Desperate Search

Locked away in the vaults for years, 1953's Island in the Sky is a great example of a movie focusing on a bid for survival and those left behind trying to find said survivors before time runs out.  It's tense, it's emotional, and you're rooting for the search and rescue effort to work. This is by no means the first movie to deal with a similar story, but it is one of the best ones. Just a year earlier, 1952's Desperate Search did the same thing, albeit in a much worse movie. We're talking real bad here.

Vince Heldon (Howard Keel) is a divorced father of two children, Don (Lee Aaker) and Janet (Linda Lowell), who lost the custody battle with his ex-wife, Nora (Patricia Medina), and now only gets to see his kids six weeks out of the year. Vince has remarried, his wife, Julie (Jane Greer), bonding immediately with the kids. At the end of their six week visit, they put the kids on a plane back home only to hear that the plane crashed somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. Vince, a pilot, undertakes the rescue mission with friend and co-pilot, Brandy (Keenan Wynn) to find the crash site, hoping to find his kids if they survived. The search radius is immense though, and the search is made more difficult when Nora arrives on-site, wanting to take over. Out in the wilderness, Don and Janet struggle for survival, coping with dwindling supplies and a marauding mountain lion.

There is no way this movie should have been as bad as it actually is, but somehow and some way, it ends up being truly bad.  Let's get the few positives out of the way early because it won't take long. Keel and Greer are very good together with a genuine chemistry between them. Keel is most well-known for his singing ability in MGM musicals, but he shows he is more than capable of playing a leading role without actually singing. Above all else -- especially his past demons rooted in his marriage with Nora -- he puts everything on the line to find his kids. Greer too as the stepmother delivers a good performance, a woman in a tricky spot who does what's best for the family as opposed to what's best for her. That's about it in the positives though so let's get to the roasting!

With a movie that doesn't even reach a length of 75 minutes, one might think you're heading into an action-packed, tense, adrenaline-pumping movie that never slows down. Of course, director Joseph H. Lewis might not have gone along for that line of thinking. With just 73 minutes to work with, Lewis finds a way to make this movie boring, mostly with a fascination of planes flying around, taking off, landing, stuff like that. At least a half hour has to be long shots of planes flying over the Canadian wilderness, repeated over and over again. The scenery is gorgeous, but there's a limit as to how much you could and should show, especially in an already short movie.

Then there is the soap opera aspect of this MGM gem. The search and rescue mission for two little kids seems like a natural enough jumping off point for a highly dramatic story, doesn't it? I thought so. Even Keel's Vince and Greer's Julie seem to think so. The Nora character on the other hand....well, she forgot. Their failed marriage obviously tore both people apart, but Nora came out on top as Vince retreated into the bottle, losing custody of his kids. From the second she arrives to "help" the rescue mission, Nora seems more concerned about her ex-husband than the safety of her own two children.  Maybe this is just a poorly written character, but her motivations seem ridiculous. What mother in her right mind is more worried about putting their ex in their place than rescuing the children from certain death?

And now we come to the portion of the review where I feel bad for ripping a child actor, but as one performance here shows, it needs to be ripped. Just nine years old at the time, Lee Aaker is a strong point for the movie, the brave, resolute and protective brother who's going to do whatever he can to save his little sister. God bless little Linda Lowell, but she could be the most excruciatingly annoying child I've ever seen in a movie. It's not just that she whines, but how she whines; a high-pitched, gravelly, sobbing whine that goes right up your back. I tried to rationalize, thinking a little girl just survived a plane crash and is alone in the woods. But she screams, whines, and screams some more, never delivering a line that is not screaming. On the positive, Aaker at one point delivers a line so perfect it was almost as if the screenwriters knew his little sister would be that annoying. As she complains and whines, he mutters "Now why wasn't I born an only child." I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

Which brings us to the finale as Vince says 'Screw it all' to his ex-wife and the air official who's grounded him from flying.  That pesky mountain lion is back, chasing the two kiddies up a tree, Don holding off the advances with a tree branch. Vince arrives in time to save them, literally getting involved in a fight with the mountain lion, one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes I've ever seen.  Oh, and the kids are rescued, Vince ends up with the family he deserved, and Nora is resigned to a life of being a complaining shrew when Wynn's Brandy puts her in her place. Bad movie that just keeps getting badder.

Desperate Search <--- TCM clips (1952): * 1/2 /****

Station West

A singer, actor, producer, director and studio head over a cancer-shortened career, Dick Powell did it all in his short time in Hollywood.  He made a name for himself in the 1930s in musicals but made the jump to more and more genres over the 1940s and 1950s. Of all his roles though -- film, television, radio, stage -- Powell only did one western as an actor, an interesting gem from 1948 called Station West.

Interesting is a nice way of saying here that I was very skeptical going into this movie because of all the different (even weird) elements that needed to work together for it to be successful.  As is so often the case with my overthinking anything and everything, the joke was on me because my worries were unfounded. I still maintain it is a very different western -- atypical to just about any other western I can think of -- but somehow it works.  Actors not associated with the genre, a story full of twists and turns, and the feel of a film noir as opposed to a western oater.  Sounds like the makings of an interesting western now, don't it?

An undercover government investigator assigned to investigate the murder of two cavalry troopers guarding a gold shipment, Lt. Haven (Powell) arrives a remote western outpost trying to piece everything together. The nearby fort is brimming with gold shipments that need to be moved, but bandits keep hitting the shipments. Haven works his magic and gets a job with a woman who rules over everything in the area, Charlie (Jane Greer), working to rebuild her stagecoach line. He is sure she is somehow involved with the gold robberies with her right hand man, Prince (Gordon Oliver), and henchman, Mick (Guinn Williams), but he can't prove it just yet. As he investigate the case though, Haven starts to fall for Charlie so can he find the culprits before he gets too involved?

A day after watching this movie, I keep coming back to a thought that popped up time and time again as I watched it. While it has all the fixings of a western, I feel more comfortable calling it an anti-western...if that makes any sense. 'Station' more has the feel of a murder mystery that happens to be based in a western setting as opposed to a western with a murder mystery. Director Sidney Lanfield shoots his movie like a film noir, full of shadows and darkness as Powell's Haven investigates who is stealing gold and killing U.S. cavalry troopers. This is not a down and dirty western that you might expect. Everyone is immaculately dressed -- nice, pressed suits for the guys and Greer always wearing ball gowns with perfect hair -- and the saloons look like some pretty classy establishments. None of this counts against the movie. It isn't trying to be a gritty, hard-edged realistic western. It's a murder mystery film noir western, a first in my mind.

Working against the typical conventions of the western hero and the lead female character, enter Dick Powell and Jane Greer. None of this is intended as a complaint, instead it ends up being a ringing positive endorsement for the movie. Nothing about Powell screams WESTERN HERO! His Haven character drinks champagne and wine, smokes a pipe, and generally has an easygoing way about him. He's especially smooth with Greer's Charlie and puts his own spin on the typical western hero. When I think of Greer, I think film noir, the femme fatale like in 1947's Out of the Past. She would seem to be out of place in a western, but as the kingpin in the area who pulls all the strings, she's perfect in the part. Her Charlie is beautiful, intelligent and another new one in the western genre; a bad guy...um, lady. Well, sort of, she wants to go straight, but she might be too far gone. Two strong leads -- with some great chemistry -- that set the tone for the whole movie.

As for the murder mystery aspect of the story, Lanfield keeps the viewer guessing and up on their toes if they want to keep up. It's pretty clear from the start that Greer's Charlie is heavily involved with the continuing gold robberies, but as for how, that's kept in the dark for awhile. Throwing you for a loop, we get a list of possible suspects, some more inclined to shenanigans than others. Working with Greer are Oliver and Williams, two solid henchmen that immediately incriminate her just because they're clearly henchmen. There's also Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Caslon, a rich woman working with Haven, who you immediately think is up to no good because Moorehead always played shady characters. Tom Powers plays Captain Iles, the shady commander of the post with Raymond Burr making a good impression in a smaller part as Bristow, a weasel of a lawyer trying to play all sides. Christmas crooner Burl Ives is also good as a hotel owner who sings and knows everyone in town, quite a help to Haven.

I went along for the ride on this one, enjoying it for all the little different things that make it an atypical western. Some parts drag as Powell's Haven investigates -- long scenes of a man walking around, looking through things tend to that -- and other scenes have stagecoaches or Powell on horseback riding across the rocky desert. Beautiful to look at in smaller doses, they get a little tedious at times. No movie is perfect though, right? Casting and story, this one just works because it does try to be different. Not particularly well known, but a hidden gem in the film noir western category (if there is that category).

Station West <---Youtube clip (1948): ***/****

The Outfit

Organized crime, the mob, the Mafia, all the kingpins of the criminal underworld, and the movies reflect that.  Countless movies have been made about these different criminal organizations, but then of course there's the underdog.  What about the guys trying to take down any of the above?  A suicide mission for some revenge?  A guy with nothing to lose and because of that much more dangerous?  Makes for a good movie if you ask me, especially 1973's The Outfit.

The premise of a lone gunman going after the mob is nothing new and has been done several times since 1973, including Mel Gibson in Payback and Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition among others.  Payback is almost an exact reworking of the story here, but the original is still the best.  If you needed to explain to someone what a 1970s crime thriller was about, The Outfit could be a blueprint for everything that is good about that type of movies.  Perfect casting, exciting action, a cynical, very dark tone, a little black humor thrown in, and a gritty style that just can't be replicated.

Fresh out of prison, Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) finds out his brother has been killed by two hit men, supposedly for a job the brothers pulled off years before on a mob bank. With a former girlfriend (Karen Black) along for the ride, Macklin survives a hit attempt on his own life and decides to go on the offensive.  He enlists the help of a former partner, Cody (Joe Don Baker), and the duo goes to work.  Macklin wants $250,000 for the trouble 'the outfit' has caused him, but when they don't pay up they start hitting backroom casinos and mob fronts, taking all the money in sight.  But as they go up the ladder, Macklin and Cody realize they'll have to go right to the top, the big-time mobster in charge, Mailer (Robert Ryan). The mobster's waiting for them though and nobody might get out alive.

This is everything that's good about a 1970s B-movie crime thriller.  No big budget, no huge scale, just two pissed off guys with nothing to lose going after the mob.  Director John Flynn shoots his movie in seedy motels, back room offices and dark alleys where a story like this would actually take place.  It was filmed in and around Los Angeles, the locations being one of the strong suits of the movie.  You feel like you're there with Macklin and Cody.  This isn't high class, high end mafiosos were talking about, just low-level thugs.  Everything from the 1970s boats of cars, the bad suits, the awful style, it all works to perfection here.

I've written before about my love of character actors, and Flynn goes all out here to round out his cast.  What was so great about 70s movies was that an actor would take a supporting role that might not require more than a scene or two.  They'd make a quick appearance and be gone, but that's just one scene.  There would be another and another until you've got all these great names filling out the story.  More on the leads later, but the support is as good as it gets.  Timothy Carey plays a mob go-between, Richard Jaeckel and Bill McKinney play mechanic brothers supplying cars for crooks with Sheree North along as McKinney's slutty wife, Felice Orlandi and Tom Reese as two hit men, film noir femme fatale Jane Greer as Macklin's sister-in-law, among many other recognizable faces you'll be watching out for.

Now there's the buddy cop movie, but here there is the buddy crook movie (mostly holding back on the humor). Duvall and Baker make this movie as Macklin and Cody.  Duvall is basically the anti-hero of all-time.  He didn't have classic good looks, he was a little pudgy, he was balding, but it all adds up nicely.  He's an all-around hardass who knows what he wants and doesn't care who gets hurt in the process as long as he gets it.  Baker's Cody is a little more laid back but equally capable of handling himself.  Like any buddy movie, there's a bond, a link between these two men who know their chances of survival are slim but go ahead anyways.  At one point, Macklin says Cody can walk out, no hard feelings.  Cody answers in typical tough guy fashion "I want to see how it turns out."  It doesn't get much cooler than that in true anti-hero form.

Making what amounts to an extended cameo, Robert Ryan's Mailer of course gets progressively pissed off at these two low-level hoods.  That leads to the equivalent of a suicide mission as Macklin and Cody go gunning for him at his heavily guarded estate.  The ending is full of tension and some great action, but there's a bit of a cop out in the last scene.  No spoilers here, and honestly, it doesn't ruin the movie but I could have thought of a better ending.  No DVD available, but if you stumble across this one, plant yourself in a seat, sit back and enjoy.

The Outfit <---TCM clip (1973): *** 1/2 /****