Cameron, Cuba, Cahn

 

 (imdb)

PIER 5 HAVANA-1959-Steve Daggert (Cameron Mitchell; in FACE OF FIRE the same year) goes to Cuba (but this was filmed in LA) soon after Castro takes over, looking for his alcoholic friend Miller (Logan Field; a TV actor). Right away the chief of police (Michael Granger) has him picked up and they meet Mrs. Miller (Allison Hayes; ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN the year before) who separated from Miller before he disappeared. She's a singer in a club and has a rich boyfriend Fernando (Eduardo Noriega). Later a guy named Schluss (Otto Waldis) wants to get rid of Daggert. It seems Miller's disappearance may be tied to a plan by Schluss and his boss Lopez (Nestor Paiva) to put Battista back in power. Miller is presumed dead but shows up later to warn Daggett that Battista's supporters plan to bomb Havana! 

Ok political espionage with good acting from the leads in a low budget production by director Edward L. Cahn who made INVISIBLE INVADERS and THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE the same year. Co-producer/co-scripter Robert Kent worked on most of Cahn's '50's output.

 Mitchel, Granger, Hayes, Paiva and Waldis had all worked with Cahn before.

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Coleman in Cuba?

 

 (Wikipedia)

RED ZONE CUBA-1966-An escaped con Griffin (writer/director Coleman Francis)  hooks up with ex-cons Landis (Tony Cardoza) and Cook (Harold Saunders) to be part of the "bay of pigs" invasion of Cuba. A Texas pilot Cherokee Jack (George Prince) tells them they'll be paid in cash but it seems more like some illegal work camp. They try to escape but get caught and are forced to invade Cuba. (Cardoza does double duty playing Castro) There's a long drawn out execution scene and nothing really happens. Just endless talk. When they get back to the US they throw an old man down a well and Griffin rapes his blind daughter. Eventually Landis and Cook give up and Griffin is shot dead with nothing but a penny and a broken cigarette. 

John Carradine is fourth billed as Mr. Wilson but only appears in a pre-credit sequence and sings the title song “Night Train To Mundo Fine” also the film's original title. 

Terrible non-action from the director of THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS which at least had Tor Johnson in the lead role. This was the last of three very low budget disjointed films Coleman Francis made in the early '60's. Co-star Tony Cardoza was a co-producer on all of them.

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Corman Quickie

THE CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA-1961-A crooked captain Renzo Capetto (Anthony Carbone trying to imitate Bogart) and his motley crew including his girlfriend Mary-Belle (Betsy Jones-Moreland), her dumb brother Happy Jack (Robert Bean) and Pete (Beach Dickerson), guy who makes animal noises (dubbed in) help two Cuban generals illegally transport a chest of money out of the country. A bunch of locals are also aboard though one of them is actually a government agent X-15 (Edward Wain aka future writer director Robert Towne). Capetto decides to do away with The Cubans and blame it on a monster he creates. Unfortunately for everyone a real monster shows up. 

There's lots of dumb comic dialogue (by Charles Griffith), slapstick and non-action in this hastily directed effort by Roger Corman (who has a cameo) and shot in Puerto Rico back to back with THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH and BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND in around 5 days! One of my least favorites. It was planned to be a straight horror movie but changed by Corman at the last minute.

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Cuban Rebel Flynn

ASSAULT OF THE REBEL GIRLS-1959-Usually referred to as CUBAN REBEL GIRLS, this is Errol Flynn's last role. In it he plays himself on assignment for The Hearst newspapers in Havana to interview Fidel Castro. Most of this pro-Castro propaganda is only narrated by Flynn. The main story concerns "the Cuban rebel girls", two young ladies (usually referred to as little girls) Jacqueline (Jackie Jackler), a Cuban  and Beverley (Beverley Aadland), an American who's boyfriend Johnny is in Cuba helping Fidel overthrown the Batista government. Secret police chase Flynn's contact Maria (Maria Edmund) when she tries to recruit some locals and Flynn's narration explains the goings-on and the terror the rebels feel while characters walk, run and deal arms with only a minimal of scenes with synchronized dialogue at first. Later as the story progresses there's synchronized scenes but it can't over come the the bad acting, shoddy direction and marginal budget. Flynn meets Beverley ("Haven't I seen you someplace before? On TV or somewhere?") and Castro takes over and the world lives happily ever after.

ASSAULT is  crummy piece of work and really shows how the once great Hollywood actor Flynn had fallen. Despite good roles the previous year in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON and THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN wild living and problems with the IRS had taken their toll on him. Although usual credits list him as the screenwriter, the film's credits just say from a story by Errol Flynn. He died of a heart attack in October of '59 before the movie was released.

This messy docu-drama was put together by Flynn's manager producer/director Barry Mahon who although born in California had served with distinction in the Royal Air Force during WW2. It's said the Steve McQueen character in THE GREAT ESCAPE is based in part on him! In ASSAULT he doesn't show much but later in the '60's Mahon became a  prolific and highly successful exploitation filmmaker (BUNNY YEAGER'S NUDE CAMERA, THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN, NUDE A GO-GO).

The role of Beverley was played by Beverley Aadland who happened to be Flynn's 17 year old girlfriend! Though she had made un-credited roles in other movies before this, ASSAULT  was her last movie.

Most of the other actors had no other film credits but John McKay who plays Johnny was later in two other Mahon productions, THE DEAD ONE and ROCKET ATTACK USA.

The assistant director on ASSAULT  was Allen Baron (he also has a small role) and the director of photography was Merrill S. Brody. They would team up in 1961 to make the low budget film noir classic THE BLAST OF SILENCE.

"When you become a rebel you give up a lot of of things that make a feminine life easier".

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