Robert Keys Movies

Revolt at Fort Laramie offers the old one about sworn enemies uniting to defeat an even more awesome foe. In this instance. The time is the Civil War: the place is a western cavalry outpost, where Union and Confederate sympathizers are forced to share close quarters. Not surprisingly, tensions erupt in a hurry, despite the honorable intentions of commander (and stalwart Southerner) John Dehner. But when indian chief Eddie Little lays siege upon Fort Laramie, Yanks and Rebels fight side by side. Harry Dean Stanton, then billed simply as Dean Stanton, makes his screen debut as "Rusty". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Robert Anderson from a story by James A. Michener, the Robert Wise-directed soaper Until They Sail is set in World-War-II New Zealand. Paul Newman plays been-there-done-that U.S. marine captain Jack Harding, assigned to investigate servicemen's requests to marry local girls. An unemotional cipher, Harding begins to warm up when he meets war widow Barbara Leslie Forbes (Jean Simmons), a woman with three sisters (played by Joan Fontaine, Piper Laurie, and Sandra Dee -- what a gene pool!). The Newman-Simmons relationship is played against the romance between uptight spinster Anne Leslie (Fontaine) and good-natured officer Richard Bates (Charles Drake), and the dysfunctional marriage between the emotionally desperate (and nymphomaniacal) Delia Leslie (Laurie) and slimy Shiner Friskett (Wally Cassell), who is off in battle. The fourth sister, Evelyn (Dee), watches her sisters' amorous pursuits longingly, her mind occupied by her own true love, who is off to war. Until They Sail was a copacetic reunion between star Newman and director Robert Wise, who'd previously collaborated in Somebody Up There Likes Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Down-and-out artist Joe Manning (John Bromfield) wakes up from a night of drunken revelry in a jail cell, where he's being held on suspicion for the murder of a nightclub singer. It so happens that the dead woman was clutching a "class of 1945" high school pin in her hand, and it was on the basis of this circumstantial evidence that Joe was incarcerated. Provided with a phony alibi by friendly carhop Slacks (Julie London), Joe sets about to find the real killer--all the while hoping that it isn't himself. Since there are quite a few 1945 alumni in the neighborhood, Joe really has his work cut out for him. Featured in the supporting cast of Crime Against Joe is corpulent Henry Calvin, the future "Sergeant Garcia" on TV's Zorro, as Joe's cabdriver buddy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 62-minute quickie takes place during a single 12-hour shift at Los Angeles' Emergency Hospital. In anticipation of such contemporary TV dramas as Chicago Hope and ER, several subplots are developed at once. Dr. Janet Carey (Margaret Lindsay) is romanced by wealthy Ben Caldwell (Byron Palmer), who may or may not be a dangerously reckless motorist. Visiting detective Arnold (Walter Reed) must come to grips with the fact that his teenaged son (Jim Stapleton) is a budding delinquent. And other major and minor crises are experienced by nurse Norma Mullen (Rita Johnson) and staff doctor Ellis (John Archer). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For The High and the Mighty, director William Wellman made a point of using Cinemascope to heighten the dramatic content of a confined screen space -- in this instance, the cockpit of a plane in flight. Copilot Dan Roman (John Wayne) seems a lot more in control of things than Captain John Sullivan (Robert Stack) when the plane loses an engine during a flight from Honolulu to San Francisco. Wellman crosscuts from the tension in the cockpit to the various subplots involving the plane's passengers, among them May Holst (Claire Trevor), Lydia Rice (Laraine Day), Howard Rice (John Howard), Sally McKee (Jan Sterling), Ed Joseph (Phil Harris), and Humphrey Agnew (Sidney Blackmer) (as a character named Humphrey Agnew -- a remarkable prescient cognomen given the future of the U.S. vice presidency!). Adapted by Ernest K. Gann from his best-selling novel, The High and the Mighty was one of the first (and most profitable) entries in the "terror in the sky" genre. Its theme music, written by Dimitri Tiomkin and whistled incessantly by John Wayne in the film, would later become a best-selling hit throughout the world. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

During World War II, a Military Air Transport Command DC-3 piloted by a civilian crew is forced down in northern Labrador. The five men, led by Dooley (John Wayne), have barely any food and almost no way to keep warm, and their power supply is fading fast, but they have to find a way of staying alive until search planes find them. At first, even Dooley is overwhelmed by the responsibility for his crew's safety, and he is too lax in handling them -- but after one man dies, frozen to death just steps from help, he takes over and pushes his men and himself to the limits of their endurance; he even seems ready to crack himself at one moment. Meanwhile, the men who fly with Dooley push themselves and their machines past their endurance limits searching the arctic wastes for the downed plane. Island in the Sky -- based on the book by Ernest K. Gann (perhaps the best aviation novel ever written), which was, in turn, based on a true incident that happened during the war -- is one of the most startling movies in Wayne's output. He doesn't even look like the "star" John Wayne, but like a real pilot, and the cast, made up of familiar faces, all look like the real article; indeed, this movie should have been in the running for Academy Awards for costuming and makeup, just for making these familiar performers, such as Lloyd Nolan (in maybe his best performance) and Andy Devine (ditto), look like real pilots and ordinary men, rather than familiar actors. You end up feeling like you're watching a documentary, and the effect is bracing and unsettling, and dramatically unparalleled in Wayne's entire output. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Walter Wanger's first production for Allied Artists, Kansas Pacific is more slick and polished than the usual budget western. Set just before the Civil War, the film concerts Kansas Pacific railroad's westward expansion, a project stymied by the sabotage activities of Southern sympathizers. Military officer John Nelson (Sterling Hayden) is assigned to make sure the railroad goes through. The film offers excellent performances from such usually stereotyped players as Barton MacLane, Harry Shannon, Douglas Fowley and James Griffith. Kansas Pacific's leading lady is Eve Miller, best known as Kirk Douglas' vis-a-vis in The Big Trees. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Of all the "kill the commies" cold war films of the 1950s, John Wayne's Big Jim McLain may well be the worst. Certainly it's the hardest one to sit through today. The Duke and his partner Jim Arness (Wayne's real-life protege) head to Hawaii to investigate a subversive pro-Red organization. Feigning love for suspect Nancy Olson, Wayne ferrets out the name of the Big Cheese, played by Gayne Whitman. After a long wild-goose chase, peopled by such oddball types as Hans Conried and Alan Napier, Wayne catches up with his quarry, who has--egad!--already murdered Arness. Wayne exacts vengeance, paving the way for a final clinch with Nancy Olson, who turns out to be true-blue and not red after all. To quote Spike Jones: "Peeeeee.....yewwwww." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide