Whip Rewrite

 

(imdb)

THE WHIP HAND-1951-Matt Corbin (Elliot Reid) is fishing when he hits his head. He seeks help from Dr. Keller (Edgar Barrier) who doesn't think there is anything wrong. The hotel owner (Raymond Burr) and his wife (Lurene Tuttle) seem sus-picious. Eventually, Corbin discovers neo-Nazis/communists doing experiments with the help of a mad scientist (Otto Waldis). Nice, exciting ending.

THE WHIP HAND was planned by director William Cameron Menzies to have been quite different than the finished product. In the original, Adolf Hitler himself, who survived WW2, was to have been the leader of the new Reich. But executive producer Howard Hughes decided communism was more of a threat and ordered extensive re-shoots. Also with Peter Brocco, Carla Balenda, George Chandler and George Barrows.

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Plumber Lou

 

 (imdb)

GE THEATER PRESENTS "BLAZE OF GLORY"-1958-Plumber Carl Andrews (Lou Costello) is forced by jewel thief boss Favier (Jonathan Harris) to retrieve some stolen diamonds that were accidentally dropped down a hotel sink. Andrews outwits them with the help of Harris' female assistant (Joyce Jameson) and a blow torch. 

It's a so-so comedy but Costello's performance brings it up a notch and shows he probably would have succeeded as a solo performer (unfortunately, he died the next year). Lurene Tuttle (MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD) is his wife and Olan Soule is a desk clerk. Future president Ronald Reagan is the host. 

Director Don Weis worked in TV almost his entire career doing everything from “The Jack Benny Program” and “The Andy Griffith Show” to “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Twilight Zone”, only occasionally stepping out to do a feature film (THE GENE KRUPA STORY, THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI). Costello's ex-partner Bud Abbott would also appear on GE Theater (but in a dramatic role) in 1961. 

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Overage Teenagers

UNTAMED YOUTH-1957-Two hitch-hiking sisters Jane (Mamie Van Doren) and Penny (Lori Nelson; THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED) are arrested for skinny dipping by a local sheriff (Robert Foulk). A corrupted judge (Lurene Tuttle; MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD) sends them to an "agricultural" work farm to pick cotton. It's just a front to provide cheap labor for the mean owner Mr. Tropp (TV actor John Russell). Almost immediately upon arriving Penny breaks into song when in her under-wear! Then Jane gets into a cat fight with the owner's former mistress (Jeanne Carmen; THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS). The judge's son Bob (Don Burnett) goes to work there and early rock and roll legend Eddie Cochran leads the male prisoners and sings "Cotton Picker". There's a wild dance number where Jane sings and the old cook calls their dancing "African antics"!  

Tropp gives Penny an "audition" at his house but when he puts the moves on her Bob helps her escape. He sics his dogs on her but once again Bob saves her. When Bob complains to his mom about a female prisoner dying and the conditions at the farm, mom reveals her secret: she and Tropp are secretly married. "Man oh man, this is wild ain't it?". To complecate things Bob and Penny fall in love. In the end Penny gets to do a Calypso number on TV!

Rock and Roll, illegal immigration, corruption and teenage (?) rebellion are combined in this far fetched but entertaining musical drama or drama with music maybe??

Director Howard W. Koch had already made BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO the same year as UNTAMED YOUTH, and would also directed Van Doren again in THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS. The next year he'd directed Karloff in FRANKENSTEIN 1970.

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Ma Barker

MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD-1960-Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers in PSYCHO the same year) is the infamous lady gangster who raises her kids to be killer/bank robbers after training them to steal from their church's collection plate. She's very mean and calls her oldest son Herman (Don Grady; later in TV's MY THREE SONS) a sissy because he plays the violin (which she smashes). She seems to be so mean and violent because she had to wear homemade “bloomers” when she was young! When her husband protests and lectures her she just laughs at me and throws him out. She plots several heists with her “young-uns” but the sheriff runs them out of town. 

By 1933 she has trained her 4 sons to rob an armored car. Grown up Herman (Donald Spruance) is suppose to kill the guard but loses his nerve and Mom has to run the guard over (twice!) but takes time to slap Herman a few times. Her other “boys” are Doc (Ron Foster), Lloyd (Rex Holman) and Fred (Eric Morris). She sets up a kidnapping for Machine Gun Kelly (Vic Lunden; later The Lobster Man in an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA). Myrna Dell plays his girlfriend. Ma throws a party where Baby Face Nelson (Robert Kendall) and John Dillinger (Eric Sinclair) show up and son Lloyd and his date (Ginny Barry) sing “Little Joe Carew”. Paul Dubov plays Alvin Karpis, a killer who joins the gang. Tristram Coffin is Ma's second husband a drunk who they force to play Russian roulette (he loses) after he squeals. When the gang kidnaps a banker their trouble starts. Stupidly, Ma hires a sadistic alcoholic doctor (the great character actor Byron Foulger) to change one son's fingerprints and face. When it doesn't work they set him on fire! She's eventually machine gunned by federal agents in Florida where one of the agents compares her to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. 

The story ends with scenes from another movie and a narrator quoting The Bible. MA BARKER was directed Bill Karns who one year later made 5 MINUTES TO LIVE with Johnny Cash as a psycho hit man. His other output seemed to be devoted to the 1954 TV version of GANGBUSTERS and it's subsequent movie. 

MB isn't bad as a low budget crime drama but it is nasty and violent for the time. The acting and hateful dialogue Ma spouts is very good. The story is choppy though: the fates of two sons are kind of forgotten about until the narration at the end and two bank robbery scenes are suddenly narrated by Ma as if perhaps originally she was suppose to tell the story. I was also shocked at one point in the final shoot out when it sounds like Ma says “I kill ya, ya fuckers”! But re-listening she actually says “ya butchers”... 

“None left his mark. Each left his stain”, so says the sexist narrator...

Myron Healy has an unbilled role as a bank robber. Music composer Gene Kauer's score was also used later in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. 

Like many crime dramas of time (and even now) based on real characters this is fictitious. In fact the real Ma Barker is considered to have only been a willing accomplice to her sons' crimes not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Much of her notorious reputation was probably the work of J. Edgar Hoover to minimize the FBI's actions of shooting an old lady.

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