Harrison's Reports (1949)

72 HARRISON'S REPORTS April 30, 1949 "The Big Cat" with Preston Foster, Lon McCallister and Peggy Ann Garner (Eagle-Lion, April; time, ^75 min.) A good outdoor melodrama of its kind, photographed in Technicolor. Its chief asset is suspense, caused by the danger in which the lives of the sympathetic characters are put. Almost every one of the scenes in which Preston Foster is shown tracking the cougar holds the spectator in suspense. There are many outstanding situations in it, such as the fight between the dog and the cougar. There is a fight between Preston Foster and Forrest Tucker that rivals any that have been seen in pictures for years. Peggy Ann Garner provokes considerable comedy as a result of her talkativeness. The romance between her and Lon McCallister is fairly pleasant, although one-sided, for she does all the approaching. The photography is sharp and clear, and the color good: — After his mother's death, Lon McCallister goes to the mountain country to live with Preston Foster, her former fiance, whom she had not married because of the violent objections of her brother, Forrest Tucker. As a result, bad blood existed between both men. Foster, learning that Lon is the son of the woman he loved, treats him as if he were his own son. Tucker, however, becomes incensed when he learns that the lad was making his home with Foster. Irving Bacon, the local minister, has a difficult time trying to keep Foster and Tucker from fighting. A cougar, driven by hunger and thirst because of the drought, preys on the farmers' livestock, depleting their already meager herds. Foster undertakes to kill the animal, and Lon joins him in the hunt, but he becomes the laughing stock of his cousins, Skippy Homeier and Gene Reynolds, Tucker's sons, who consider him a city softie. Peggy, Bacon's daughter, however, stands by Lon. Learning that Foster was poor, Lon decides to leave him so as not to be a burden, but Foster persuades him to remain, telling him that, when he gets the $150 reward for killing the cougar, he will use the money to start in the tanbark business again, and that he will make him a partner. In the course of events, Lon and Foster bag a deer, whose carcass attracts the cougar. Because Lon had forgotten Foster's high-powered rifle in the woods, Foster follows the cougar with a gun of lesser power. The gun proves too weak to kill the beast, and Foster is mangled to death. Heartbroken because he had been responsible for the tragedy, Lon recovers the high-powered gun, follows the cougar to its lair and, with the aid of his dog, succeeds in killing the beast. Bacon and his wife, Sara Haden, give their consent to Peggy to marry Lon. The picture was produced by William Moss; it was directed by Phil Karlson, from a screen play by Morton Grant and Dorothy Yost, based on an original by Mr. Grant. Suitable for the family. "Streets of San Francisco" with Robert Armstrong, Mae Clarke and Gary Gray (Republic, April 15; time, 60 min.) This mixture of gangster-type melodrama and juvenile delinquency should make an adequate supporting feature in secondary theatres that cater to undiscriminating audiences. The chief fault in the picture is the overdrawn characterizations, particularly the one portrayed by Gary Gray, as an eleven-year-old boy brought up in gangster surroundings, who hates cops. He is a cute youngster with a sweet face, and for these reasons his efforts to act and talk tough are decidedly unbelievable. There is, however, considerable human interest in the manner in which a kindly police officer takes him into his home and brings about his regeneration. The more discriminating movie-goers will probably find it sprinkled with too much hokum and sticky sentimentality. Worked into the action are gangster-type activities, with plenty of shootings and killings: — . Gary, playing hookey from school, sees his father, Ian MacDonald, and his gang, rob a bank messenger of $250,000 and murder him. Later he sees his father shot dead in a gun battle with Robert Armstrong, a police lieutenant. Taken into custody, Gary refuses to talk and keeps secret the fact that his father had given him a baggage claim check for the satchel of stolen money. Armstrong, reasoning that Gary might react to kindness and sympathy, receives permission to take him home and make him one of the family for a period of ten days. In time, Gary responds to the kind of treatment accorded to him by Armstrong's wife, Mae Clarke, and by her father, J. Farrell MacDonald, a retired policeman, and he changes from an attitude of suspicion to one of trust. Brought to the point of a voluntary confession about the stolen money, Gary runs back to his father's gang when he overhears a nosey reporter accuse Armstrong of conniving to hold a minor incommunicado. He returns to Armstrong's home late at night with one of the gangsters to retrieve the claim check, and is horrified when the mobster shoots down MacDonald in cold blood, seriously wounding the kind old man. The shock brings the lad to his senses. He manages to get word to Armstrong of the gang's hideout, resulting in his own rescue and their capture. Armstrong, having grown fond of Gary, adopts him legally, much to the joy of his wife and of MacDonald, who recovers from his injury. It was produced by Sidney Picker and directed by George Blair from a screen play by John K. Butler, based on a story by Gordon Kahn and Adele Buffington. Unobjectionable morally. "Special Agent" with William Eythe (Paramount, July 22; time, 69 min.) Just a fair program crime melodrama. Revolving around a hunt by a railroad detective for a pair of train robbers, the story, though supposedly based on fact, offers nothing unusual. It is helped, however, by a fairly good semi-documentary treatment and by impressive outdoor scenic backgrounds. There is a fair share of thrills and excitement, the most exciting sequence being the one in which a train, loaded with passengers, becomes uncoupled from the engine and rolls back down a steep incline. There is some romantic interest, but it is only mildly interesting. The direction is good and the acting acceptable: — Stationed at a railroad yard in Santa Marta, California, William Eythe, a special railroad detective, finds his job dull. The most excitement he has is courting Laura Elliott, whose father, Walter Baldwin, was a train engineer. Eythe is spurred into action one morning when word comes that two bandits had blown up an engine and mail car, killing Laura's father and stealing $100,000. Through clever detective work and the aid of a criminologist, Eythe establishes the identity of the crooks as George Reeves and Paul Valentine, brothers, who had turned bandits to rebuild a cattle empire founded by their grandfather, Frank Puglia. The two men had hidden the loot in a tall tree stump near the scene of the crime, planning to retrieve it as soon as the hunt for them died down. Eythe traces them to their grandfather's ranch, but both make a successful getaway. Luck is with them in a series of chases, and they decide to split and meet in a cave on a certain date. Just as Eythe is about to give up the search as hopeless, several youngsters find the loot while searching for bird nests. Eythe sets a trap by the hiding place, permits Reeves to retrieve the mail sack, which had been filled with worthless paper in place of the money, and trails him to the cave. When Valentine arrives at the cave and finds the sack filled with the paper, he accuses his brother of attempting to double-cross him. They start a fight, during which Reeves is accidentally killed. Eythe and his aides walk into the cave and capture Valentine. With her father's death avenged, Laura marries Eythe. It was co-produced by William C. Thomas and William H. Pine, and directed by Mr. Thomas from a screen play by Lewis R. Foster and Whitman Chambers, based on material by Milton Raison. The cast includes Carole Mathews, Tom Powers and others. Unobjectionable for the family.