Robert Strauss Movies

One of the finest and most troubling films to come out of Universal-International, The Sleeping City tried to emulate some of the cinéma vérité elements of The Naked City (which had been produced at Universal's facilities). The producers got the permission of the city of New York to shoot at Bellevue Hospital, and, in exchange, opened the movie with a disclaimer spoken by star Richard Conte, stepping out of character to point out that nothing like the story in this movie ever happened at Bellevue and offering tribute to the actual hospital and its staff. That's the last reassuring moment that one will find in this eerie crime drama -- in the first six minutes, a young doctor taking a break from work is shot in the head, and the police can't find a clue even as to a possible motive. Inspector Al Gordon (John Alexander) decides that he has to put some men on duty at the hospital, and one of them is Fred Rowan (Richard Conte), a detective with experience as an army medic, masquerading as an intern. What Rowan finds is a high-pressure world in which interns are hopelessly squeezed for time, sleep, energy, and -- most of all -- money, and walk a fine line on the edge of personal and professional disaster. His roommate, Steve Anderson (Alex Nicol), seems especially desperate. The only relief from the bleakness and tension, on a personal level, comes from the attentions of Ann Shelton (Coleen Gray), the ward nurse in traumatics, where Fred is assigned, and the good-natured needling of Pop Ware (Richard Taber), an elevator operator who likes to take an avuncular interest in the interns around him. But before he can get too far in his investigation, potential witnesses start dying around Rowan , and one of his friends at the hospital is threatened. Soon the whole scheme and the motives for the murders suddenly become clear, along with Rowan's earlier failure to spot the clue he needed. He also suddenly recognizes the involvement of the people closest to him at the hospital, but before the squad can move, he also finds his own life at risk. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Although The Stooge had been filmed right after Martin and Lewis' Sailor Beware, the film was temporarily shelved so that the team could continue their winning streak of military comedies with Jumping Jacks. This time, Dean Martin plays Chick Allen, a paratrooper-in-training whose commanding officer intends to do away with all camp variety shows. In desperation, Chick sends for his old nightclub partner Hap Smith (Jerry Lewis) to change the CO's mind. In order to gain entry to the military base, Hap is forced to pose as a GI, and thus the plot proper gets under way. Most of the "awkward squad" gags are straight out of Abbott and Costello, with Lewis messing up at each and every turn while Martin lags behind for damage control. The film concludes with a routine from Abbot and Costello's Keep 'Em Flying, wherein Martin and Lewis bail out from a plane in flight, with one parachute between them. Robert Strauss repeats his Sailor Beware duties as Lewis' irascible topkick, while nominal leading lady Mona Freeman does practically nothing magnificently. Dean's songs include the deathless "Do the Parachute Jump". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The scene is a German POW camp, sometime during the mid-1940s. Stalag 17, exclusively populated by American sergeants, is overseen by sadistic commandant Oberst Von Schernbach (Otto Preminger) and the deceptively avuncular sergeant Schultz (Sig Ruman). The inmates spend their waking hours circumventing the boredom of prison life; at night, they attempt to arrange escapes. When two of the escapees, Johnson and Manfredi, are shot down like dogs by the Nazi guards, Stalag 17's resident wiseguy Sefton (William Holden) callously collects the bets he'd placed concerning the fugitives' success. No doubt about it: there's a security leak in the barracks, and everybody suspects the enterprising Sefton -- who manages to obtain all the creature comforts he wants -- of being a Nazi infiltrator. Things get particularly dicey when Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor), temporarily billetted in Stalag 17 before being transferred to an officer's camp, tells his new bunkmates that he was responsible for the destruction of a German ammunition train. Sure enough, this information is leaked to the Commandant, and Dunbar is subjected to a brutal interrogation. Certain by now that Sefton is the "mole", the other inmates beat him to a pulp. But Sefton soon learns who the real spy is, and reveals that information on the night of Dunbar's planned escape. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Stalag 17 is as much comedy as wartime melodrama, with most of the laughs provided by Robert Strauss as the Betty Grable-obsessed "Animal" and Harvey Lembeck as Stosh's best buddy Harry. Other standouts in the all-male cast include Richard Erdman as prisoner spokesman Hoffy, Neville Brand as the scruffy Duke, Peter Graves as blonde-haired, blue-eyed "all American boy" Price, Gil Stratton as Sefton's sidekick Cookie (who also narrates the film) and Robinson Stone as the catatonic, shell-shocked Joey. Writer/producer/director Billy Wilder and coscenarist Edmund Blum remained faithful to the plot and mood the Donald Bevan/Edmund Trzcinski stage play Stalag 17, while changing virtually every line of dialogue-all to the better, as it turned out (Trzcinski, who like Bevan based the play on his own experiences as a POW, appears in the film as the ingenuous prisoner who "really believes" his wife's story about the baby abandoned on her doorstep). William Holden won an Academy Award for his hard-bitten portrayal of Sefton, which despite a hokey "I'm really a swell guy after all" gesture near the end of the film still retains its bite today. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally intended as a 3D film, this standard-issue Bob Hope musical comedy was released "flat." The 50-year-old Hope plays over-aged chorus boy Stanley Snodgrass, whose attempts to get ahead in the early 20th-century theatre world always come acropper. His luck suddenly changes when he's promoted to the leading-man role in a show headlined by Irene Bailey (Arlene Dahl). What Stanley doesn't know is that he's been set up as a decoy to bring the murderous Jack the Slasher (Robert Strauss) out in the open. It seems that Jack is obsessed with Irene, and has a nasty habit of cutting all of her male co-stars into ribbons. Meanwhile, Stanley lays waste to the show by performing all of his big numbers incorrectly, but his faithful gal Daisy Crockett (Rosemary Clooney) loves him all the same. Tony Martin also appears as Irene's boyfriend, while Millard Mitchell makes his final film appearance as Stanley's stepfather (and never mind that he and Hope were the same age!) A brief clip from Here Come the Girls showed up in, of all places, the 1953 sci-fier Conquest of Space. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by James Michener, this film stars William Holden as Harry Brubaker, a former military pilot who served in World War II. When he's called back into duty during the Korean conflict, Brubaker is angry, believing he's already served his country and needs to devote himself to his wife Nancy (Grace Kelly) and their children. However, he accepts his commission and is sent back into action as a pilot, with a special assignment to blow up five strategically crucial bridges in Korean territory. This drama, which focuses on the danger and futility of war, also features Frederic March as an admiral who respects the tremendous danger of Brubaker's assignment, and Mickey Rooney as an ill-fated helicopter pilot. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Like thousands of other Manhattanites, Tom Ewell annually packs his wife (Evelyn Keyes) and children off to summer vacation, staying behind to work at the office. This particular summer, the lonely Ewell begins fantasizing about the many women he'd foresworn upon getting married (in one of the fantasies, Ewell and Marguerite Chapman parody the beach rendezvous in From Here to Eternity). He is jolted back to reality when he meets his new neighbor--luscious model Marilyn Monroe. Inviting Monroe to dinner, Ewell intends to sweep her off her feet and into the boudoir. Things don't quite work out that way, thanks to Ewell's clumsiness (and essential decency) and Monroe's naivete. Still, Ewell becomes convinced that his impure thoughts will somehow be transmitted to his vacationing wife and to the rest of the world, leaving him wide open for scandal and ruination. In the original play, the husband and the next-door neighbor did have an affair, but both play and film arrived at the same happy ending, with Ewell and his missus contentedly reunited at summer's end. Featured in the cast of The Seven Year Itch are Robert Strauss as a lascivious handyman, Sonny Tufts as Evelyn Keye's former beau, Donald MacBride as Ewell's glad-handing boss, and veteran Broadway funny man Victor Moore in a cameo as a nervous plumber. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It is easy to see why the US Army refused to cooperate in the production of Attack. Based on the Norman Brooks play The Fragile Fox, this searing war film is a powerful indictment against a military system which protects even its most incompetent of officers. Eddie Albert plays a posturing but hopelessly inept infantry captain, whose misdeeds are covered up by his colonel Lee Marvin. Albert has strong political connections in the US, and Marvin hopes to take advantage of this after the war. Lieutenant Jack Palance has sworn to kill Albert with his bare hands if the officer bungles another mission. Albert orders Palance and his men into an untenable position on the battlefields of Belgium--and then, true to character, is too cowardly to send backup troops, leaving Palance's men to their fate. By sheer strength of will, Palance, whose arm has been shattered by an enemy tank, drags himself to the cellar where Albert is billeted and attempts to rid the world of the terror-stricken captain. Palance dies before he can keep his promise, but when the craven Albert makes an effort to surrender himself and his men to the Germans, he is shot down by lieutenant William Smithers. The rest of the men conspire to cover up Smithers' "crime" by claiming that Albert died from enemy fire, but Smithers proves to be less willing to prevaricate than his fellow soldiers. Though most filmgoers are mesmerized by Eddie Albert's virtuoso performance as a snivelling yellow-belly, director Robert Aldrich claimed that Albert gave his best reading during rehearsals, and that what ended up on film was nowhere near as powerful as it might have been. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

