From a foxhole located in the Philippines, Clydes Movie Palace presents: So Proudly We Hail! (1943)

Sometimes I wonder how a film such as So Proudly We Hail (1943) ever made it into the theaters. It stars not just one legendary female lead but three of them: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake. I always say if you're going to give a dance, bring on the triple threat.

Getting these actresses in the same movies couldn't have been easy. Big stars, male or female have egos; sometimes, those egos can get in the way.

I've heard and read different stories about whether they got along. Some say that Claudette and Paulette feuded, and in this clip by Robert Osborne, Lake indicated none of them could get along with Colbert. Still, costar George Reeves said that Lake caused all the problems on the set. George was a man, though, so women will probably retort, "What did he know?"

How often have we forgotten women's role in World War II? Sometimes we must be reminded that it wasn't the men in the trenches.

So Proudly We Hail Opens at the movie's end, telling its story as a flashback. It must have been a shock to moviegoers of the 40's to see these three women disembarking from a plane looking anything but glamorous. They had all been to hell and back, which is emphasized even more when Lt. Janet "Davey" Davidson (Claudette Colbert) is removed from the aircraft on a stretcher. She is awake, but she is unresponsive to any stimulus. Later, as the women gather on the ship which will transport them back to the United States, they tell their story, which begins on the exact day they shipped out for the land of fun and folic known as Hawaii.

 

So Proudly We Hail is the story of Marine Nurses who are sent to the Bataan Peninsula to help with the wounded during the initial days of World War II. Lieutenant Janet "Davey" Davidson (Claudette Colbert) is the head nurse.

 

Under her tutelage are Lt. Joan O'Doul (Paulette Goddard) and Lt. Rosemary Larson (Barbara Britton). O' Doul is man crazy; she is engaged to two guys simultaneously, both of them military men who have come to kiss her goodbye, thus creating a problem that requires Davey's help so Joan can squirm away without causing bad feelings. Fighting the Japanese is difficult enough without fights breaking out among each other over some dame.

 

Rosemary is leaving home for the first time and is being seen off by her parents (Byron Foulger and Elsa Janssen), who ask Davey to ensure their daughter gets back home safely. And since Hawaii seems to be such a nice provincial place to visit, it's a promise Davey has no trouble agreeing to, although it's evident that she would have made the promise even if circumstances were different. It takes little time for circumstances to become different.

 

The nurses' destination is supposed to be Pearl Harbor, but in the middle of their voyage, the Japanese poop on everybody's party, launching a sneak attack. Instead of Pearl Harbor, their ship wanders aimlessly on the open sea, accompanied by a convoy awaiting new orders. Things were a mess directly after December 7th, so it took a while for everybody to get their shit together and get on the same page.

Unfortunately, the accompanying convoy is torpedoed by a sub. Although most of the crew is killed, some do manage to survive. One of these is injured Lieutenant Medical Technician John Summers (George Reeves). When he refuses to let the nurses bathe him, Davy steps in, shows him who the boss is, and never has love blossomed so quickly with so little soap.  
  

Lt. Olivia D'Arcy (Veronica Lake) has escaped the carnage uninjured and is placed under Davy's command. She comes aboard with a significant chip on her shoulder. Olivia hates camaraderie. She wants to be left alone to do her job, doesn't want advice, and doesn't want friendship.


Also on board is a former collegiate football player who goes by the name of "Kansas" (Sonny Tufts) and develops an instant attraction to boy-crazy Joan. He is a klutz at times, pretty much a doofus, but is always kind-hearted.

 

He has a habit of saying things that eventually seem to come true: I never catch a cold, I never get sunburned, I never get wounded, and I never get killed.

 

Eventually, after a big fight with Davy and the rest of the girls, Olivia breaks down to tell us what her problem is. Hint: It isn't hemorrhoids.

 

The boy that Olivia was going to get married to was slaughtered during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her only goal now is not to heal the sick but to kill Japs. Lots and lots of Japs. Her words, not mine.

 

Shortly after, the nursing corps is ordered to Bataan, where Captain "Ma" McGregor (Mary Servoss) oversees the medical personnel. Once there, Davy and the gang discover how bad the situation is.

 

There is never enough doctor or nurses. Medical equipment and medicine are in short supply or non-existent. Sleep or rest comes only when one is exhausted and can go no further. They are constantly being bombarded by the Japanese, and the war seems lost before it has even begun. It is up to Ma to make sure the girls do their nurse thing without any distractions. That means she must also put the kibosh on the ever-blossoming romance between Davey and John. The nurses are there to attend to the wounded, not to be out wooing and screwing.

 

But true love will not be denied, no matter how many bombs are raining down on you.

Ma also has a son who is in the Philippines fighting. From the little information provided, I guess they are descendants of a family with a long history of military service. It's an honorable profession if there ever was one, but one can't help but feel that, at times, it's a dead-end job.

 

Joan is assigned to care for the Filipino children, while revenge-minded Olivia volunteers to care for the Japanese wounded.

 

Rosemary assists a Filipino surgeon, Dr. Jose Bardia (Ted Hecht), who speaks endlessly of the tragedy and consequences of war. At the same time, he patches men, women, and children up, only to see them killed again.

When delivering a breach birth from a woman who will die soon, Dr. Bardia lectures as if he is still at the university and already has learned about the uselessness and the heartbreak of war:  

You must forgive me if I talk while I'm operating. I'm so used to lecturing my students. Sometimes I thank my stars for my scientific education. A baby to be born, breach delivery, only three out of five live. Live for what? Don't people die fast enough without destroying each other? Is life too long? No, we mustn't ask that. I wonder how scientific those heaps out on the battlefield feel. Guns, machines, so much rubbish. What was it in my student days? Chemically a man is worth 97 cents. Probably $1.05. What with the shortage of parts and monopoly now, the dead have risen in value. Two for $1.98 on dollar day. This little fellow we're about to introduce to the world tonight, what for him? I don't know. They forgot to teach me about spirit somewhere. Ninety seven cents worth of body but a priceless spirit. May he be born to live in freedom."

 

But if we were worth 97 cents in the early forties, how much are we now when adjusted for inflation? I guess I'll look that up. Before long, Rosemary becomes his second set of hands and they are inseparable.

 

When not taking care of their medical needs, Joan entertains the children with wondrous tails about the heroic deeds of Superman. One of the children asks if Superman is so good, why isn't he here helping them. Joan replied, "He just landed with the Marines; his name is Kansas." (On a side note: the irony here is that George Reeves, who plays John Summers, would go on to play Superman on TV.)

 

As the Japanese close in, the nurses are forced to evacuate the wounded from one base to the next. And evacuation is not always easy, as some will sacrifice, some will die, and a few will live on with lives that will forever be altered.

 

At one stopping point, there is no hospital. It is nothing more than a jungle where the patients are kept hidden as much as possible, even though there are between five and eight thousand of them. Malaria and dysentery became common.

 

This film was released in 1943, in the middle of the war. Do not expect any kind words regarding the Japanese. They were our enemy then, and So Proudly We Hail makes doubly sure that they are painted with the strokes of the broad brush of wickedness, even down to calling a pet monkey Tojo because "he looks just like him." Him being Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

 

When the bombing attacks come, director Mark Sandrich and his special effects crew make them as realistic as any I've seen in films that decade. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for its special effects. As for Sandrich, he would pass away just two years after this film’s release at the age of 44.

 

Writer Allan Scott's Oscar-nominated script is much better than one usually finds in some by-the-numbers war films of the forties. But I began to get annoyed with Walter Abel's chaplain, whose preachiness got to be a bit too much. They are more like rambling political speeches instead of prayers. He was better and funnier playing Fred Astaire's agent in Holiday Inn. Here, he is just downbeat, downcast, and dour. Bring on, Father Mulcahy.

 

The romance between Davy and John is sometimes dwelled on more than it should be and threatens to derail the film occasionally. Reeves is good here, and so is Colbert. I wish all of their scenes together didn't have to be played as if they were star-struck. But what can I say except that if War is Hell, Love on the Battlefield is a bittersweet catastrophe.

 

But Alan Scott balances things out by having the type of non-romantic romance between Kansas and Joan become more of a battle of wits, with Goddard always having the upper hand over the love-struck and hapless Kansas in a role Tufts was probably born to play.

 

What I found most impressive is that Scott was able to insert Dr. Bardia's clearly anti-war speech into the film and has Davey lamenting about our own failures as a country.

 

"Why isn't there any quinine? Why isn't there any food? Why isn't there any supplies? Why are we waiting here like rats in a cage waiting for the man to come and pour scalding water over us? Why was nothing done? Why? I'll tell you why, it's our own fault. Because we believed WE WERE the world. That the United States was the whole wide world.Those outlandish places, Bataan, Corregidor, and Mindanao. They're not American Names. They're just American graveyards.

But there is plenty of rah-rah patriotic cheerleading as well as to why it's necessary to fight and why we have to die, which generally ends with the observation that we didn't start this war, but we sure as hell were going to finish it. Those kinds of proclamations went hand in hand with every war movie released at the time.

 

Stir in Miklos Rozsa's emotion-laden memorable score and Charles Lang's top-notch black and white cinematography, which will make it seem as if the bombs are exploding in your face as they fall.

 

Rozsa did stellar work for MGM for years, including greats such as Ben-Hur, Double Indemnity, Quo-Vadis, and The Asphalt Jungle. Lang has a list of credits a mile long and was one of the great directors of photography. I would like to know if any of today's young audiences could actually appreciate what people like Rozsa and Lang brought to the art of filmmaking. But let's be honest here.

 

This is Colbert, Goddard's, and Lake's film; they are magnificent in it. To see these three legendary actresses working together would make this film worth purchasing. Still, they put everything they have into these roles, and it shows in every single scene.

 

They didn't just show up to get screen time and a paycheck. They go from being just nurses to becoming as tough and gritty as any man ever thought of being during the war. And in two unforgettable scenes that make this film memorable, Veronica Lake almost steals the movie out from under her costars.

 

Paulette Goddard received a best actress in a supporting role nomination. Certainly deserved, as her and Tuft's scenes are a joy to watch, and Joan is easily the most entertaining character. Without her, the film would be too downbeat and dour to contemplate.

 

And me being the nosy reviewer, I went back to check on the Oscars given out that year for best actress. One beatified nun trumps three WWII nurses as Jennifer Jones took home the prize for Song of Bernadette. It's been too long since I've seen that film, so I won't pass judgment. At least not today.

 

And although one certainly can't argue against the fact that Casablanca deservedly won Best Picture, this film should have at least been nominated over such forgettable fare as The Human Comedy and For Whom The Bell Tolls. But it's tough to rehash 70-year-old Oscar history.

 

The men aren't too shabby, either. In his film debut, Sonny Tufts won a nomination for Best Supporting Actor and did a stellar job bringing the character of Kansas to life. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of a long downward slide for him. From the IMDB:

 

An old college football injury had disqualified him for military duty, and so, with many of Hollywood's younger leading men serving overseas in World War II, this tall, blond, blue-eyed actor became something of a star, if only by default. But by the turn of the decade he had found his name in print on account of his off-screen activities. In 1949 he had been found drunk on a Hollywood sidewalk. In 1950 he was sued by two women for allegedly biting each of them in the thigh. In 1951 his wife had him jailed for drunkenness. The name Sonny Tufts itself became a joke. Thereafter he made few films, but could be found in occasional guest appearances on inconsequential TV shows. He died of pneumonia at age 58.

 

Poor George Reeves. He's actually excellent in this film as the romantic lead. Unfortunately, beyond that, he never gets to stretch his acting legs. At least not here. He has a long list of credits to his name, but roles like that of John Stephens and one of the Tarleton Twins in Gone With the Wind have been largely forgotten as he was typecast forever as Superman in the hit TV show of the 50's. And whether or not he was murdered or committed suicide is beyond my expertise on the subject. I was six years old when that event occurred.

 

Suppose he hated having been typecast as the Man of Steel. Unfortunately, it is forever inscribed on his tomb marker.

 

It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. So Proudly We Hail is the kind of film that every person, regardless of sex, should see. It is undoubtedly the kind of film they should be making even today, featuring what women are capable of.

 

Amazingly, a film of this quality seldom gets any notice, even when they trot out every war movie ever made for Memorial Day Weekend. No, it may not have John Wayne battling it out on the front lines, but it has so much more to offer in so many ways, and you know, when a film has that, I have no choice but to give it my grade of A.

 

So Proudly We Hail is available on DVD and, more recently, on a sparkling new Bluray from Kino Lorber. You can find it streaming as a purchase on various sources such as Vudu or Amazon.

 

The film occasionally appeared on Turner Classic Movies, but I do not know if it still does. It was once introduced in a showing on TCM by Cher on 4/12/2013. Great choice by her for this movie and the one following it, Since You Went Away.

And before I forget, adjusted for inflation, the cost of the human body is now worth $14.92.

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From the Clyde's Movie Palace located in the back of the Secret Headquarters of the CIA: Our Man Flint 1966

By 1965, with the release of Thunderball, Ian Fleming's James Bond character was the most famous spy on the planet. There were no substitutes.
 
Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Brocolli had latched onto a gold mine when they brought 007, played by Sean Connery, to the big screen. But Bond served On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and Hollywood did not have an equivalent screen icon to rake in oodles of cash.
 
The powers-that-be at 20th Century Fox decided to give it the good old American try. And who knows? Maybe they thought they would be lucky enough to hit pay-dirt.
 
Enter Our Man Flint (1966) (aka Derek Flint), played by James Coburn. Flint doesn't have a secret agent number like Bond but works as an Independent. He has this thing about not following orders or becoming someone else's beck-and-call spy. He is, in fact, pretty much dropped out of the Spy business as he has too many other interests, like teaching the Russian Ballet in Moscow, fencing, and giving Karate Lessons.


Flint also has four assistants. We'll call them that, although they act as personal servants, giving him shaves, haircuts, fetching his slippers. Still, most of all, just keeping him company. If you guessed that they are all females, congratulations! You win a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, but you'll have to chase down Ralphie and get it from him.


Flint's former boss, who was barking out orders to Derek when he was spying for the government, is Cramden, played by Lee J. Cobb. I wonder if Cramden is his first name or his last name. The movie never says one way or the other. 


Cramden wants nothing more to do with Flint because any spy who can't follow protocol and take orders is not a spy worth having, no matter how good they are. And Flint is the best, so Cramden is kind of an idiot as far as that goes.
 
But the world is in crisis. Some nefarious group is controlling the weather worldwide, causing havoc and making a damn nuisance of themselves by drowning cities, erupting volcanoes, causing avalanches, and making hurricanes and various other weather catastrophes. In other words, they are making a damn nuisance of themselves from their secret submarine hideout.


Whenever ZOWIE, the spy organization run by Cramden, sends out their spies to end this fiasco, they return dead.


So Cramden, gathering all his fellow spy bosses from around the world, has them write down the qualifications they deem necessary for an agent to bring down the enemy. And much to Cramden's chagrin, after all the computer punch-out cards (those were the days) are submitted and processed, the recommended spy is Derek Flint every time. Still, it takes a phone call from the President to get Cramden to agree to hire Flint.
 
Flint does not intend to return to work, spying for a guy who can't stand him.
 
Only after Flint has to save Cramden from a poisonous dart shot out of a harp by an enemy agent, Gila (Gila Golan), aided by henchman Malcolm Rodney (Edward Mulhare) and Hans Gruber (Michael St. Clair), that is meant for Flint, does he agree to take the case.


Cramden wants Flint to have a team of agents at his disposal. Flint works alone. Cramden wants Flint to use the agency's secret code. Flint has his own code, a mathematical progression: 40-26-36 based on, well, you know. Cramden has a briefcase with 65 weapons. Flint has a cigarette lighter with 82 different functions, 83 if you need to light a cigar.


After a little bit of bouillabaisse detection, Flint heads to Marseilles in his private jet to begin his mission to save the world from Gina, Rodney, Gruber, and three scientists, Dr. Krupov (Rhys Williams), Dr. Schneider (Benson Fong) and Dr. Wu (Peter Brocco), in charge of an organization called Galaxy that doesn't want to destroy the world, but to save the world from itself by controlling the weather.
 
Gina is given the assignment to dispose of Flint. When she fails at first, she discovers his four weaknesses (Guess who?) and has them kidnapped to put in the service of Galaxy.
 
Flint realizes he is walking into a trap but is not deterred from his mission, even taking a little time off to have a sexual liaison with Gina.



Can you blame him? But, as we learned earlier, he has mastered placing himself into a coma-like state by lowering his heartbeat to undetectable levels. It aids him immeasurably in his mission, along with his trusty cigarette lighter.

        
When Gina proclaims Flint is no ordinary man, she isn't just whistling Dixie. 

This was a fun movie when, at 14, I saw it with my friend, Tim, at the Laroy Theater in Portsmouth. Over 50 years later, watching it in my home theater the other night, it's still a good time at the movies.        
 
This is due in no small part to James Coburn, who, as Flint, manages to make us believe he is the most remarkable person on the planet and can really do these things. Yes, he is arrogant, but that arrogance also helps keep him alive.

I’ve always liked much of Coburn’s work on screen. He finally got the recognition he deserved as Best Supporting Actor in 1997 for Affliction.  You can watch (as of 6/11/23) for free on Freevee with the usual shit pot full of ads, or you can buy a standard definition streaming copy on Vudu.  Being a loyal commercial hater, I’d opt for Hard Times (1975), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Carey Treatment (1972), Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) or The Great Escape (1960).
 
Lee J. Cobb, who had a long productive career in film and television, portrays the flustered, straight arrow and overly bureaucratic head of Galaxy straight down the middle, His most notable films would undoubtedly be 12 Angry Men and as Lt. Kinderman in The Exorcist.
 
Although an enemy agent, Gila Golan is charming, beautiful, and damn sexy, if I may say so. As we teenagers used to say back before chauvinism became a thing, we wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers. Maybe they still say that. I wouldn't kick my wife out of bed for that, but I would ask her to get some crackers and cheese for a late-night snack. She costarred in the Jerry Lewis film, 3 on a Couch, shortly after Our Man Flint.


A few years later Gina would show up in what has now become a cult favorite, The Valley of Gwangi.  After that she would do one more film and then pretty much drop out of sight.  But she has one helluva back story.
  
Edward Mulhare, as Rodney, is as sleazy and underhanded as someone named Rodney could be. Three years later, when he seduced young naive Karen Valentine from Room 222 in a film called Gidget Grows Up, I still thought he was damn creepy.
 
As Derek Flint said, "I wonder what it is that always makes the Rodneys choose the wrong side."
 
Derek Flint never became as big as Bond, but the movie did make enough to warrant a sequel by 20th Century Fox. Being one of my favorite films from my teen years, it was an easy purchase from the now-defunct Twilight Time Label on Bluray and the sequel, In Like Flint. You can get the Standard Definition DVD at a reasonable price. Still long out of print, the Bluray will set you back, making my purchase ten years ago a good one. The screencaps you see here come from that Bluray.
 
Part of the reason Flint only received one sequel may have been because Dean Martin came along as Matt Helm in The Silencers just a few months after the release of Flint. The Matt Helm series seemed popular enough as Martin went on to make three more films in the series. But I always found them too goofy, although you could call them spy spoofs, not as extremely silly as the Austin Powers Movies that came along quite a few decades later.
 
However, you can buy the film for streaming in HD at Amazon Prime for $12.09 or rent for $3.79 (as of this writing). Don't expect the Bluray to return, as the film sits in the vast wasteland of the Disney vault, courtesy of their pointless buyout of 20th Century Fox. They decided to shit on most of those films by castigating them to their dead-end locker, not even to be sent to labels like Shout Factory or Kino Lorber to at least be reissued. At Disney, if you aren't Star Wars, Marvel, or Pixar, you're dead to them.

And for being such an entertaining movie no matter how you watch it, and because Flint is the world’s greatest spy, I see no reason to give this film anything less than a B+.

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From the Clyde’s Movie Palace Located on Alcatraz: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969)

I first saw Daddy's Gone-A-Hunting (1969) at either a neighborhood theater or a drive-in. I can't remember for sure which of the two it was. But what can you expect? It's been over 50 years since the thing was released. Time in the movie world marches on. 

I do know that back in 1969 or 1970, I liked it. But does it still hold up in 2023?

Cathy Palmer (Carol White) has just arrived from the United Kingdom, landing in San Francisco. And we know all of this because Director and Producer, Mark Robson, goes out of his way to make sure we see the San Francisco International Airport sign on the building as the plane lands, a Welcome to San Francisco sign as she walks through the terminal, and that she is carrying a shopping bag that literally screams U.K. at us.

As she goes through customs, we discover Cathy's an artist, possibly a fashion designer. We get all this information in a mere 1 minute and 35 seconds of screen time while we tap our toes and snap our fingers to the title tune, Daddy's Gone A Hunting, sung by Lyn Robbins, lyrics by Dory Previn, and music by John Williams.

Yes, that John Williams who hammered out the score to this film while Star Wars was just a gleam in George Lucas's eye. But that aside, I like producers, directors, and writers like Larry Cohen and Lorenzo Semple Jr., who keep things moving and don't beat around the bush with unnecessary details and unwanted minutiae, unlike this review. Throw up a few signs, pretend it's an airport, and we're off and running.  And boy, are we ever!

After arriving at the downtown airport bus terminal, Cathy is shown how we welcomed visitors to our country back in the good old days when she is shoved on her ass by some fat-ass old hag while getting into a taxi. She should have called Lyft. Come to think of it, we still welcome visitors and immigrants alike in the same manner.  Probably worse.

To add insult to injury, she is hit in the noggin with a snowball by creepy but friendly Kenneth Daly (Scott Hylands), who wants to have a meet-cute with young Cathy so he can get to know her slightly and get in her pants a lot.

The snowball should have been a dead giveaway that this guy oozes creepiness and slime from every pore in his body. Still, naïve young British blondes in San Francisco for the first time would probably overlook that Ken somehow managed to find the only vehicle in San Francisco that had just returned from a ski trip and miraculously managed to still have snow on it that did not melt on the way back.

After explaining that the snowball was the only way young Ken could find to introduce himself, just before Cathy turns on the waterworks, Ken asks the most pertinent question in the movie: "Do you think I'm nuts?"

Cathy's instincts should have been, "Yes, you're fucking nuts. Don't you have "Hello, I'm Ken" in your vocabulary?" But before she can get the words out of her mouth, Ken finally says, "Hello, I'm Ken," which brings a smile to Cathy's face.

Begin Piano Montage.

Ken takes Cathy to a cheap hotel before returning to his seedy little apartment. He lies on his bed in his boxers, giving the cinematographer time to pan around Ken's humble abode to let us know there's something really off about this guy.

Cut to smiling Cathy taking a shower. Cut back to Ken, who has been counting the minutes it would take her to check in, shower, and start circling the want ads before he calls her on the phone to make his next move

End Piano Montage.

He invites her to the Top of the Mark, a popular drinking place in San Francisco that is part of the Mark Hopkins Hotel (oh, now I see), located at the highest point of downtown San Francisco. (Thanks Wikipedia, and why wasn't this on our bus tour when we were in San Francisco? Every other two-bit building was.) And we know its popularity continues to this day because it's been around for over seventy years now.

Cathy sketches away as Ken praises her work, telling her he has all kinds of contacts but doesn't use them because he doesn't want to be a sell-out. On the other hand, Cathy says, "Show Me the Money."

Ken grabs her by the hand, goes through a window to the outside (Right past a server who shrugs his shoulders and acts like this is an everyday run-of-the-mill occurrence. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.), climbs up a ladder to the roof (definitely not a regular event), then finishes it off by pointing out where Cathy can get a job, which she does at a place called Emerson, Spencer, Nayfeck, and Simpson. It's also where she meets her first really true normal friend, Meg Stone (Mala Powers). As for the scene at The Top of the Mark, I'll say only say we'll be revisiting this particular location before we reach the 140 minute end time.

Time for another montage. This time with piano, orchestra backing, and the incredible vocals of Lyn Roman.

Begin Full Orchestra Montage

Ken waits downstairs when Cathy returns from her interview and gives her the "I told you so" gesture, lifts her up in the air, and true love that will last forever descends from the skies to brighten their lives and ours. If only.

With a new job, Cathy can rent her own place that will become Cathy's and Ken's place quicker than you can say, "Who's that banging on the piano." Cathy gets a package with a big red bow delivered, with Ken standing there sheepishly. Inside the box is a foil bag with a snowball, just like the one Ken smacked her on the head with. We can almost hear her ask, "What's this, a snowball?" And Ken answering, "No, it's a tool to pry your pants off with."

She crumbles the aforementioned tool all over him. They kiss, make their way to the bedroom, and our instincts about it not being a snowball at all are proven correct as Ken and Cathy take to the bed. At the same time, we have a cat's eye view of the proceedings.

End Full Orchestra Montage

Fast forward some unspecified amount of time later. Think in terms of days, weeks, and/or months. Not hours. Not specified. Doesn't matter. Let's move on.

It would seem that the true love that would last forever has not lasted quite that long. Ken, as we suspected, is a bum who mostly likes feeding parakeets to the cat. Cathy is working hard and mostly footing the bill for their not-so-hunky-dory lifestyle.

When she dares to point this fact out to Ken, telling him, "I don't think you're completely well," he shows his appreciation by giving her and the cat the boot out of her apartment that she probably signed the lease for and has been paying the rent as well.

All this, and we're only fifteen minutes in, not to mention I've already used up two and a half pages in Word. Oh, me, oh my. There's a good reason why Director Robson sped through all the romantic mushy stuff. That's because Daddy's Gone A Hunting was never a movie about an ill-fated romance beyond being a set-up for everything that comes next. So good for him to move us along to the actual plot and a whole lot of edge of your seat suspense.

Cathy holes up at Meg's place, where it is revealed she's going to have a baby. Meg recommends an abortion, but Cathy isn't convinced. Instead, she sets up a meeting with Ken to let him know she's going back to Jolly Old England, where life is beautiful all the time. They have nice things like Big Ben, London Bridge, Monarchies, and Fog. She has no intention of telling Ken she's pregnant, but Ken has found out anyway, thanks to a lab result coming in the mail. The US Postal Service delivers!

Cathy insists it's all over. Ken insists he'll follow her across the Atlantic to tell Mama Palmer and Papa Palmer about their slutty daughter that he screwed in front of the cat. Cathy calls Ken a fool which promptly earns her a slap across the kisser as all the other patrons in the restaurant go, "Oooooooooh," but don't put down their martinis to help her out.

The slap and the threats from Ken to stalk her also seem to knock some sense into Cathy, who decides to take Meg's advice not to wait around for the Roe vs. Wade decision so she can give birth to the spawn of Beelzebub.

I don't know what the abortion views of Director Robson were but he seems to go out of his way to make it look as evil as possible complete with an overly dramatic musical flourish from John Williams and close-ups of surgical instruments, with a surgical table and stirrups. It makes one feel like they're in Dr. Frankenstein's dungeon instead of a professional, sanitary doctor's office.  Ken refers to Cathy as the murderer of his child so often that I’m sure that if Daddy’s-Gone A-Huntin’ were made today, all the right wing nit wits would line up to cheer him on.

Afterward, Cathy is once again confronted by Ken, asking for forgiveness, saying he'll change. At this point, she informs him there isn't a baby. But instead of telling a little fib like, "I had a miscarriage," she lets Ken draw his own correct conclusion that she had an abortion, upon which our Father of the Year tells her, "She had no right to do that."

"Don't you know what you did," he tells her. You murdered my baby."

And this being 1969, a woman who has an abortion for whatever reason needs to be punished in the worst possible ways, just like in the Red States in 2023. Even though she was carrying Norman Bate's twin brother in her womb.

If you thought Cathy's first foray into True Romance happened fast, it's nothing compared to her second courtship with Jack Byrnes (Paul Burke). No, I'm not kidding. They meet, cut to a wedding, cut to the back of a station wagon in the garage for a quick consummation of the marriage vows.

And in another minute and a half, Cathy, who seems to have the genes of a bunny rabbit, is with child once again and shopping for baby furniture. I guess there were no condoms in the glove box of the station wagon.

It isn't long before Cathy's past in the form of Ken comes back to haunt her. And here you thought the cost of that abortion would be some cold hard cash. 

As I said, this movie is not about love found, lost, or found again. It's a movie about punishment and revenge. The penalty is what Cathy has to endure simply for making the mistake of shacking up with a snowball-throwing maniac. Revenge is what Ken has on his mind because Cathy dared to erase him and his Daddy's insanity issues from her life in every way possible.

The film does have more than its fair share of suspenseful moments the rest of the way as Robson sets a nice quick pace. You won’t notice too many minor plot holes and unbelievable coincidences as the film zips along at a rapid pace.

For instance, Ken happens to be working as a department store Santa. It's the same store where Cathy is shopping for baby furniture, thus letting him know that Cathy is very much pregnant.

This is Ken's cue to dump the Santa gig and start a new career as a maniacal stalker of Cathy and just about every person she comes in contact with. Exactly what does he have in mind? For me to say anything would spoil it for you except to say insanity, thy name is Ken.

This is where the movie excels. Once you get past the hogwash of the set-up, the suspense is fast and furious for the last hour and fifteen minutes. And with Cathy's husband, Jack Byrnes, running for Congress, it makes it much more difficult for her to spill the beans regarding her former relationship with Ken and the fact that she had an abortion.

You have to remember that this was way before the Age of the Trump Monster when a possible political candidate for United States President wasn't allowed to grab pussy, invade teenage beauty pageant locker rooms, or talk about lusting after his own daughter on national radio. So she's pretty much left to deal with Ken alone until we reach a conclusion.

The film succeeds despite its flaws, thanks to the two leads. Carol White has a wide-eyed vulnerable naiveté that convinces us that someone making their first trip to the U.S. could be an easy mark for snowball-throwing jackasses. Later, when she realizes Ken is stalking her, she plays the girl with a guilty conscience who sees him even when he isn't there. Sometimes we're not even sure what's real and what is not.

This is the only Carol White film I have seen in my library, although I have Poor Cow (only available on a Region 2 Disc), an earlier White effort. In that film, her character makes unwise decisions about whom to fall in love with, a problem that ironically spills over into her real life.

Her bio tells us that despite her acting abilities, she was vulnerable and insecure, succumbing to drugs and alcohol. White passed away in 1991 at 48, but even her cause of death is in dispute.

From Wikipedia:

White starred opposite Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde, and Ian Holm in the adaptation of Bernard Malamud's The Fixer (1968) and then traveled to Hollywood in 1968 to make Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1969).

She appeared in Something Big (1971) and had significant roles in Dulcima (1971) and Made (1972) with the singer Roy Harper. During the late 1960s, White was considered one of the most promising actresses in British cinema. Still, her problems with alcoholism, substance abuse, and unhappy relationships with male stars such as Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Oliver Reed, and Paul Burke hindered her career. However, she had a prominent role as a hostage in The Squeeze (1977).

After living in Hollywood for several years, White returned to London to star in Nell Dunn's play Steaming at the West End's Comedy Theatre, filming Nutcracker simultaneously. Despite receiving excellent reviews for Steaming, she often was late, missed performances, and finally was sacked.

In 1981, a biography, Carol Comes Home, by Clifford Thurlow, was published. Although White received publicity for the play and the memoir, she could not renew her career. She returned to the United States, where she remained for the remainder of her life.

Scott Hylands does a creepy stalking mental patient as well as anybody except for maybe Anthony Perkins. Even his early obvious manipulations and seductions of Cathy will want you to take a hot shower to wash away the ooze factor. This film was Scott's first starring film role. He would have a long, long career, mainly in Television as either a guest star or co-star in several T.V. Series.

 

I liked Mala Powers as Cathy's friend, but she's not given much to do, although she does appear in several key scenes. Everybody else is just generic, including Paul Burke, whom director Robson hauls over from Valley of the Dolls, as Congressional Candidate Jack Byrnes and husband number two. As movies at home coincidences would have it, Kino Lorber recently announce that in August, they were releasing a Bluray of Outrage (1950), a film starring Powers and directed by Ida Lupino, who has never been given the credit she deserves for the inroads she trailblazed for women directors.  While the film has been readily available as a Region 2 release, this is the first time a Bluray has been offered in Region One.

But unlike Robson's previous film, he quickly dispenses with the more soap opera-type story elements. I guess he had his fill of that on Valley of the Dolls. James B. Sikking is on hand as an FBI agent. Dennis Patrick took a break from his continuing duties on Dark Shadows to play the abortion doctor Dr. Parkington, and Rachel Ames moonlights from General Hospital to be his nurse.

Producer/Director Mark Robson also had the good sense to bring legendary Academy Award-winning Cinematographer Ernest Lazlo to the San Francisco shoot. Lazlo does an excellent job of giving us a feel for the city. Funny, but with legendary artists such as Lazlo and Williams, you'd think more people would be looking this film up. Especially Williams, who seemed to be a bit crystalized and had yet to burst out of his cocoon.

Given the chance, I hope you'll check out Daddy's Gone A Hunting. It’s still available as a Warner DVD MOD (Movie on Demand), and you can buy or rent the digital stream on Amazon but like the DVD is just standard definition. Chances are we won’t get to see it on Bluray. It may not be a great film, but for the most part, it's an above-average thriller that will keep you on edge throughout and up until the very last scene. And saying that, I'll give this film a better-than-average B+ score.

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From the Clyde’s Movie Palace located in the underbrush of a Texas drive-in theater comes The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

In the enormity of the West, there are still vast and virtually unexplored regions, bleak and desolate, where no human ever goes, and no life is ever seen. It is as though the land has been posted by God. It is in these lonely areas of impenetrable forest and dark shadows that the Gila Monster and the entire 2023 population of Texas now live.

 

The Giant Gila Monster (1959) is one of the great Science Fiction/Horror movies to come out of the 50's. The production values are top-notch. The close-ups of the monster crawling through the brush to destroy humanity are terrifying. As if that weren't enough, the creepy creature wreaks havoc on one classic automobile after another, rivaling the Fast and Furious movies in automobile destruction. Teenagers in Texas didn't stand a chance against the tongue-lashing creature out of the stone age.

That is except for one teen, our hero, Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan), who fights the forces of Evil, keeps all his hot-rodding teen friends in line and can hammer out one helluva song while beating out the fender while working for a pittance in Compton's Garage.

Our Super Hero, Chase, also has a sidekick. Sheriff Jeff (Fred Graham) drives around in his used but mighty patrol car while complaining about the Texas State Troopers who get a new vehicle every year. Jeff hurries to Compton's to seek help from do-gooder Chase whenever there's trouble afoot.

And right from the beginning, the horrid Gila causes trouble, devouring two necking teenagers, Pat Wheeler (Grady Vaughn) and his hot girlfriend Liz Humphries (Yolanda Salas). This dastardly deed takes place before the credits roll, and Gertie the Gila devours his lunch off-camera. I think it's in Gertie's contract that because he's such a sloppy eater spilling blood all over the Texas landscape, he can't be shown ingesting his breakfast, lunch, or dinner. As for Liz and Pat, your time in this movie quickly ends. Bye, bye. We hardly knew you.

But we do get to know Pat's rich Daddy, Mr. "no first name" Wheeler (Bob Thompson), who seems to want to do nothing but harass Chase, Sheriff Jeff, and any other teenage hot-rodding low-life who gets in his way. His son is missing? Chase's fault. His son's girlfriend might be knocked up? Chase's fault. Pat and Liz may have eloped? Chase's fault. Chase's father got killed on one of Wheeler's oil rigs? Chase's fault.

To make matters worse, Chase's girlfriend, Lisa (Lisa Simone), works for the old bastard. It is she who relays the bad news to the low-rent Grease cast that Pat and Liz didn't come home and that Wheeler is on the warpath. 

Lisa is an immigrant from France. As misfortune would have it, Fart-face Wheeler, her sponsor, and employer, threatens to have her deported if she sees Chase again. Chase tells her not to worry, that as long as Greg Abbott doesn't get his grimy paws on her, she's safe.

Keeping everybody on their toes as the comedy relief is Old Man Harris (Shug Fisher), who drives a car every teen wants to turn into a bomb. Old Man Harris comes from the school of Mad Dog 20/20 and Thunderbird, whereas alcohol is a comedienne's best friend.

On the Andy Griffith Show, Otis Campbell (Hal Smith) was the town drunk who would lock himself up in his own personal cell when he was too inebriated. In the movies, Arthur Bach (Dudley Moore) was a funny drunk driven around town by his chauffeur, Bitterman (Ted Ross), and looked after by his Butler, Hobson. (Sir John Gielgud). The writers of The Giant Gila Monster believe it's hilarious if you put your drunks behind the wheel of a vehicle. So they give us two of them. Old Man Harris and Disc Jockey "Steamroller" Smith (Ken Knox), who wrecks his vehicle after seeing the pink polka-dotted Gila, and must have thought he was having the D.T.'s.  
Compton (Cecil Hunt), of the World's Famous Compton's Garage, hauls in some nitroglycerin in the hopes that he might get to imitate John Wayne in The Hellfighters putting out some oil well fires. The nitro does come in handy, but not for that.

One car after another gets wrecked by Gertie and dragged into the underbrush, leaving our caped crusaders, Chase and Jeff, scratching their heads as to what's going on, especially since there are no bodies lying around. They find Pat Wheeler's car, but not Pat and Liz. They find another vehicle, and then there's that abandoned suitcase which does double duty when Chase's sister Missy, uses it for an overnight bag to stay with a friend.

Speaking of Missy, there is one moment when Chase arrives home to find that Lisa has bought the child's new leg braces, enabling her to walk a few steps and for the audience to shed a tear or two, but I imagine that in 1959, most drive-in patrons headed to the restroom.

Chase is so moved that he sings one of his musical compositions for Missy, where God tells Missy she should just laugh off the fact that he gave her a handicap to live with. 

Why is this in the movie? My best guess is to pad the already short running time so that Missy and Mama can be in on the suspense at the end of the movie, if you want to call it that.

I've seen The Giant Gila Monster many times over the years, and since the film is in the public domain, you can watch it just about anywhere for free, including this colorized version on Amazon (with commercials).  Quality varies from place to place.  The clips on the Instagram Post at the end of this review came from a version on Paramount Plus.

It carries a lowly 3.6 out of ten-star rating on Amazon. Why do I keep coming back to it? Because I find the whole thing kind of goofy. Like watching a home movie with a plot. The kind of movie Steven Spielberg might have made with his Super 8 camera when he was a boy genius of about 11 or 12.

I would like to say that all these people went on to bigger and better movie roles. I'd like to say that, but I can't.

Shug Fisher and Fred Graham already had established careers. Graham was known mainly for his stunt work, and Fisher, like he is here, was often the comedy relief in Westerns such as those with Roy Rogers. 

Don Sullivan appeared in about 13 films before hanging it up in 1962. He did appear in the remake of this movie called Gila!, which you can find on Amazon Prime for free at the moment. Don passed away in 2018 at the age of 89.

If you've never seen this film, you owe it to yourself to look it up and watch it not only from a historical viewpoint but just because the fact that this movie is still hanging around over 60 years later is a testament to its staying power.  You can find it almost anywhere, but there is a fancy definitive edition coming in September along with another movie like it called The Killer Shrews.

This project was produced and partially financed by Ken Curtis, who made a career out of playing an Old Man Harris-type character called Festus on Gunsmoke. The difference is, if memory serves me correctly, Festus wasn't an alcoholic. My guess is that the budget for these films was so low they somehow managed to make a profit from them.

I'm going to give the movie a C, and I know I'm being generous. But I grudgingly admit I like some of these low-budget horror movies from the 50's, and I think of the many times I watched movies like this when I was growing up. And besides, watching it in my home theater on my 85-inch screen was almost like being transported back in time to a 1959 drive-in. 

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