Lyn Thomas Movies

A routine story about an attempted assassination of a foreign head of state, Three Came to Kill is one of many action dramas directed by the indefatigable Edward L. Cahn in 1960 and '61. In this instance, the setting is Los Angeles and a gang of hoodlums, for their own reasons, are intent on murdering a visiting Asian Prime Minister. Three of the men are professional killers, and their plan is to break into the house of an airport employee and shoot down the plane that is carrying the PM out of the U.S. The L.A. police are alerted, placing the plan in jeopardy before it can be put into effect. Cameron Mitchell is the head hoodlum honcho. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The creation and testing of jet planes is the focus of this action film. The story centers on a boozy hero from the Korean War who is hired as a test pilot by an aircraft executive on the condition that he sober up for good. It is a long road for the alcoholic aviator, and at one point he almost suffers a breakdown during a simulated flight, but he manages to dry out and begin flying experimental planes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

3DFrontier Gun3D is another of the moderately interesting low-budget westerns turned out by 20th Century-Fox's Regal Films subsidiary in the late 1950s. John Agar plays Jim Crayle, who offers his services as voluntary marshal when crazed gunman Yubo (Robert Strauss) inaugurates a reign of terror. Unfortunately, Crayle is unable to outdraw Yubo due to a wrist injury, leading the townsfolk to assume that their new marshal is yellow. Only when his argument with Yubo becomes personal does Crayle truly rise to the occasion. John Agar does his best in an unsually cerebral role, but his passive character-and characterization-works against the film's suspense. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This confusingly-titled science-fiction thriller is both an artifact of its time and a surprisingly forward-looking film, in terms of plot. On the one hand, its plot makes it a kind of 1950's B-movie antecedent to The Andromeda Strain -- on the other, it owes a lot to the popular police procedural films and television shows of the decade or so leading up to its production. The title refers to an advanced US satellite sent into orbit, in part to gather and return samples of material from space. The latter includes a microscopic organism believed to be the same existing on the planet Mars which, so one scientist, Dr. Charles Pommer (Paul Frees), believes, is responsible for that world's red coloration. Pommer, who is permitted to take the sample to his home laboratory, is brilliant and single-minded in his work; but his intellect and ambition, coupled with his unstable personality and chaotic personal life, leads to disaster. He discovers that the organism, which he christens "Blood Rust," can multiply incredibly fast in Earth's environment, and attach itself to (and ultimately consume) any living host creature, including human beings. The alien organism proves his undoing, and he lives just long enough to warn project security chief John Hand (Bill Williams) of the danger -- but the warning comes too late to prevent Pommer's ex-wife (Lyn Thomas) from becoming an unwitting carrier of the organism. It's up to Hand and his assistant, Radigan (Robert Ellis), to find this woman -- whose identity they don't even know at first -- even as she tries (for purely personal reasons) to elude the authorities, not knowing of the danger she presents to herself and the world. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In this sequel to the second-season episode "Panic in the Sky", Clark Kent's friend Gary Allen (Robert Lowery) has been missing ever since the night Kent's alter ego Superman (George Reeves) prevented a huge meteor from crashing into Metropolis. When Gary resurfaces, he is just as invulnerable and indestructible as Superman, the result of being exposed to the meteor's radiation. In fact, the public at large is now convinced that Gary and Superman are one and the same, especially since he, like Superman, is weakened whenever coming into contact with Kryptonite. This situation is exploited by a pair of crooks named Van Wyck (Steven Geray) and Rufus (Bob Foulk), with potentially dire consequences for Clark's fellow reporters Lois (Noel Neill) and Jimmy (Jack Larson). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The witness of the title is Barbara Stanwyck, who insists she's seen a man strangling a girl in the apartment across the street. The murderer is George Sanders, an ex-Nazi with plenty of experience in covering his tracks. Deftly disposing of body and clues, Sanders is able to convince the authorities that Stanwyck is hallucinating. But Stanwyck persists, forcing Sanders to show his hand in a fateful climax. Witness to Murder is far beneath the talents of its stars, though both Stanwyck and Sanders, pros that they are, give the material the old "Academy Award" treatment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Dumas-inspired Blades of the Musketeers began life as an hour-long TV show, produced by Hal Roach Jr. as a possible series pilot. Robert Clarke, who'd previous headlined a pilot for a never-sold "Robin Hood" series, plays D'Artagnan, while the rest of the Musketeers are portrayed by John Hubbard (Athos), Mel Archer (Porthos) and Keith Richards (Aramis). The plot follows the traditional "Queen's Necklace" portion of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, with D'Artagnan and his brothers in arms defending Queen Anne (Marjorie Lord) against the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu (Paul Cavanaugh) and Rochefort (Peter Mamakos). Rounding out the cast are Don Beddoe as a comic-relief King Louis, Lyn Thomas as the courageous Constance, and Kristine Miller as the scheming Milady De Winter. Within the limitations of its tiny budget and 54-minute time span, Blades of the Musketeers is a not-bad rendition of a familiar adventure yarn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Monte Hale western casts the tall-in-the-saddle hero as a wandering cavalier who strikes a blow for tolerance. Hale is sheriff of a jerkwater frontier town where Polish/American Robert Neil is treated with contempt by certain prejudiced townsfolk. Neil's kinsman Roy Barcroft comes to town with the intent of pulling off a robbery. Implicated in the crime, Neil is cleared by Hale, who also makes a heartfelt speech against judging one by his heritage. As in all of his Republic program westerns, Monte Hale is given an opportunity to sing in The Missourians, though in this case the musical elements take a back seat to the story and its moral. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Covered Wagon Raid stars Allan "Rocky" Lane as a frontier insurance investigator named...Allan "Rocky" Lane. The story concerns a gang of hijackers who've been bushwhacking and murdering wagon train passengers. Someone has been tipping the gang off as to the locations and routes of the wagon trains--but who? That's what Rocky has to find out, and he's got quite a list of suspects to choose from. Halfway down the cast list as "Susie" is little Sherry Jackson, who later played Danny Thomas' daughter Terry on TV's Make Room for Daddy. There's hardly a dull moment in this 60-minute sagebrusher. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No good deed goes unpunished in the "Bowery Boys" entry Triple Trouble. When Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the Bowery Boys attempt to stop a robbery, it is they who wind up in prison. Once behind bars, the boys learn of an escape plan, but when they try to relay this information to the warden, they're threatened with solitary confinement. And when Slip and Sach try to sabotage a short-wave radio that is being used by one of the prisoners to orchestrate burglaries on the outside, our two heroes are thrown into solitary. Even poor sweet-shop owner Louie (Bernard Gorcey) is not spared; running into the street and calling for help after being robbed, Louie is told by the beat cop that he risks arrest for disturbing the peace! Amazingly, the Bowery Boys manage to survive all these knocks and bring the film's genuine bad guys to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi