Slammer Girls

 

 (imdb)

GIRLS IN PRISON-1956-Prison pastor Rev. Fulton (Richard Denning) tries to help Ann Carson (Joan Taylor; EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS the same year)), in the slammer for a crime she didn't commit. She's in a cell with no nonsense Jenny (Adele Jurgens, in one of her last movie roles), nutty Dorothy (Phyllis Coates) and lesbian Melanee (Helen Gilbert). The matron (Jane Darwell; Ma Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)) seems pretty ineffectual but Fulton still wants to help. Old time actress Mae Marsh plays Grandma Edwards. Meanwhile, a bank robber (Lance Fuller) threatens Ann's con man father (Raymond Hatton) trying to find some still missing money everyone thinks Ann has. 

Typical 50's moral drama directed by Edward L. Cahn who also made THE SHE CREATURE (also with the acting challenged Fuller) and SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! the same year, both penned by GIRLS screenwriter Lou Rusoff who also wrote IT CONQUERED THE WORLD for Roger Corman in '56. Denning, Jurgens and Hatton had all been in Corman's THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED the year before. Alex Gordon was one of the producers along with Samuel Z. Arkoff and James Nicholsen. Music by Roland Stein.

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Clyde Comeback

PERILS OF THE JUNGLE-1953-Clyde Beatty (playing himself) and his friend Grant (Stanley Farrar) go to the Belgian Congo to find wild animals and stumble across a kind of menagerie run by Jo (Phyllis Coates), which she inherited from her father. No sooner are the guys welcomed when there's a fire (started by a foolish native would found a lighter). Clyde handles the 2 escaped lions and saves a worker but the fire wipes out Jo’s business. Enter Gorman (John Doucette), her father's nasty ex-partner who wants to buy her land. She refuses. Clyde decides to help Jo capture a gorilla. They go into the jungle with Gorman in hot pursuit. They do manage to capture a gorilla but a second one manhandles Gorman who's saved when Clyde shoots the hairy attacker. The duo leaves Jo and almost immediately head to Southern Rhodesia where the commissioner (Tudor Owen) grants them permits to hunt black maned lions (they got a tip from Gorman). With their guide Ken (Joe Fluellen) leading the safari they go into the jungle and Clyde kills a lion. Later Grant contracts “sleeping sickness” and they take a chance going through hostile restless natives country.

They meet an old white guy named Grubbs (Leonard Mudie) who says the tribe is holding him against his will but Clyde has his suspicions and he’s right! Grubbs is a thief who’s been stealing the tribe's treasure and he sends the natives after them. When they're captured Beaty gets a knife and holds the king (he’s just a boy) hostage and the group makes its get away, taking Grubbs with them. The scary witch doctor sends out the tribe. Grubbs is speared in the back and the boy-king is set free. It ends with Beaty and Grant going off to hunt black panthers for his circus. 

This slow moving cheapie is put together like two episodes from a TV show and the director George Blair was doing a lot of TV at the time (He'd start directing episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN the next year).

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Blues Busters

BLUES BUSTERS-1950-More Bowery Boys craziness when Slip (Leo Gorcey) promotes Sach (Huntz Hall) as the new singing sensation (with a dubbed voice) after he has his tonsils removed. Louie's sweet shop is turned into The Bowery Palace night club where he plays to sold out business. Craig Stevens (future Peter Gunn star) and Adele Jurgens (also in BLOND DYNAMITE) are rival club owners trying to sabotage their success. Phyllis Coates (future first Lois Lane on TV's Superman) is also on hand as Slip's girlfriend (something he didn't usually have in the series) who tap dances.

Little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) and the rest of the usual gang (Billy Benedict, Buddy Gorman and David Gorcey) are there too. Gabriel Dell usually cast as their level headed friend has a more comical role in this one.

Old One Shot, William Beaudine directed this one and Charles Marion penned it.

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