There's A Riot Going On!

 

 (wikipedia)

RIOT IN JUVENILE PRISON-1959-After juvenile delinquent Eddie Bassett (Scott Marlowe) leads an unsuccessful breakout from a juvenile prison where two boys are killed, the governor orders Dr. Furman (Jerome Thor) to use drastic experiments to help straighten out the youths despite the protests of the fascist warden Col. Walton (John Hoyt). His first order of business is to make the place co-ed and brings in a busload of juvvie females. They are overseen by Bess (Ann Doran) & Grace (Marcia Henderson). Almost immediately two women Babe (Dorothy Provine) and Kitty (Virginia Aldridge) have a cat fight over Eddie. Another J.D. Killion (Dick Tyler) starts trouble when he attacks Kitty. The governor dismisses Furman and the warden gets control. After Eddie is beaten up by a sadistic guard (Richard Reeves) he leads a riot. 

RIOT is a typical kind of “teens behind bars” '50's drama that was petering out by 1959. It was directed by the great Edward L. Cahn who made INVISIBLE INVADERS and THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE the same year. Screenwriter Orville Hampton also penned JONATHAN DRAKE and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE in '59.

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'50's Horror with Boris and Lon

THE BLACK CASTLE-1952-In Vienna Sir Roland (Richard Greene; later the star of TV's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD) goes undercover to investigate the deaths of 2 friends he believes were killed by the evil Count Karl von Bruno (Stephen McNally), a sadistic guy with an eye patch who's very mean to his wife The Countess (Rita Corday) and keeps a live panther in his dungeon which he plans to release and hunt in the Black Forest. He's assisted by the mute and equally sadistic Gargon (Lon Chaney Jr.; also in HIGH NOON the same year). There's even a pit of alligators downstairs. John Hoyt and Michael Pate are two foppish nobles loyal to the count. Of course Roland falls in love with the abused countess. Unfortunately Boris Karloff (in his only movie appearance for the year) is wasted in the role of the count's alcoholic doctor who helps the new lovers escape the baron's clutches by giving them a drug that makes them appear to be dead (it almost works too good!).

THE BLACK CASTLE was the first feature film directed by former Oscar winning art director Nathan Juran. Some might like it's fake horror trappings but for me it just wastes the talents of Chaney and Karloff who are good in the few scenes they have. Juran later made many well known horror/Sci-Fi films of the '50's including ATTACK OF THE 5O FOOT WOMAN, THE DEADLY MANTIS and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH. He even directed Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis in HELLCATS OF THE NAVY. Later he did TV work including episodes of several Irwin Allen series.

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Jekyll & Hyde on TV

CLIMAX!-DR.JEKYLL & MR. HYDE-1955-This was a live TV broadcast (sponsored by Chrysler) with the adaptation by Gore Vidal based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story.

Michael Rennie stars as Dr. Jekyll who wants to find man's soul and thinks he can produce a "angel or devil" from the same person.

The story begins with Jekyll's best friend Mr. Utterson (Cedric Hardwicke) killing the notorious Mr. Hyde in Jekyll's lab. Utterson then finds the doctor's journal (left casually on a table to be read after his death) and the rest of the story is told in flashback showing how Jeykll's ceaseless experimenting produces "the devil" Hyde and begins his dual personality, dedicated doctor by day, evil deviant by night. Rennie pulls off the dual role very well and time elapsed footage is used during most of the transformation scenes (not bad considering the drawbacks). Like most early TV productions it suffers from bad lighting and sparse production values (look for a hand that mysteriously appears near a curtain) but has some cool camera angles.

Mary Sinclair (a popular TV actress at the time) is "the girl" Hyde takes a fancy to. John Hoyt (with
an English accent) is Jekyll's servant Poole and Lowell Gilmore is his friend Lanyon  who says "Where's my tea? I came here for tea not a black mass".

 Director Allen Reisner did 19 other epsiodes of CLIMAX! and became very proflific in TV. Rennie starredin 8 other episodes and Hardwicke 5 others. The version I saw had the original commercials with
host William Lunigan hawking Chrysler cars.

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Time Is Running Out

I have to go shovel snow so these will be very short!



SANJURO-1962-This is a sequel to Kurosawa's classic YOJIMBO (1961) but throws in some comedy between the swordplay. The always amazing Toshiro Mifune stars (he made CHUSHINGURA the same year). He helps some young clansmen against a corrupt "superintendent". It also feaures Tatsuya Nakadai and Takashi Shimura, the "Japanese John Carradine", a mainstay in the films of Kurosawa (and Ishiro Honda).




TRAPPED-1949-Not bad film noir with Lloyd Bridges as a counterfeiter sprung from jail by The US Treasury Department. Barbara Payton is his girlfriend. John Hoyt is an undercover Treasury agent. Director Richard Fleischer went on to make huge Hollywood shit like MANDINGO, AMITTYVILLE-3D and CONAN THE DESTROYER. He also made two other "noirs" around this time: ARMOURED CAR ROBBERY and NARROW MARGIN.



THE WILD BEES-(Divoke' vcely)-(2001)-From the Czech Republic and a first time director (Bohdan Slama) comes this quirky sometimes bizarre look at a small town and it's unusual inhabitants (including a Micheal Jackson impersonator). Everyone has a story and a lot of drinking goes on (suposedly the cast drank heavily during production!). Interesting.....





T.R.Y.-2003-Ok China/Japan co-production features Ken Watanabe (right before THE LAST SAMURAI) as a renegade military officer involved in an illegal arms deal. Yuji Oda (from TOKYO LOVE STORY) is the hero. The director Kazuki Omori also made GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE (1989) and GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH.

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