Harrison's Reports (1954)

April 10, 1954 HARRISON’S REPORTS 59 “Southwest Passaige” with Rod Cameron, Joanne Dru and John Ireland (United Artists, April; time, 82 min.) This western has been photographed in PatheCk)lor and in 3'D, but it probably will be made available to the exhibi' tors also in standard 2-D form. This is just as well because the 3'D photography, in this case, is a definite handicap; it is so inferior that it hurts one’s eyes and serves to distract one’s attention from the story. Aside from the poor 3-D photography, the picture is a pretty good entertainment with plentiful tense melodramatic action, of a type that should please the action-loving fans. The action is rough and vicious in several of the situations, and it becomes thrilling in the closing scenes, where the whites clash with marauding Apache Indians. The direction and acting are competent, and the color first-rate: — John Ireland, an outlaw, Joanne Dru, his sweetheart, and Darryl Hickman, her mortally wounded brother, flee across the New Mexico desert after a bank holdup and elude a posse by hiding out on a rocky mountainside. Joanne sneaks into a nearby town to find a doctor for her brother, and there she sees Rod Cameron, a rugged frontiersman, preparing to lead a camel caravan across the desert to blase a shorter trail to California and to prove that camels are practical beasts of burden. She hears Cameron leave instructions for a doctor, expected by stagecoach, to join the caravan further ahead. Joanne intercepts the doctor, an alcoholic, and bribes him to treat her brother and to change places with Ireland so that he might escape the posse by joining the caravan. Ireland, impersonating the doctor, is accepted by Cameron. Meanwhile Hickman dies, and Joanne, too, joins the caravan, pretending that she had gotten lost from her wagon train. John Dehner, a vicious mule skinner, discovers the deception when he overhears Joanne and Ireland whispering together and, as his price for silence, he compels Ireland to agree to share half his loot when they reach California. Midway across a 100-mile stretch of waterless desert. Ireland is called upon to operate on one of the men, who had been bitten by a poisonous desert reptile. Rather than permit Ireland to operate and cause the man’s death, Joanne tells Cameron the truth about herself and Ireland. Cameron gives Ireland a beating and turns him out alone in the desert. Dehner, seeking his share of the loot, sets out after Ireland. The two stumble onto a water hole, and Ireland kills Dehner in self-defense when Dehner tries to rob and kill him. Ireland then returns to the caravan to tell Cameron and Joanne about the water. Just as the expedition arrives at the water hole, it is attacked by Apache Indians. A bloody battle ends with the Apaches defeated, mainly because of Ireland’s heroism. When Ireland turns his loot over to Cameron for return to the bank, he is welcomed back into the caravan, and he and Joanne look forward to a new life in California. It is an Edward Small presentation, directed by Ray Nazarro, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Geofi^rey Homes, based on a story by Mr. Essex. Unobjectionable morally. “The Miami Story” with Barry Sullivan, Luther Adler and Beverly Garland (Columbia, no rel. date set; time, 76 min.) From the point of view of interest, direction and acting, “The Miami Story” is about the best picture that Sam Katzman has produced for Columbia to this day. Although it is a racketeer story, Barry Sullivan, as a reformed gangster, fights on the side of the law, and the methods he employs to break up a gang that controlled gambling and vice in Miami hold one in tense suspense. What makes the story interesting is the fact that the characters are believable and that one fears for Sullivan’s life because of the risks he takes to attain his objective. The kidnapping of Sullivan's little son is depicted delicately so as not to make kidnapping attractive. The story is rather grim, but there is considerable human interest in the father-and-son relationship. The photography is tops: — Hiding behind a baggage truck at the Miami airport, John Baer shoots down two Cubans as they step from an Havana airliner. Baer loses himself in the milling crowd, and the gangland killing again shocks Miami. It was known that Luther Adler’s crime syndicate ruled the city, and that Damian O’Flynn, the honest police chief, was unable to get anything on the syndicate. Baer reports the successful killings to Adler, and is congratulated by Adele Jergens, Adler’s mistress, who handled the syndicate’s white-slave activities. The murdered Cubans had been sent from Havana to organize a lottery in Miami without Adler’s per mission. To put an end to the syndicate’s activities, a citizen’s committee agrees to enlist the aid of Sullivan, a reformed racketeer and widower, who lived with David Kasday, his 10-year-old son. Sullivan accepts the assignment and, in cooperation with the police chief, engages a suite in the best hotel, puts up a flashy front, and sees to it that word is spread to the effect that he had come to town to organize a syndicate in opposition to Adler’s. He then surrounds himself with several hard-boiled Cubans, who were actually Havana police in disguise. Having learned about Sullivan’s contemplated activities, Beverly Garland calls on Sullivan and asks him to locate Adele, her sister. Satisfied that Beverly is on the up-and-up, Sullivan takes her to the Biscayne Club, Adler’s gambling casino, where she recoils from Adele when she learns of her connection with Adler. Sullivan swaggers into Adler’s office and bluntly tells him that he is going to put him out of business. And to prove it, Sullivan arranges with the police to shut down the club. Adler uses Adele to pump Beverly for information about Sullivan’s plans, but in vain. Angered, he has his henchmen beat up Beverly. Sullivan takes her to a hospital. He then contacts Baer and offers him a job as top man in his new syndicate. The greedy Baer throws in with Sullivan and even agrees to kill Adler for him. Complications arise when Adler kidnaps Sullivan’s little son and demands that Sullivan call off his plans and reopen the club as his price for the child’s safety. Sullivan ostensibly gives into the demands, but through a series of clever moves and with the aid of the police, he succeeds in jailing the gang and in rescuing his boy before he is harmed. Sam Katzman produced it, and Fred F. Sears directed it, from a screenplay by Robert E. Kent. Adults. “Massacre Canyon” with Phil Carey and Audrey Totter (Columbia, May; time, 66 min.) A fair Indians-versus-U.S. Army outdoor melodrama, revolving around the efforts of a group of Army men to deliver rifles to a beseiged fort. The Army men accomplish their mission successfully, but not before considerable blood is shed. The action in the first half is rather slow, but it picks up speed in the second half, where the Indians maneuver the whites into an ambush, only to be beaten in the final clash. There is bad blood between two of the Army officers, but it all ends on a serene note when each realizes the other’s worth. There is some slight comedy relief, but it is pretty weak. The photography is good; — Douglas Kennedy, a sergeant, is detailed to take four wagonloads of rifles to Fort Collier, a Western Army post threatened by Apache Indians. A few days journey from the Fort, the wagons separate so as not to provide a single target for Black Eagle (Steven Ritch), chief of the marauding Apaches. Kennedy and Big Boy Williams and Ross Elliott, his aides, travel in the disguise of civilians to hide the nature of their cargo. Stopping to water their horses at a small outpost, they encounter Charlita, who was secretly Black Eagle’s sweetheart. They meet also Jeff Donnell and Audrey Totter, two girls in quest of husbands. Jeff recognizes Williams as an old flame and inadvertently exposes him as an Army man. This provokes Charlita into examining the wagons, and she slips away to report her findings to Black Eagle. Kennedy and his aides continue the journey and take the two girls along with them. They are accompanied also by Phil Carey, an Army lieutenant, whom they had found at the outpost in an intoxicated condition, trying to forget a lost sweetheart. Kennedy and Carey take an immediate dislike to each other. En route, they come upon the two other wagons and find the men in charge killed by the Indians. Carey and Kennedy quarrel over the methods to follow to insure safe delivery of the rifles. Meanwhile Black Eagle, through one of his warriors, manages to dispose of the wagon train’s drinking water, and ambushes the party when they head for Massacre Canyon to replenish their water supply. They manage to repulse the Indian attack, but Carey realizes that the only way to save themselves is to give the Indians the slip. Deferring to Kennedy’s knowledge of the country, Carey turns the command over to him. Kennedy orders the group to make a dash across the canyon floor to a tunnel leading to the other side of the mountain. When the Indians follow in hot pursuit, they use sticks of dynamite to block the tunnel and reach the other side in safety. The success of this daring move ends the enmity between Kennedy and Carey, with Carey promising to recommend Kennedy for a commission. It was produced by Wallace MacDonald, and directed by Fred F. Sears, from a screenplay by David Lang. Suitable for the family.