David Bair Movies
After producer Irwin Allen highlighted the dangers of fire in the Towering Inferno and the dangers of water in the Poseidon Adventure, he is back to fire again but this time it is within the earth, at least for awhile. This fairly routine disaster film is set on a resort island with a volcano that is beginning to rumble. Stars include a long list of names: Paul Newman is Hank, the savvy oil driller who gets people to safety even against their will, Jacqueline Bisset is the woman he is interested in, William Holden, Eddie Albert, Barbara Carrera, Veronica Hamel and several others play individuals trapped on the island. Hank convinces some people to follow him to the highest part of the island as the volcano gets set to blow its top. They encounter several dangerous situations after the dormant volcano wakes up but nothing quite like the non-stop, action filled, death-defying scenes from the explosion of volcano movies that hit the screens in 1997: Dante's Peak, Volcano, Eruption, Volcano: Fire in the Mountain, and a few more from around the world. They formed a virtual 1997 "ring of fire." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, (more)
The Enemy Below is a study of submarine warfare from the vantage point of both sides. Robert Mitchum plays the captain of an American destroyer, who despite having lost his family in the war endeavors to let his head rule his heart in combat. Curt Jurgens co-stars as a German U-boat commander, depicted as being as honorable and compassionate as Mitchum. The two men develop a grudging mutual respect as they pursue one another throughout the North Atlantic. Based on a novel by D. A. Rayner, The Enemy Below was the last theatrical film directed by Dick Powell, who hereafter concentrated on his extensive television work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Curd Jürgens, (more)
- 1956
Nightclub singer Ilona Vance (Vera Ralston) is Accused of Murder in this Republic programmer. And from the looks of things, Ilona is guilty; she was, after all, the last person to see crooked lawyer Hobart (Sidney Blackmer) alive. But Lt. Roy Hargis (David Brian) is convinced that Ilona is innocent, and he intends to prove it. Except for the mildly surprising denoument, there is little in Accused of Murder that is not thoroughly predictable. Star Vera Ralston, the wife of Republic chieftan Herbert J. Yates, is her usual expressionless self. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Brian, Vera Ralston, (more)
- 1950
Owen Johnson's novel The Lawrenceville School Stories (compiled from short stories originally published in The Saturday Evening Post) was the basis for The Happy Years. The film is set at an early 20th-century boy's prep school; Dean Stockwell plays an habitual troublemaker sent to this school as a means of straightening him out and making a man of him. At first bullied by the older kids, the pugnacious Stockwell stands his ground until he earns his fellow students' respect. The film adheres strictly to MGM's factory-tested Boys Town formula by having Stockwell cleaning up his act and becoming a worthwhile Lawrenceville student. Watch The Happy Years carefully and you'll spot an unbilled Robert Wagner, in his film debut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Stockwell, Darryl Hickman, (more)
The definitive Joseph H. Lewis-directed melodrama, Gun Crazy is the "Bonnie and Clyde" story retooled for the disillusioned postwar generation. John Dall plays a timorous, emotionally disturbed World War II veteran who has had a lifelong fixation with guns. He meets a kindred spirit in carnival sharpshooter Peggy Cummins, who is equally disturbed -- but a lot smarter, and hence a lot more dangerous. Beyond their physical attraction to one another, both Dall and Cummins are obsessed with firearms. They embark on a crime spree, with Cummins as the brains and Dall as the trigger man. As sociopathic a duo as are likely to be found in a 1940s film, Dall and Cummins are also perversely fascinating. As they dance their last dance before dying in a hail of police bullets, the audience is half hoping that somehow they'll escape the Inevitable. Some critics have complained that Dall is far too effeminate and Cummins too butch, but Joseph H. Lewis was never known to draw anything in less than broad strokes: recall the climax of Terror in a Texas Town, wherein Sterling Hayden participates in a western showdown armed with a whaler's harpoon. The best and most talked-about scene in Gun Crazy is the bank robbery sequence, shot in "real time" from the back seat of Dall and Cummins' getaway car. Originally slated for Monogram release, Gun Crazy enjoyed a wider exposure when its producers, the enterprising King Brothers, chose United Artists as the distributor. The film was based on a magazine article by MacKinlay Kantor; one of the scenarists was uncredited blacklistee Dalton Trumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peggy Cummins, John Dall, (more)
