Time Table

(1956)
Directed by Mark Stevens
Written by Robert Angus (story), Abne Kandel (screenplay)
Starring Mark Stevens, King Calder, Felicia Farr, Marianne Stewart, Wesley Addy, Allen Reed, Jack Klugman
IMDB Entry

The cliche is that actors want to direct. Sometimes it works out well.* Sometimes it doesn't. And when the actor/director also produces the movie, it has a good chance of being a vanity project that is an utter disaster. Time Table is something that might have fallen into the category, but the result is an excellent film noir with surprising twists.

We see Dr. Paul Brucker (Wesley Addy) riding a train and being called to help a sick passenger. He discovers the man has a highly contagious disease, blocks off the car, and goes to the baggage car just behind to his medical kit. Once there, he takes a gun from the kit and tells the baggagemen to lie down, where he injects them with a sedative. While they are asleep, he blows up the safe and escapes with half a million dollars in an ambulance with the patient.

Charlie Norman (Mark Stevens) is called away from a planned Mexican vacation with his wife Ruth (Marianne Stewart) to investigate the robbery for the insurance company. He joins up with railroad cop Joe Armstrong (King Calder) to find the robbers. When all the clues turn out to be dead ends, Charlie and Joe both agree that this was incredibly well planned.

Warning:  Major plot twist given away in next paragraph.

Then we discover who the mastermind -- Charlie himself. He has been having an affair with Bruckner's wife Linda (Felicia Farr) and they plan to run off together with the money. Of course, snags occur in his master plan and he has to improvise. It only makes things worse.  And there are more twists to come until the end.

It's an interesting role for Stevens. He definitely looks like the standard Hollywood hero and, up until the twist, you figure he will slowly uncover the evidence to put the thieves behind bars. The twist is a surprise, but logical. Instead, King Calder fills that role, even though he and Charlie are close friends. Wesley Addy was a successful film heavy of the 40s and 50s.

One familiar face in the cast is Jack Klugman, in one scene as a man peripherally involved with the heist and who reluctantly gives the investigators details. A familiar name and voice is Alan "Fred Flintstone" Reed as the man who rents the criminals a helicopter.

____________________________________________________________________

*Charles Laughton, Ron Howard, Robert Redford, et al.

Please Murder Me

 

(1956)
Directed by Peter Godfrey
Written by Al C Ward & Donald Hyde (screenplay), Ewald Andre Dupont and David T. Chantler (original story)
Starring Raymond Burr, Angela Lansbury, Dick Foran, John Dehner, Lamont Johnson
IMDB Entry

Sometimes it's fun to see the early roles of actors who became household words later on and it's even more fun when you can see why they got those roles.  Please Murder Me gives a look at one of the big names of 50s television in a role that is very close to it.

Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) is a lawyer who has fallen for Myra Leeds (Angela Lansbury), wife of his best friend Joe (Dick Foran). But when Myra kills Joe, Craig takes on her case and gets her acquitted. Then he discovers that he's been played:  Myra loves Carl Holt (Lamont Johnson) and dumps Craig. Feeling guilty on getting her off, he works on a scheme to enlist the district attorney (John Dehner) to help send her to prison.

The actor I was talking about was, of course, Raymond Burr. The courtroom scene where Craig gets Myra off would not be that out of place in Perry Mason. It's likely that this role did have something to do with him getting the role, since he began with Mason the next year.

Of course, Angela Lansbury also became a TV icon. People tend to think of her as Jessica Fletcher and don't remember that when she was young, she made a great femme fatale. She is good here, seemingly sweet and loving, but hiding a darkness that's not obvious.

The plot does owe a lot to Double Indemnity, where the woman entices the man to murder. Several other elements also have similarities to the older film. It does end with a very good twist.

Also in the cast is John Dehner. He was a very busy radio actor, most notably in Frontier Gentleman and Have Gun Will Travel. He switched to TV and appeared in over a hundred TV shows, often westerns, as a guest star. One of the recurring role was in The Roaring Twenties.

Quicksand

 (1950)
Directed by Irving Pichel
Written by Robert Smith
Starring Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates, Peter Lorre, Taylor Holmes
IMDB Entry

In the late 40s-early 50s, film noir was big, and it looked like everyone wanted to get into the act, even those who you might not expect.* Quicksand is one of those, where Mickey Rooney put his nice guy persona into noir, and the results are surprisingly effective.

Dan Brady (Rooney) is an auto mechanic who spots a Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney) pretty woman and asks her out despite already having a girlfriend, Helen (Barbara Bates). Trouble is, he has no money. A friend agrees to lend him the -- the next day, too late for the date.  Dan decides to take the money from the till, since no one will check for a couple of days, and goes to the date, ending up at a penny arcade run by Nick Dramoshag (Peter Lorre).

But the auditor comes early, and Dan has to make up the money. He buys a watch on credit, then hocks it to get the money to make the money in the cash drawer come out right. It turns out that wasn't legal, and Dan has to keep trying more and more desperate schemes to keep from going to jail, all of which backfire.

Rooney is fine as Dan; his usual cheerfulness stands him in good stead as a man being pummeled by fate and his own cluelessness

Jeanne Cagney** makes a great femme fatale. Peter Lorre is his usual sinister self. 

Director Irving Pichel had an under-the-radar career, but also directed The Great Rupert.

One interesting name in the cast is Jimmy Dodds as one of Brady's co-workers. He's best known to people of a certain age as Jimmy, the leader of the original Mickey Mouse Club.

The movie does opt for a happy ending, which fits in well as a film but cuts back on the noirness. In any case, it's worth seeking out on Youtube.

________________________________________________________________
*Then again, who thought Fred MacMurry would become the lead in one of the classics of the genre.

**James Cagney's sister.  She had a moderately successful career, including a couple of films with her brother.

Wuthering Heights (TV)

 

(1958)
Directed by Daniel Petrie
Written by James Costigan, adapted from the novel by Emily Bronte. Jacqueline Babbin, story consultant
Starring Richard Burton, Rosemary Harris, Denholm Elliott, Barry Jones, Bernard Miles, John Colicos, Patty Duke.
IMDB Entry

The Golden Age of 50s television may have been overstated. While there were plenty of good shows, the reality is that the bad ones have not been preserved and remembered.* However, Wuthering Heights is an example of a lost TV show that deserves to be acclaimed.

The story is familiar. Heathcliffe (Richard Burton) is a foundling, adopted by Mr. Earnshaw (Barry Jones). He falls in love with Catherine (Patty Duke as a child, Rosemary Harris as an adult), but is driven off by her brother Joseph (Bernard Miles). Catherine marries Edgar Linton (Denholm Elliott). When Heathcliffe returns he vows to win Catherine back.

You can see why Burton was a star. His Heathcliffe is brooding and tortured and he really brings the character to life. Rosemary Harris was a major star on Broadway, though now is probably known as Aunt May in several Spider-man films. 

This is something of an all-star cast, many in classic TV and movies.  Bernard Miles had a long film and stage career, while Denholm Elliott is most remembered today as Indiana Jones's friend Marcus.  Patty Duke also was very successful as a child and adult and John Colicos was Count Baltar in the original Battlestar Gallactica.

While the production was aired as a Dupont Show of the Month, It looks like it was shot on film, making it more dramatic.

The movie is available on Youtube.

_________________________________________________________________________
*This is common in all arts. Time and distance only preserve the best, making things seem better than they were.