Mikel Conrad Movies

Low-budget Realart Films managed to pick up an above-average property when it secured the screen rights to the Robert Abel play The Samson Slasher. Retitled Breakdown, the story concerns a heavyweight boxer, played by William Bishop. Framed for murder, Bishop is sent to prison, but is released after a few years on good behavior. Putting two and two together (no mean feat when you're wearing boxing gloves), Bishop surmises that the real killer is linked up in some way with his girl friend Anne Gwynne. Richard Benedict, a real-life boxer who turned actor in the mid-1940s, appears in the supporting cast as "Punchy." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Kefauver Committee's ongoing investigation of organized crime spawned several "Torn from Today's Headlines!" films in the early 1950s. Republic's Hoodlum Empire concerns the efforts by gangster Joe Gray (John Russell) to get out of the rackets after WW II. Part of Gray's "reclamation" is to testify at a public hearing, prompting a series of flashbacks. Part of the fun is to guess who all the "fictional" criminals are really supposed to be: Luther Adler's character may be called "Nicky Mancini," for example, but for all intents and purposes Adler is playing Frank "Fifth Amendment" Costello. Other famous underworld personages are impersonated by Claire Trevor, Forrest Tucker and Roy Barcroft, while the steadfast Estes Kefauver counterpart is portrayed by Brian Donlevy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Striking while the iron was hot, actor/producer Mikel Conrad registered the title The Flying Saucer for copyright not long after UFOs were allegedly spotted in Washington State. Filmed on location in Alaska, Flying Saucer stars Conrad (who also co-wrote) as a secret agent, dispatched by the government to find out whether or not the UFO reports constitute a threat against American defenses. He goes on a "pub crawl" in Alaska, looking for eyewitnesses to the flying-saucer phenomenon. After a series of slow-moving complications, the agent rounds up a group of Russian spies who've been using the saucer for evil purposes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Powell stars in Take One False Step as a happily married college professor who foolishly agrees to a reunion supper with old flame Shelley Winters. Winters later disappears, and the evidence points to murder. To allay suspicion--and to avoid losing an important financial grant to his university--Powell starts his own investigation. The trail leads him to San Francisco, where poor Powell becomes mired in a confusing crime plot. Fortunately, Winters is still alive; unfortunately, Powell may not be for long. Adapted from the Irwin Shaw novel Night Call, Take One False Step is saved from tawdriness by the innate dignity of William Powell. Also, the film is leavened by unexpected moments of humor, notably the relaxed banter between Powell and Shelley Winters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One wonders if Donald O'Connor would have consented to star in Francis if he knew that a series was to follow. Adapted by David Stern from his own novel, the film stars O'Connor as GI Peter Sterling, who appears to be bucking for a Section Eight. Seems that Sterling keeps insisting that Francis, a cantankerous Army mule, has the power of speech. It turns out that Francis not only can talk, but is also a superb military strategist. With Francis' help, Sterling breaks up a Nazi spy ring and becomes a hero -- but this is only the beginning, as the future entries in Universal's Francis series would prove over and over. Providing able support to the hapless O'Connor are Patricia Medina, Ray Collins, and especially ZaSu Pitts as a bewildered Army nurse. The voice of Francis is provided by Chill Wills, who likewise showed up in most of the Francis sequels, and who, like O'Connor, bailed out before the final entry, Francis in a Haunted House (1956). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Glenn Ford is top-billed in Man From Colorado, though he's anything but a hero. Ford plays a seriously disturbed Civil War vet who kills because he enjoys killing. William Holden, Ford's army buddy, tries to stem Ford's homicidal tendencies. When Ford is appointed the "hanging" judge of a Colorado town, Holden signs on as his deputy. The final break between the two onetime friends comes when Holden casts his lot with a group of disgruntled miners whom Ford has disenfranchised. A fistfight in a burning building brings the no-nonsense Man From Colorado to a brutal conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Abbott & Costello vehicle was originally planned as a Bob Hope comedy titled Easy Does It. The Hope role is fairly evenly divided between Bud Abbott, as hotel house detective Casey Edwards, and Lou Costello, as bumbling bellhop Lou Costello. When a much-hated criminal attorney (Nicholas Joy) is murdered at a resort hotel, there's no shortage of suspects: in fact, practically every guest had an excellent motive for killing the victim. The suspects conspire to pin the killing on poor Freddie, but when he comes in possession of a valuable piece of evidence, he is slated for extermination himself. The more Freddie and his pal Casey try to stay out of trouble, the more trouble comes their way--especially when two more murders occur. The climax takes place in an underground cavern, where Freddie is nearly drowned by the hooded mystery killer. The film's title is one of the most misleading in movie history. Cast as a red-herring swami, Boris Karloff is not the killer (whose true identity is obvious from the outset, especially to veteran moviegoers). Though his footage is extremely limited, Karloff shares the film's funniest scene, in which he tries to hypnotize Costello into committing suicide ("You'll kill yourself if it's the last thing you do!). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

PRC's singing cowboy Eddie Dean once again brings law and order to a corrupt town in this average Western co-starring Roscoe Ates and Nancy Gates. When Red Gap's old sheriff (Edward Cassidy) is shot in cold blood by Ace (Mikel Conrad), a member of Brad Taggert's gang, the new lawman, Eddie, orders all firearms in Red Gap to be deposited in the sheriff's office. Taggert (I. Stanford Jolley) takes umbrage, of course, and hires a couple of gunmen (Russell Asrms and Marshall Reed) to rid the town of such nuisance. When that ploy fails, the villain falls back on crooked Judge Hammond (William Fawcett), but Eddie gets rid of him as well in favor of law-abiding Judge Walsh (Steve Clark) -- then the real Boss Villain reveals himself. Ates, Andy Parker, and the Plainsmen perform "A Miserable Ornery Coyote" and Dean sings "God's Little Lanterns" and "Moseyin' Along," the latter in a duet with leading lady Nancy Gates. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having struck gold with the previous season's Dillinger, the King Brothers returned to Monogram as producers of The Gangster. Adapted by Daniel Fuchs from his own novel Low Company, the film stars Barry Sullivan as flint-faced racketeer Shubunka. Shown to be a product of the slums, Shubunka spends his adulthood in pursuit of power and riches, with no time for friendship or romance. Wounded in a gangland shootout, Shubunka ruminates on his past, present and (unlikely) future, wondering if it's all been worth it. Promoted as a "psychological" drama, The Gangster has plenty of gunplay and bloodshed to satiate action fans, and a surfeit of sex appeal in the form of gangster's moll Nancy (played by Monogram's resident skating star Belita). Prominent in the supporting cast is the ineluctable Sheldon Leonard as Shubunka's chief rival, delivering a subtler variation on his patented tough-guy screen persona. The Gangster was directed by Oscar-winning art director Gordon Wiles, later a mainstay of such TV series as Land of the Lost and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide