Albert Zugsmith Movies

The good campy fun in this sci-fi horror movie really begins when the head of a racist mad scientist (Ray Milland) is sewn onto the shoulders of a large black convict (Rosie Grier) and the two heads begin fighting--literally trying to punch each other out--to control their shared body. The whole mess begins because the brain surgeon suffers from terminal cancer. He reasons that he will survive if he can transplant his head onto the shoulders of another. He and his team begin experimenting. First he has his head sewn to a gorilla (featuring a simian created by fledgling make-up artist Rick Baker). Something goes terribly wrong, he goes into a coma and when he wakes up, he finds himself having a permanent tete-a-tete with the wrongfully convicted Grier. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this psychedelic exploitation comedy, an air-headed bombshell of an actress is sent to a rest home by her producer. This facility is managed by a psycho shrink who slips acid to his patients and listens to their darkest fantasies. Among his other victims are an effete fashion designer, a movie star, a midget, a writer, an obese woman, and the man who made the film, Albert Zugsmith. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A fortune in cash is the bait that draws some would-be criminals into a feeding frenzy in this offbeat but stylish crime drama. Lylle Corbett (Cameron Mitchell) and his girlfriend, Darlene (Jayne Mansfield), have just pulled off the heist of a lifetime, stealing one million dollars in American currency as it's being transported from Europe back to the United States. Hiding out in a small, run-down hotel on the Mediterranean coast, Lylle and Darlene plan to hire a boat and make their way back to the States, where they can start spending some of their loot. However, Darlene's abundance of enthusiasm and lack of common sense cause Livio Morelli (Aldo Camarda), the manager of the hotel, to suspect that she and Lylle are responsible for the robbery that's been all over the news. Livio quickly hatches a plan to steal the fortune from Lylle and cover his tracks, but Livio's hardly the only one looking for the loot, with his spinster sister, Sandra (Dody Heath), greedy butler Dolph (Ivor Salter), and eccentric heiress Madame Benoit (Isa Miranda) all conniving to get their hands on the cash. Dog Eat Dog (aka La Morte Vestita di Dollar) was released in the United Kingdom as When Strangers Meet, the title of the novel that was the basis for its screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular comic strip, this touching children's drama centers on an adorable saucer-eyed Italian war orphan who sneaks into the U.S. by stowing away aboard a returning naval ship. He did this in part to be with the benevolent soldiers who showed him kindness on the Christmas Eve before the war ended. Once they dock in New York, poor Dondi's friends go their separate ways and he ends up lost and having several adventures alone until happiness and peace return in the form of one of the sailors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

An expose on campus sex provides the basis of this bizarre film made in 1960. A college professor is taking the survey which focuses upon the sexual habits of the students. Unfortunately, some people object and bring him up on charges of indecency. The film climaxes with his trial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set within the popular bohemian coffee houses of the late '50s where beatniks gathered to recite poetry and perform, this sensationalistic detective drama centers upon the attempts of an insensitive police detective to catch an arrogant serial rapist, a rich young man who believes himself mentally superior and therefore beyond the law. His favorite victims are married women. When he learns that the detective is after him, the rapist targets the cop's wife. Later the poor wife discovers she's pregnant and cannot be sure who fathered her child. The film is alternatively titled This Rebel Age. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Scripted in another era, the premise for this interesting though conventional drama defending a partially mixed marriage would not be as convincing a few decades later. Chuck Nelson (John Drew Barrymore) is a wealthy young man who travels South of the border and meets and then marries Ginny (Julie London). His new bride is a wonderful woman until Chuck's socialite mother (Agnes Moorehead) discovers that one of Ginny's grandparents was of African ancestry. The imperious mother-in-law lands the new couple in an embittered court battle as she makes every attempt to annul their marriage. Nat "King" Cole plays Ginny's uncle, and Anna Kashfi is Maria, her cousin. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This baroque nightmare of a south-of-the-border mystery is considered to be one of the great movies of Orson Welles, who both directed and starred in it. On honeymoon with his new bride, Susan (Janet Leigh), Mexican-born policeman Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) agrees to investigate a bomb explosion. In so doing, he incurs the wrath of local police chief Hank Quinlan (Welles), a corrupt, bullying behemoth with a perfect arrest record. Vargas suspects that Quinlan has planted evidence to win his past convictions, and he isn't about to let the suspect in the current case be railroaded. Quinlan, whose obsession with his own brand of justice is motivated by the long-ago murder of his wife, is equally determined to get Vargas out of his hair, and he makes a deal with local crime boss Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) to frame Susan on a drug rap, leading to one of the movie's many truly harrowing sequences. Touch of Evil dissects the nature of good and evil in a hallucinatory, nightmarish ambience, helped by the shadow-laden cinematography of Russell Metty and by the cast, which, along