!) she’s good here but is basically a less tarted-up Bond girl. Very busy character actor Nehemiah Persoff keeps his dignity as the cop. But no one else comes off very well, including Robert Alda and Mark Roberts as two of the West group, and Frank Baxter in the two-line role of Race Rockwell (again, great name!). Patricia Smith overacts every moment she's on screen as the zoned-out widow. Lisa Todd, as Sugar Sweet, the art history professor, can barely say her lines, let alone give them any feeling. Buddy Greco, a legit pop singer, plays Lucky, the club performer; he handles what little acting he has to do OK, but all three of the songs he sings are just awful, with lyrics like, "I’m alive to the memory of at least a dozen mistakes, freakish little nothings" and "Abreast of the times, way out in the spaces of your mind." The fistfights are well staged; one is pictured at left. There's a great scene of a dead body slowly coming down an escalator. If I'd seen this in a grungy panned-and-scanned print, I would not have stuck with it, but in crisp, clean widescreen, it was worth hanging around until the end, even if I had to shut my mind off. [Blu-ray]

WALK THE PROUD LAND (1956)

In 1874, John Clum (Audie Murphy) arrives in Tucson in Arizona Territory, sent by the Department of the Interior to take steps to make the local Apache population "useful citizens." The Army, embodied by General Wade, is not happy to be overridden in their mission to suppress (or, essentially, exterminate if possible) the "savage" Apache people. Clum immediately takes measures to stop Apache workers from being manacled and is thanked by the Apache widow Tianay (Anne Bancroft), who moves herself and her young son into Clum's dwelling to be his woman. He tells her he's already engaged and that his fiancée is arriving soon to be married, but she begs to be kept on as a housekeeper. Clum has soon set up an Apache police force to take care of tribal matters, replacing the Army. He also allows the arming of the police and of a handful of hunters. Former Army officer Tom Sweeny (Charles Drake), in danger of becoming a drunkard, becomes Clum's trusted associate, as does Taglito (Tommy Rall), a young Apache. General Wade and the Governor of the Territory remain unconvinced by Clum's approach, and forces within the tribe, primarily embodied by the angry young Disalin, stir up tensions as they want to join up with the exiled Geronimo and his men, who are hiding in the hills. More tension is stirred up by Mary (Pat Crowley) who arrives to marry Clum and, understandably, resents the presence of Tianay in their home. The ending, in which Clum gets Geronimo to surrender without firing a shot, leaves things in uncertainty as the Army regains control of the tribe, but Clum agrees to stay on when he is asked by the Apache chief to become a go-between.

John Clum was a real person who did, according to Wikipedia, implement self-government on reservation lands, and did have a hand in capturing Geronimo. He had a wife named Mary, though they were married back in Ohio. When he got tired of Army interference, he left for good, replaced by a string of Indian agents who were less effective. This movie has the feel of a "print the legend" story and as such, it's effective enough. I like Audie Murphy and his stoic good-guy persona works well here. The memory of watching TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON was still fresh and Murphy reminded me of a less antic version of the role that Glenn Ford plays in that tale of the American Army's attempts to bring capitalism to a post-war Japanese village. It was strange to see Anne Bancroft in "duskyface" (pictured with Murphy) and speaking stilted English as the Indian widow but she's fine. Pat Crowley has little to do in the totally predictable role of the wife who overcomes her resentment in the end. Charles Drake is likable as Murphy's sidekick, though he rather overdoes a drunk scene early in the film. Tommy Rall is better known as a dancer (Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and is not an easy fit for the role of Taglito, but he grew on me. As was par for the course, there are no Native American actors in major roles except for Jay Silverheels in the small role of Geronimo, and the men in the bad guy roles (Morris Ankrum, Anthony Caruso) don't have much to do except glower and skulk. Writer Jeff Arnold, an expert on the Old West and Western movies, concludes that even if the "facts are distorted [...] they got the overall tone right," and that feels right to me. [TCM]

BLONDES AT WORK (1938)

Reporter Torchy Blane sees a rookie cop named Regan writing her a ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant. Torchy tries to avoid the ticket by letting Regan know that she is the fiancée of police officer Lieutenant McBride, but no dice. As it happens, McBride is in hot water for leaking too much information to Torchy for her scoops. He refuses to discuss cases with her, and wants her to quit her job when they marry. Of course, this makes her more determined than ever to make headlines. Department store magnate Spencer is reported missing (Torchy saw him hustled into a car while getting her ticket), then found dead. When Torchy finds out that McBride’s driver Gahagan keeps a diary that he leaves in his car's glove compartment, she encourages him to write about the cases that McBride is working on, then Torchy sneaks peeks at the diary and manages to get secret info that she makes front page news with. McBride is stumped for a while, but soon catches on, though by that point, Torchy is going full speed ahead with her meddling in the Spencer case, going so far as to eavesdrop on a jury room discussion to get info. She is jailed on contempt charges just as the case is coming to a climax, but McBride actually gives her a hand so she can still get the final scoop. This is the fourth in a series of Torchy Blane movies, with Glenda Farrell as Torchy and Barton MacLane as McBride (they appeared in seven of the nine movies). I have enjoyed some of the entries in this series of fast-paced B-movies, but this one left me cold. For starters, the mystery is handled rather haphazardly and there's not much at stake for the audience—I started to include the details of the mystery in my summary but didn't think it was worth it. The climax of the case plays out offscreen. I like Glenda Farrell OK but Torchy comes off as a bit unlikable in her single-minded drive to get scoops, not seeming to care how much trouble McBride might get into. MacLane is boring and the two have little chemistry. Busy comic character actor Tom Kennedy outshines the leads as Gahagan, and I like John Ridgely in the small role of Regan. I must admit I enjoyed seeing Torchy in jail. Some plot elements were borrowed from 1935’s FRONT PAGE WOMAN. Unless you’re a Torchy Blane completist, this is not necessary viewing. Pictured are Farrell and MacLane. [TCM]

WARNING FROM SPACE (1956)

In a rotating spaceship in outer space, aliens shaped like starfish with a big eye in the center of their bodies are on a mission to save Earthlings from their own blunders. They send out flying saucers over Japan and try to get the attention of scientists Kamura, Matsuda and Itsobe. Citizens of Tokyo also begin to see these saucers, with some people reporting weird power glitches, and a reporter who catches Prof. Kamura lounging at the Cafe Universe (great name, awful decor) tries to get a story from him. Eventually one of the aliens (referred to as #1 by the other aliens) transmutes itself into the appearance of famous entertainer Hikari Aozora. She is rescued from a lake and brought to the attention of the scientists where she exhibits odd behavior like leaping ten feet into the air and passing through walls and closed doors. She also finds and tears up the formula for a new, powerful and deadly atomic weapon that Matsuda has been working on. We soon learn the aliens are from the planet Pryan whose orbit is exactly opposite that of Earth and they seem to have two missions. One was to stop us from building Matsuda's weapons, which Alien #1 seems to have done, but the other one is to warn us that a rogue planet (they call it Planet R) is heading our way and will crash into us, destroying Earth but also negatively affecting Pryon's orbit as well. The best way to do this might be to gather all existing nuclear weapons and fire them at the planet, but the United Nations (called the World Congress here) fights that idea—until the approaching planet becomes visible. They try it but it has no effect. Then someone thinks maybe Matsuda's secret new weapon might work, but a gangster has kidnapped Matsuda, keeping him tied up until he gives up the secret formula. Does Earth have a chance?

