Kay Garrett Movies
- 1957
Drugs are the focus of the exploitation film set in the Los Angeles harbor. The plot centers around a villain's evil scheme to raid a ship and abscond with surplus war drugs. To help him get backers for the heist, he begins showing criminals a slide show depicting his scheme. A young woman accompanies one of the leader's gang members as he takes the slide show to various gangsters. The woman falls in love with an ambulance driver and gets him involved in the scheme. During the actual caper, the mastermind is killed, the drugs are safe, and the driver and the woman walk away from the whole thing unscathed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Russell, June Blair, (more)
- 1955
W. Lee Wilder, the prolific but markedly less talented brother of Billy Wilder, both produced and directed The Big Bluff. Handsome but unscrupulous John Bromfield comes into the life of beautiful and wealthy Martha Vickers. Knowing that she has only a year to live, Bromfield marries her, then settles back to wait for his inheritence. But then she begins showing signs of recovery, forcing the caddish Bromfield to radically alter his plans. The Big Bluff was scripted by Fred Freiberger, who later served as producer of Star Trek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Bromfield, Martha Vickers, (more)
The "He" of the title is Richard Basehart, a clever but psychopathic burglar (based on real-life criminal Erwin Walker) Basehart stays one step ahead of the law by listening in to the police band on his radio. To avoid detection, he changes his M.O. on each crime, making it seem that the string of burglaries is the work of several thieves. But Basehart trips himself up when he kills a cop. His own personal Waterloo occurs in the Los Angeles sewer system--a stylish predecessor to the similar (and more widely praised) climax in Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man. Though the direction is credited to Hollywood old-timer Alfred Werker, most of He Walked By Night is the handiwork of an uncredited Anthony Mann. Featured in the film's cast is Jack Webb in the small role of a police lab technician. Impressed by first-hand experience with police procedure and by the semi-documentary quality of He Walked By Night Webb expanded on these elements for his own radio and TV project, Dragnet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, (more)
In Dead Reckoning, Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) recites the film's plotline to a priest in the confessional. Murdock and Johnny Drake (William Prince) are Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, en route to Washington by train. Drake hops off and disappears, leading Murdock on a hectic manhunt. Upon meeting Drake's former girlfriend Coral Chandler (Lizabeth Scott), Murdock is thrown into a maelstrom of intrigue involving a crooked gambler (Morris Carnovsky) and a complex blackmailing scheme. The upshot of this is that Murdock finds himself the prime suspect in a murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, (more)