with Tamiroff and Welles includes Charlton Heston as a Mexican; Marlene Dietrich, in a brunette wig, as a brittle madam who delivers the movie's unforgettable closing words; Mercedes McCambridge as a junkie; and Dennis Weaver as a tremulous motel clerk. Touch of Evil has been released with four different running times -- 95 minutes for the 1958 original, which was taken away from Welles and brutally cut by the studio; 108 minutes and 114 minutes in later versions; and 111 minutes in the 1998 restoration. Based on a 58-page memo written by Welles after he was barred from the editing room during the film's original post-production, this restoration, among numerous other changes, removed the opening titles and Henry Mancini's music from the opening crane shot, which in either version ranks as one of the most remarkably extended long takes in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer Albert Zugsmith serves up another all-star exposé with High School Confidential. Delivering a superb performance under the circumstances, Russ Tamblyn heads the cast as "typical" high schooler Tony Baker. Usually seen in the company of his voluptuous "aunt" Gwen Dulaine (the truly impressive Mamie Van Doren), Tony convinces one and all that he's looking for kicks of the controlled-substance kind. In truth, however, our hero is really an undercover narcotics agent named Mike Wilson, bound and determined to smash the operation of drug lord Mr. A. (Jackie Coogan). The once-in-a-lifetime cast includes such worthies as John Drew Barrymore (Drew Barrymore's daddy), Ray Anthony (then married to Mamie Van Doren), Charles Chaplin Jr., Michael Landon, and Jerry Lee Lewis as "himself." This updated Reefer Madness is not to be missed! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The screen's great existential science fiction film, The Incredible Shrinking Man stars Grant Williams in the title role. While catching some rays on his brother's yacht, Scott Carey (Williams) is enveloped by a mysterious dark cloud. Soon after, he discovers that he's getting thinner -- and smaller. Despite the assuring attitude of his family doctor (the inevitable William Schallert), Scott is losing an inch's worth of height with each passing day. It is finally determined that he has developed an "anti-cancer," a by-product of a new strain of insecticide. By the time he's reached the size of a small boy, Scott has become world-famous. But the phenomenon has adversely affected his personality, turning him into a tyrant, lashing out at the world in general and his faithful wife in particular. An anti-toxin briefly halts the shrinking process, whereupon Scott joins a midget troupe, where he is briefly "accepted" for what he has become. But before long he's shrinking again, becoming so tiny that he is forced to live in a dollhouse. When Scott is attacked by his pet cat, his wife assumes that he's been killed; in fact, Scott, by now so minuscule that even a garden-variety spider poses a deadly threat to him, is hiding in his cellar. By film's end, Scott is no larger than an atom. Uncertain of what is in store for him, he steps out into the mists, summing up his newfound philosophy: "Smaller than smallest, I meant something too. To God there is no zero. I still exist!" Adapted by Richard Matheson from his own novel, The Incredible Shrinking Man is enhanced by its superb special effects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Slaughter on Tenth Avenue's background music relies heavily on the Richard Rodgers composition of the same name, the film itself bears no relation to the ten-minute ballet for which Rodgers wrote the piece. Instead, this Albert Zugsmith-produced crime meller attempts to expose waterfront union racketeering. In trying to solves a murder on the docks, deputy DA Richard Egan runs up against the stevedores' code of silence. It also dawns on Egan that his own boss (Sam Levene) shows little interest in pursuing justice in this instance. The DA is finally able to mount a case, but at the crucial courtroom moment he may have to pull out due to lack of evidence--a lack engineered by crooked boss Walter Matthau, who has several local politicians in his pocket. A last-minute dockside battle enables Egan to bring the racketeers to justice. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was based on New York district attorney William J. Keating's memoirs The Man Who Rocked the Boat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jeff Chandler plays big-city lawyer James Gordon Blane, who heads to a small Nevada town to defend a playboy (Phillip Reed) accused of murder. Blane wins the case, but is then himself charged with accepting bribes. The man behind this accusation is vindictive town sheriff Nick Hoak (Jack Carson), who controls all illegal activities in the area. When Blane's legman Billy Giles ends up dead, the lawyer deduces that Hoak was also behind the killing for which the playboy was blamed. Blane struggles to defend his reputation in court while his wife (Jeanne Crain) attempts to mount evidence against Sheriff Hoak. Despite its stellar cast and slick direction (by Jack Arnold), The Tattered Dress comes across as cheap and tawdry -- befitting its seedy subject matter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Raw Edge is a modest Universal western from the peak of the double-feature era. Rory Calhoun plays a rancher whose "equal opportunity" hiring policies backfire. Calhoun learns that several of his ranch hands plan to kill him and take over the property. The treacherous employees further intend claim Calhoun's widow-to-be (Yvonne de Carlo) along with the ranch. Mara Corday plays the other woman in Calhoun's life: Can she, or anyone else in this picture, be trusted? While the plotline of Raw Edge has its esoteric moments, the film is brought down to earth by the perfunctory direction of John Sherwood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide