Richard Fleischer’s “Violent Saturday,” which I reviewed recently, whetted my appetite for more noirs filmed in the region, so I looked at a trio of honeys that, like many noirs, tapped into the myriad sources of paranoia of the 1950: Robert Wise’s “The Captive City” and Jerry Hopper’s “The Atomic City,” both released in the spring of 1952, and Dick Powell’s “Split Second,” released a few months later in 1953.
“The Captive City,” a low-budget flick from Wise and Mark Robson’s short-lived indie production company, is one of the best newspapers noirs I’ve seen, if not quite in a league with Billy Wilder’s dipped-in-battery-acid cynical “Ace in the Hole” from the year before. This time the newspaperman is a stalwart hero played by John Forsythe in his first Hollywood leading role (he had a couple of bits at Warner Bros. before going off to fight World War II, which was followed by a spell on Broadway).
At first, Forsythe shrug off suggestions by a middle-private investigator that his fictional city (it was, like “Violent Saturday,” filmed mostly in Reno) where the Mafia has infilitrated a bookie operation long run by a local real-estate agent. But when the P.I. turns up dead, our hero isn’t satisfied with the responses of the oily police chief (Ray Teal). After a staff photographer (Martin Milner) gets beaten up after taking a picture of a Mafioso from Florida in town, he decides to begin a crusade in print.
Particularly interesting are the pressures — a threat to withdraw advertising or provide lots of it to the struggling paper if certain subjects are avoided — brought on Forsythe’s business partner, who begins wavering. Our hero decides to testify before a televised Congressional hearing into organized crime chaired by Sen. Estes Kefauver in the state capitol. The organized crime figures decide to try and stop Forsythe.
Kefauver, whose real-life hearings made him a national figure and drew large audiences, liked the movie so much he agreed to write a forward and deliver a speech as an epilogue, as well as endorsing the film in advertisements. Cinematographer Lee Garmes enhanced extensive location shooting by using a special lens that provides ultra-deep focus even in low light, co-developed by Gregg Toland.
The solidly entertaining “The Captive City” is among a steady stream of noirs originally released by United Artists that have been made available through the MGM Limited Edition Collection for manufactured-on-demand DVDs. The print is crisp and bright.
“The Atomic City,” a Paramount release making its DVD debut next month in an excellent transfer under a licensing agreement Olive Films, is noir that, because of its title, often got lumped in with sci-fi titles on DVD in TV syndication packages back in the ’60s. Reviews in 1952 praised the auspicious directing debut of Jerry Hopper, a former film editor, who directed a number of above-average programmers (including “Nothing But the Truth” with Forsythe as another newspaperman who helps young Tim Hovey expose civic corruption) before seguing to a prolific career in episodic television.
The other newcomer was another ’50s TV stalwart, Gene Barry, a year before he headlined George Pal’s “War of the Worlds” (his final screen appearance was a cameo in Spielberg’s 2005 remake). The first half of “The Atomic City” is a semi-documentary about the top government secret intallation Los Alamos, New Mexico, where Barry is a high-ranking scientist whose work is taking a toll on his marriage (to Lydia Clarke, Mrs. Charlton Heston in her only lead in a handful of movies).
The film switches gear when the couple’s son — superbly played by Lee Aaker of TV’s “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin” — is snatched by Commie spies who want Barry to provide the A-bomb formula. Clarke pressures her husband not to report a ransom note to his higher-ups to protect their son. But in a chillingly-staged stage, FBI agents (including a friend who was posing as a newspaper reporter) catch Barry retrieving some failed experiments he plans to hand over to the bad guys to buy some time for his son.
The agents agree to go along with the ruse, though they make it very clear to Barry that their first priority is catching the spies. For one excellent key sequence, the action moves to Los Angeles where Barry drops off the phony data and the courier who receives it passes it to someone else during a baseball game — surrepticiously recorded by TV cameras covering the game at the FBI’s request. One of the film’s more interesting scenes shows FBI undercover agents watching kinescopes in a darkened room equipped with privacy shields.
Like “Ace in the Hole” (released the year before), “Atomic City” excitingly climaxes at Indian ruins in New Mexico where the Commies have stashed young Lee Aaker in a cave. The youngster ends up perilously perched on a ledge that showcases superb special-effects work by Gordon Jennings and the ubiquitous Farciot Edouart.
Besides Aaker and Barry, the film is full of familiar faces. Milburn Stone — Doc of “Gunsmoke” — plays an FBI inspector, with Frank Cady (“Green Acres,” “Petticoat Junction”) as one of his agents, and the insanely prolific character actor Bert Freed (the sherriff in “Invaders From Mars” and seemingly every TV series of the ’50s and ’60s) is one of the kidnappers.
The excellent, Oscar-nominated script is by former reporter Sydney Boehm, a key noir writer whose credits include “The Big Heat,” “High Wall,” “Side Street” and “Violent Saturday” as well as “When Worlds Collide.”
Dick Powell, the former Warner singing star who made his noir bona fides as an actor beginning with “Murder My Sweet,” makes his directing debut with “Split Second” (1953), another atomic-oriented noir which was released by the Warner Archive Collection in 2009 but I haven’t gotten around to watching until now.
Powell does a solid job of selling the somewhat far-fetched plot, co-authored by Irving Wallace. Basically, psychotic bank robber Stephen McNally (“Violent Saturday”) and his fellow prison escapees decide to hide out
in a Nevada ghost town that’s scheduled to be leveled in a few hour by an A-bomb test.
Their hostages include a hard-bitten dancer (Jan Sterling of “Ace in the Hole”), a clever reporter (Keith Andes), a would-be divorcee (Alexis Smith) and the latter’s none-too-bright lover (Robert Paige, a fixture in Universal comedies and musicals of the ’40s) as well as the comic relief, a grizzled miner played by Arthur Hunnicutt.
McNally uses Smith to lure her estranged husband (Richard Egan of “A Summer Place”), conveniently a doctor, to treat an escapee (Paul Kelly) who has been mortally wounded during the escape (the other ex-prisoner is played by Frank DeKova of “F Troop”). But will they be able to escape in time?
The acting is solid, and Powell ratchets up the suspense as the minutes tick down to the blast. Which the transfer isn’t as sharp as some later WAC releases, it’s more than acceptable.
Today the Warner Archive Collection is releasing five post-World World War II Clark Gable films: Victor Fleming’s “Adventure” (1945) with Greer Garson and one of the most notorious advertising tag lines in Hollywood history; Jack Conway’s “The Hucksters” (1947) with Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet and Ava Gardner; Mervyn LeRoy’s “Any Number Can Play” (1949) with Alexis Smith. William Wellman’s “Across the Wide Mississippi” (1951) with Ricardo Montalban; Vincent Sherman’s “Lone Star” (1951) with Gardner and Broderick Crawford. And from the dawn of Gable’s MGM career, Charles Brabin’s “Sporting Blood” (1931) with Madge Evans. All are available individually, as well as in a six-film Value Pak that’s been discounted 33 percent to $80.
On the Blu-ray front, Warner announced at Comic Com last week that it will release “Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection — Vol. 1” on Nov. 11. The three disc set will feature 50 titles, including some never included in Warner’s six “Looney Tunes Golden Collection” DVD sets. At a panel sponsored by The Digital Bits, Warner’s George Feltenstein indicated that if this and a previously announced Tom and Jerry Blu-ray set sell well, then we may eventually see a complete collection of Tex Avery shorts on Blu-ray.
According to Digital Bits, “George told our panel that the studio IS becoming open to releasing the ‘Censored Eleven’ in the proper context in some form, possibly on MOD DVD.” Those are the racially sensitive Warner cartoons that had their first authorized showing in decades last year at the Turner Classic Movies film festival, introduced by black film historian Donald Bogle.
“Ma and Pa Kettle: The Complete Comedy Collection” will be released by Universal on Sept. 27. The first eight titles in this lowbrow series with Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride were previously issued in two four-film sets; the remaining two (without Kilbride) were released last year through the TCM Vault Collection.
And finally, here’s a complete breakdown for the 10-disc “The Essential Laurel and Hardy” set that will be released by RHI and Vivendi on October 27. It includes all of their surviving talkie features and shorts at the Hal Roach studios, excluding “The Devil’s Brother” and “Bonnie Scotland” (still in print from Warner) and “Babes in Toyland” (available from MGM under its reissue title “March of the Wooden Soldiers”). I understand two additional films in which the team appears — MGM’s oddball all-star revue “Hollywood Party” and the Roach-produced Patsy Kelly vehicle “Pick a Star” — may be available from WAC by the end of the year as well. (UPDATE: Adding “Towed in a Hole,” which was accidentally left on the left, on Disc 6).
DISC 1:
UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE 1929
BERTH MARKS 1929
MEN O’ WAR 1929
PERFECT DAY 1929
THEY GO BOOM 1929
THE HOOSE-GOW 1929
NIGHT OWLS 1930
LADRONES (Night Owls, Spanish) 1930
BLOTTO 1930
DISC 2:
LA VIDA NOCTURNA (Blotto, Spanish) 1930
BRATS 1937
BRATS 1930 ORIGINAL VERSION 1930
BELOW ZERO 1930
TIEMBLA Y TITUBEA (Below Zero, Spanish) 1930
HOG WILD 1930
THE LAUREL & HARDY Murder Case 1930
NOCHE DE DUENDES (The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case & Berth Marks, Spanish) 1930
ANOTHER FINE MESS 1930
DISC 3:
BE BIG! 1931
CHICKENS COME HOME 1931
Politiquerias (Chickens Home, Spanish) 1931
LAUGHING GRAVY 1931
LES CAROTTIERS (Be Big! & Laughing Gravy, French) 1931
DISC 4:
LOS CALAVERAS (Be Big! & Laughing Gravy, Spanish) 1931
OUR WIFE 1931
PARDON US (extended version) 1931
COME CLEAN 1931
ONE GOOD TURN 1931
BEAU HUNKS 1931
DISC 5:
HELPMATES 1932
ANY OLD PORT 1932
THEMUSIC BOX 1932
THE CHIMP 1932
COUNTY HOSPITAL 1932
SCRAM! 1932
PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES 1932
THEIR FIRST MISTAKE 1932
DISC 6:
TOWED IN A HOLE 1932
TWICE TWO 1933
ME AND MY PAL 1933
THE MIDNIGHT PATROL 1933
BUSY BODIES 1933
DIRTY WORK 1933
SONS OF THE DESERT 1933
OLIVER THE EIGHTH 1934
GOING BYE-BYE! 1934
DISC 7:
THEM THAR HILLS 1934
THE LIVE GHOST 1934
TIT FOR TAT 1935
THE FIXER UPPERS 1935
THICKER THAN WATER 1935
THE BOHEMIAN GIRL 1936
DISC 8:
OUR RELATIONS 1936
WAY OUT WEST 1937
SWISS MISS 1938
DISC 9:
BLOCK-HEADS 1938
A CHUMP AT OXFORD – Shorter 1940
A CHUMP AT OXFORD – Longer 1940
SAPS AT SEA 1940
DISC 10:
SPECIAL FEATURES
A Tribute to Laurel & Hardy
On Location with Boys: Virtual Tour of set location and interactive map
Laurel & Hardy Guest Appearances
Laurel & Hardy Trailers