Online critics have noted that The Day the Earth Stood Still and When Worlds Collide may have influenced this low-budget Japanese film's plot, but it’s also a hodgepodge of interesting but half-baked ideas, some of which are brought up and then dropped pretty quickly. (It’s also the first Japanese sci-fi film in color, for what it's worth.) Let's get the biggest problem out of the way first: the aliens look like big Teletubbies whose costumes were made by the moms of middle school students for a talent show. They are perhaps the worst looking aliens in movie history (pictured above right). The gimmick of having Alien #1 impersonate a celebrity has promise, but little is done with it. The flying saucers being shot out of a mothership is a largely squandered idea, as are the World Congress, the gangsters, and Alien #1’s ability to pass through solids. The irony of the aliens trying to eradicate the very thing that ends up being the solution to the larger problem is never dealt with. I feel like they threw every idea they had for this movie in a hat, picked a few out, and gave them each 5-10 minutes of screen time. [Caveat: I've only seen the dubbed American print from American International which was released directly to TV in 1963, and it may differ from the original version in major ways.] Once I got done laughing at the opening scene of the aliens, I admit the movie did have a certain charm. The last section, which features some limited destruction due to the approaching planet, works up some thrills, and the scene of Matsuda tied up with a blood red sky lighting the room, looks almost like film noir. The actors are par for the course, with the only one allowed to stand out being Toyomi Karita as Alien #1/Hikari, mostly due to her being a bit glamorous. OK for Saturday afternoon fun. Note: every other review of this movie calls the aliens "Pairans" but I distinctly heard a "y" sound in there, so that's why I stuck with "aliens." Pictured at left is the transformation of Alien #1 into Hikari. [YouTube]

PAROLE, INC. (1948)

Right off the bat, we are given a thesis sentence, if you will, concerning the "growing menace of unwisely given or fraudulently obtained paroles." Next we see a man with multiple injuries in a hospital bed. This is Richard Hendricks, a federal agent who is recording his testimony to be used in court. We flashback to the beginning of his case, when he is tasked by the governor to root out corruption on the state parole board. When we see one of the board meetings, it's not hard to figure out that the head of the board, Holliday, is involved, as whenever there's a tie vote, he breaks the tie by voting for the parole of a shady character. Hendricks goes undercover as convict Rick Carson, a parole violator, and infiltrates the gang of Harry Palmer, a recent parolee freed by the corrupt Holliday. Palmer's wife Glenda works at the Pastime Club, a place frequented by crooks, and when Hendricks (as Carson) starts making contacts there, he flirts with the owner, Jojo Dumont, who runs an illegal gaming racket. Hendricks tries to arrange for help in getting his crime partner, Cooper, freed via crooked parole. Soon, all roads lead towards Jojo's lover Barney, a crooked lawyer who, for a fee, gets Holliday and a couple other parole board members, to rig up paroles for unworthy convicts. Double crosses, a murder, and secret recordings ensue until Hendricks is exposed and gets the shit kicked out of him. But as we know from the opening, he is saved in the nick of time by the cops and recovers to give the testimony that will put the bad guys behind bars.

Short B-film second features of the era often had either too much or not enough plot. This 70-minute movie has too much, and things get a little convoluted, though generally I was able to follow the basics. The biggest problem, however, is the lead actor, Michael O'Shea, as Hendricks. He is charisma-free and alternates between trying too hard and not trying hard enough. Virtually every other male actor in the movie outshines him. Charles Bradstreet, as Palmer, is quite good but vanishes too early. Harry Lauter, James Cardwell, and Lyle Talbot, in small roles, are good. The usually reliable Turhan Bey (Barney) has little to do compared with how important he is to the plot. The two females, Evelyn Ankers (Jojo) and Virginia Lee (Glenda) are both fine. (There is literally only one other woman in the movie, Hendrick's nurse, played by Bess Flowers, the queen of bit part players of the classic era.) Much of the narrative winds up told, not shown, the sets are cheap and the direction is lackluster. I stuck with it largely for the novelty of the semi-propaganda topic of parole cheating, but you can give this a miss. Pictured is Charles Bradstreet. [YouTube]