Dayton Lummis

Moonfire was shot almost entirely out of doors, which was supposed to enhance the realism but which makes the film look all the more like a home movie. Charles Napier plays a trucker who is sucked into a blackmail plot by sinister forces. Ex-boxer Sonny Liston is given special billing as "The Farmer," but a better designation would have been "The Mumbler." Richard Egan, who has top billing, looks as though he was available for only half a day--and late in the day at that. Even the color processing looks cheap in the sublimely forgettable Moonfire. Nice trucks, though. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While tracking down a gang of poachers, Ben Cartwright is shot and left for dead. Convinced that Ben is dead, his griefstricken sons head off in three different directions to bring their father's "murderer" to justice. Meanwhile, Ben recovers from his wounds and makes his way back to the Ponderosa, where he awaits his sons' return-if indeed, they do return. Robert H. Harris costars as Mr. Dormann, the man responsible for Ben's miraculous revovery. One of the best-ever Bonanza episodes, "The Legeacy" was written by Arthur Wilson, and first aired December 15, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nathan Juran, director of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, tries to make the magic happen again on a much more attenuated budget in Jack the Giant Killer. Torin Thatcher, another Sinbad alumnus, plays a wicked wizard who kidnaps toothsome-princess Judi Meredith. Kerwin Mathews, still another veteran of Sinbad, plays Jack, who rescues Meredith and promises to escort her to safety. Stop-motion animator Jim Danforth creates several fire-breathing perils along the same lines as Ray Harryhausen's special effects in Sinbad; happily, Danforth emulates the Harryhausen style without stooping to imitation. Prominent among the supporting actors is Don Beddoe as an impish genie. In the recently reissued prints of Jack the Giant Killer, most of the original voices have been dubbed over, and incongruous musical numbers added. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flight that Disappeared sugars its Vital Message with a sci-fi/fantasy coating. Three nuclear scientists prepare to deliver their report on the potentials of atomic weaponry to the President. En route to Washington, the scientists' plane disappears from view. They awaken to find themselves in the presence of benign aliens, possibly residents of the Afterworld. Before the scientists are permitted to leave, they have been persuaded that their nuclear report will need a healthy dose of anti-bomb rhetoric. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three army deserters -- Sutton (Joe Maross, Tyler (Grant Williams), and Mertz (James Parnell) -- take refuge on the Ponderosa, beating Little Joe senseless. Outraged, the Cartwrights join a military posse under the command of relentless Captain Bolton (Chris Alcaide). The supporting cast includes Gloria Talbott as Nedda, Dayton Lummis as Colonel Metcalfe, and Sherwood Price as the Corporal. "Escape to the Ponderosa" was written by Robert E. Thompson and Bill Barrett and was first telecast on March 5, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Compulsion is a compelling, stylish thriller, loosely based on the famous 1924 murder trial of thrill-killers Loeb and Leopold, two homosexual students who murdered a young boy to demonstrate their intellectual superiority. Artie Straus (Bradford Dillman) is a sadistic, mother-dominated bully. Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) is a submissive, introverted sissy. Having been raised by wealthy, arrogant families, both Artie and Judd consider themselves above conventional morality. Unfeeling and conceited, the boys, after the killing, take delight in offering to aid in finding the culprits. It is this arrogance which leads to their capture and prosecution for the murders. Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles), playing a Clarence Darrow-like criminal defense attorney, takes on the case, and puts on a defense, without the cooperation of his clients, who will offer no explanation for what they have done. Bradford Dillman gives an outstanding performance, as does Dean Stockwell as the utterly unsympathetic murderers. Orson Welles is flamboyantly imposing as Wilk, who must use all his wits to try to save the boys from execution. Compulsion is a suspenseful courtroom drama, even though most viewers will know the outcome. Tautly directed by Richard Fleischer, the film is an outstanding, believable courtroom drama. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

The painfully true story of welterweight boxing champion Barney Ross is detailed in Monkey on My Back. Cameron Mitchell stars as Ross, whose meteoric ring career is interrupted when he joins the Marines at the outset of WWII. A highly decorated hero, Ross contracts malaria oversees and is given morphine to assuage the pain. By the time he returns to the states, Ross is a confirmed drug addict. Before he can rise to the top again, he must hit rock bottom and his descent into the hell of narcotics dependency is graphically illustrated (so much so that the film was almost denied a Production Code seal). Though a cured Barney Ross served as technical advisor for Monkey on My Back, he ended up suing the producers for defamation of character -- and lost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Day Of Fury stars Jock Mahoney as town marshal Alan Burnett, whose life is saved by a stranger he meets on the trail. His rescuer turns out to be Jagade (Dale Robertson), a gunslinger just returned after years away, who finds when he gets into town that he can't abide the peace that has been settled between "his" people (i.e. the saloon-keepers, gamblers, etc.) and the righteous, "respectable" folk. Jagade stirs up trouble by persuading the saloon owners to open on Sunday, which they'd voluntarily stopped doing years ago. Suddenly, the peace that had settled over the town is broken, and gambling and other vices that had been in check rise anew, drawing in many of the respectable townsmen and women in the process -- some of the men can't resist the lure of a good high-stakes poker game or a pretty woman, and even the spinster schoolteacher finds herself drawn to Jagade's dark charisma. An escalating cycle of vice and violence unfolds in barely 24 hours; Burnett won't back Jagade down, partly because the man has broken no laws and also partly due to his gratitude to the gunman for saving his life. None of the townspeople can comprehend his inaction, however, and this soon jeopardizes not only his job as marshal and his safety, but also the well-being of his fiancée, Sharmon Fulton (Mara Corday), who was a saloon girl before she was brought out of that life and given a home with a respectable family. Soon Jagade loses control of what he's started, and the town begins to destroy itself in a cycle of guilt, anger, betrayal, murder, suicide, and lynch law.
~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Director Alfred Hitchcock lets us know from the outset that The Wrong Man is a painfully true story and not one of his customary fabricated suspense yarns, through the simple expedient of walking before the camera and telling us as much (this introductory appearance replaced his planned cameo role as a nightclub patron). The real-life protagonist, musican Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero, is played by Henry Fonda. Happily married and gainfully employed at the Stork Club, Balestrero's life takes a disastrous turn when he goes to an insurance office, hoping to borrow on his wife's (Vera Miles) life insurance policy in order to pay her dental bills. One of the girls in the office spots Balestrero, identifying him as the man who robbed the office a day or so earlier. This, and a few scattered bits of circumstantial evidence, lead to Balestrero's arrest. Though he's absolutely innocent, he can offer no proof of his whereabouts the day of the crime. Lawyer Frank O'Connor (Anthony Quayle) does his best to help his client, but he's up against an indifferent judicial system that isn't set up to benefit the "little man". Meanwhile, Balestrero's wife becomes emotionally unhinged, leading to a complete nervous breakdown. As Balestrero prays in his cell, his image is juxtaposed onto the face of the actual criminal-who looks nothing like the accused man! Utilizing one of his favorite themes-the helplessness of the innocent individual when confronted by the faceless bureaucracy of the Law-Hitchcock weaves a nightmarish tale, all the more frightening because it really happened (the film's best moment: Fonda looking around the nearly empty courtroom during his arraignment, realizing that the rest of the world cares precisely nothing about his inner torment). Hitch enhances the film's versimilitude by shooting in the actual locations where the real story occured. His only concession to Hollywood formula was the half-hearted coda, assuring us that Mrs. Balestrero eventually recovered from her mental collapse (she sure doesn't look any too healthy the last time we see her!) Watch for uncredited appearances by Harry Dean Stanton, Bonnie Franklin, Tuesday Weld and Charles Aidman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This forgettable piece of 1950s sleaze stars Cleo Moore as a voluptuous blonde who becomes a successful commercial photographer. Richard Crenna, making a major break from his TV image as Our Miss Brooks' Walter Denton, plays a reporter who takes a special interest in Moore's career. The beauteous picture taker becomes involved in a blackmail plot when she goes to work for a Confidential-type magazine, nearly losing her life to mobsters. It was the opinion of many contemporary reviewers that the title Over-Exposed referred not to the photographs taken by Moore but to the generous amounts of cleavage displayed by the actress' low cut gowns. Though Cleo Moore has become a "cult" favorite thanks to her appearances in the turgid melodramas directed by Hugo Haas, Over-Exposed demonstrates that her minimal acting talent vanished altogether without Haas' guiding hand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Bowery Boys opus gets under way when Sach (Huntz Hall) is informed that he is heir to a fortune. Sach and his buddy Slip (Leo Gorcey) head to the mansion of the late Terwilliger Debussy Jones to sign the necessary legal papers. Here they discover that the rightful heir is young Terwilliger III (Ronald Keith), who is being cheated out of his legacy by crooked relative Stuyvesant Jones (Dayton Lummis) and his confederate Clarissa (Amanda Blake). After all sorts of slapstick complications, honesty prevails. Believe it or not, High Society earned an Academy Award nomination for "Best Original Story," all because the Academy confused this Bowery Boys endeavor with the big-budget Frank Sinatra/Bing Crosby/Grace Kelly musical of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Miscegenation, that old reliable bugaboo of many a Southern-based novel, is at the center of Hamilton Basso's The View from Pompey's Head. The film version stars Richard Egan as a New York lawyer who returns to his Southern home town to investigate an embezzlement charge. The victim is an ageing novelist (Sidney Blackmer), whose royalties are mysteriously disappearing; the novelist's wife (Marjorie Rambeau) suspects that her husband is being cheated. But it is the novelist himself who is siphoning off his earnings, in order to provide for his African-American mother, and to buy her silence regarding his mixed parentage. The wife is apprised of the situation, and agrees to keep mum. With all this going on, it's understandable that few viewers remember the love triangle between Richard Egan, Dana Wynter and Cameron Mitchell which motivates the rest of The View from Pompey's Head. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One critic has noted that The Prodigal was aptly titled, inasmuch as it was all too prodigal with the funds of the then-flagging MGM studios. In its retelling of the 22-verse Biblical story of the Prodigal Son, the film helpfully fills in the story details inconsiderately left out of the Old Testament. Edmond Purdon plays Micah, the wastrel son of Eli (Walter Hampden) who takes his share of his father's fortune and blows it all in wicked old Damascus. Micah's one redeeming feature is his unserving faithful in the Lord God Jehovah. Pagan princess Samarra (Lana Turner at her most giddily exotic) intends to seduce Micah into renouncing his faith, only to get stoned to death for her troubles. Nearly two hours pass before Micah returns home and the fatted calf is killed in his honor. If for nothing else, The Prodigal would be memorable for Lana Turner's pagan-ritual costume, which is little more than a glorified bikini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide