More Dead Than Alive

The name Aubrey Schenck might not immediately ring a bell. A longtime producer in Hollywood, Schenck was at the helm of some very good B-movies and some very bad B-movies. The common denominator? Good or bad, they were usually pretty entertaining. Here's one of his western ventures, 1969's More Dead Than Alive, a familiar story with a twist and a good cast.

Having served 18 years in a territorial prison in Arizona, a man named Cain (Clint Walker) has put his past behind him and has earned parole. Not bad considering his past life as a gunfighter piled up 12 kills to his name. Earning that early release though, Cain wants nothing more than to put that violent, blood-riddled life behind him. Can he though? He can't find a steady job, has no money to his name, and as he quickly finds out, his name still means something to a whole lot of people. Some are just curious to meet him while others are more interested in testing his long since lost prowess with a pistol. Taking somewhat desperate measures, Cain takes a job with a wild west shooting show run by an opportunistic businessman and carnival barker, Dan Ruffalo (Vincent Price). His reputation precedes him, even if his shooting ability isn't what it used to be. There may be a bigger issue with the show's previous main attraction, a young gunfighter named Billy (Paul Hampton) who doesn't like his attention stolen away from him.

From producer Schenck and director Robert Sparr, 'Dead' is definitely a somewhat budget-constricted B-movie, clearly filmed on some back lots in California. The cast is small(ish) with a few big names and some unfamiliar faces filling out the rest of the roles. Nothing that qualifies as a deal-breaker yet, right? Correct! I like cheap, easily digestible westerns like that...most of the time. So while this one has potential, it derails slowly but surely, really coming off the tracks in the last act. In the end, I felt like I was getting one movie and instead got one that couldn't quite make up its mind about what it was trying to accomplish.

This is a western that has some fun with the myth of the gunfighter. From 1950's The Gunfighter to 1976's The Shootist, a whole sub-genre of westerns is devoted to demythologizing of the wild west gunfighter. Often romanticized, the profession of sorts was far from it. You were the fastest gun around...until you weren't. There was a price for fame, for gaining that reputation, and often it was a bullet in your back. That's Clint Walker's Cain (no first name), a reformed hired gun and killer with 12 dead bodies to his name. Those years in jail did him good, cleaned him up and got his mind right to the point all he wants to do is settle down and start up a ranch of his own, if he can get some money to do so. Familiar territory? Yep, seen over and over again in westerns as a safe, fallback option for a story. So....

Yeah, not new ground, but when 'Dead' works, it is because of star Clint Walker. A western standby after his TV run as Cheyenne ended in 1962, Walker is always a welcome sight when I see him in a cast listing. His heroes -- even relative anti-heroes like here -- are stout and resolute, ready to stand by their guns no matter what gets thrown at them. In just about every role I've seen him, Walker is natural, likable and obviously quite the imposing physical presence at 6-foot-6 with a stature that looks like he could take on a grizzly bear...and win. He injects some energy into Cain, a gunfighter who wants to move on. You're rooting for him, a man who's made his mistakes and wants to leave them in the past.

So Walker is good, and Vincent Price steals the show as only Vincent Price can, but...that's about it with worthwhile characters. Hampton overacts so laughably bad that his Billy character develops like a spoof. Billy Valence is extremely talented with a gun but has never faced anyone down, just inanimate targets. When he begins to crumble, the emotional scenes are cringe-worthy. Anne Francis is okay as Monica Ralston, but her character seems out of place. She's a free-spirit, a painter and artist who travels and paints...in the wild west. Seems more appropriate for a hippie movie of the late 1960s, not a hard-hitting western, and their slowly developing love interest never worked with a general lack of chemistry. Mike Henry has a small but fun part as a notorious bandit with a grudge against Cain, and also look for Craig Littler, Clarke Gordon, Beverly Powers and William Woodson in other small supporting parts.

Taking it all in though, there's something missing. The bloody, harsh opening jailbreak scene is a gem, getting my hopes up in a big way. The music is pretty horrendous, horrifyingly out of place in dramatic scenes to the point it plays like a spoof. Oh, and of course there's a moody, overdone ballad of a theme song. Mostly though, it can't pick a path and stick with it. The story and characters bounce all over, seemingly getting somewhere but never in a direct fashion. Hampton is really, really rough with a character with potential but is completely hammed up and trying too hard. As good as Walker and Price are, 'Dead' is undone by those flaws. The ending should come as more of a surprise, but it doesn't and because the tone has been all over from left field to the end zone (yes, I understand), the end falls flat. Just too bad.

More Dead Than Alive (1969): **/****

Impasse

One of the biggest stars of the 1970s, Burt Reynolds was the Man, plain and simple. He was the breakout star in 1972's Deliverance, made the fan-favorite Smokey and the Bandit in 1977 and parlayed his success into the even bigger 1980s with all its bad sequels and awful flicks in general. Before he was a known star though, Reynolds worked his way up the ladder in the 1960s with some starring TV roles and a handful of leading roles in films, like 1969's Impasse.

So I've mentioned before there's nothing wrong with a B-movie, right? There really isn't.  Think of a low-budget movie made without any hopes of turning out a classic finished product.  The cast will almost certainly feature some big names, and some other names of actors you might not know but you'll certainly recognize them from other supporting roles. Throw in a mix of humor, action and sex, and there you go. You've got your B-movie.  All those elements are there with Impasse, but I didn't end up enjoying the movie anywhere near what I thought I would.

Heading his salvage business in the Philippines, Pat Morrison (Reynolds) has possibly stumbled onto the biggest find of his career. He has found out the location of a hidden cache of World War II gold on the island of Corregidor where retreating US forces in 1942 hid anything they couldn't ship out. The only problem? Pat has the general location, but four army vets all hold the clues to the exact location. He's spent months assembling the group (Lyle Bettger, Rodolfo Acosta, Clarke Gordon, and Vic Diaz) and now stands poised to get his hands on the gold if he can get just get past a ring of Filipino security on Corregidor which is easier said than done. His plan becomes murkier when Pat meets, Bobby (Anne Francis), the daughter of one of his crew.

My head kept going back to the same thing repeatedly as I watched this movie. It should have been better. It just should have. A B-movie about a heist of long-forgotten WWII gold in the Philippines sounds like the perfect schlock of a story. And Burt Reynolds is starring in it?!? Oh, count me in.  But in turning that story into a feature length movie, director Richard Benedict instead opts to add all these disparate elements that don't work together.  In a movie that isn't particularly long at just 100 minutes, but with all these wide-ranging subplots, I'm guessing maybe 30 minutes is actually spent on the gold heist.

So let's have some fun with all these pointless asides the story takes, shall we?  Let's start with Reynolds and Francis who have little chemistry together.  Francis looks confused in general, seemingly questioning how she ended up in a movie like this.  Then there's Penny (Joanne Dalsass), a young lesbian hippie who stalks Francis's Bobby. She's really nice about it though so don't worry. Bobby is a pro tennis player, and Penny follows her around spouting hippie mumbo-jumbo. Bobby's father (Gordon) is kidnapped so Reynold's Pat has to track him down from evil "journalist" (<---you read that right), Wombat (Jeff Corey). Oh, right, the gold heist. There's gold hidden in artillery shells in a maze of underground bunkers, and each of these vets knows part of the location. The heist ends up feeling like a forgotten piece of the story, and then the movie ends in about as anti-climactic fashion as is possible. Yeah, good times.

A known name if not quite a star yet, Burt Reynolds is a bright spot here.  He certainly shows off the potential he had to play a leading role, especially in an action movie with some comedy here and there. His Pat Morrison is that conniving rogue you can't help but like, doing whatever he can to make some cash. The anti-climactic ending is somewhat funny because of Reynold's reaction, but only to a point. As for the crew, all-around reliable bad guy Bettger is the racist Hansen, Acosta is the stereotypical Apache, Draco, spouting 'Ay Chihuahua' whenever possible, and Diaz is the sniveling black market dealer, Jesus, who does nothing when he finds out Pat is sleeping with his wife, Mariko (Miko Mayama). Corey I suppose qualifies as a straight bad guy, looking to be having some fun as Wombat, a shady fella who is up to no good in whatever he's doing.

While this is by no means a classic, the movie isn't all bad.  In all the departures and asides from the story at hand, the movie is set in the Philippines and thankfully was filmed there instead of a Hollywood backlot.  So the story may drift too much for my liking, but it's nice to look at. The Philippines are beautiful. That's something, right? About midway through the movie, there is a very long chase sequence -- just a foot race basically -- between Reynolds and one of Wombat's henchmen. There's nothing fancy about it, just two guys going absolutely nuts running through the back alleys and dingy Manilla streets. Reynolds also does most if not all of his own stunts the whole movie, adding to his badass quota.

The movie is a stinker, if a moderately entertaining stinker. Just don't expect a classic. Sorry, I couldn't find a trailer or clip of any kind.

Impasse (1969): **/****