By 1958, director Roger Corman had switched from making low-budgeters like Apache Woman to movies like the gangster flic I, Mobster that might be found outside of the drive-in setting. The ungrammatical title refers to Joe Sante (Steve Cochran) and his career of climbing the ladder in the hierarchy of organized crime. Now at the top rung, Sante is taking the Fifth Amendment before a Senate subcommittee on racketeering and as he does so, his life is recalled in flashbacks. His first job was working for a bookie, next he becomes involved in a drug ring, and then he expands into intimidating striking workers. Since the last rung of the ladder is open game for any ambitious gangster, Sante would do well to also recall how homicide got him where he now stands. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

1959's Li'l Abner was adapted from the hit 1956 Broadway musical--which, in turn, was inspired by the satirical comic strip by Al Capp. Peter Palmer recreates his Broadway role as Li'l Abner Yokum, the handsome, muscle-bound, muscle-brained leading hillbilly of Dogpatch, USA. The citizens of Dogpatch are in an uproar because their ramshackle community has been designated the "most useless" town in America, and therefore a prime candidate for an atomic bomb testing site. At first, the Dogpatchers consider their least-desirable status a great honor, but then they despair upon realizing that they'll have to vacate the premise before the annual girl-chases-boy Sadie Hawkins Day race. Together with his Mammy (Billie Hayes) and Pappy (Joe E. Marks), Li'l Abner is dispatched to Washington DC, to argue that Dogpatch has some vital significance: after all, only in Dogpatch can one partake of the Yokumberry Tonic, the source of Abner's super strength. Shifty billionaire General Bullmoose (Howard St. John) wants that Yokumberry tonic for his own devices, and to that end dispatches his lady friend Appasionatta von Climax (Stella Stevens) to Dogpatch to catch Li'l Abner during the Sadie Hawkins race and thus secure the mountain boy's cooperation via marriage. Li'l Abner's erstwhile girl friend Daisy Mae Scragg (Leslie Parrish) would likewise like to snare Abner in the race, but Appasionata wins, thanks to the squirrelly Evil Eye Fleegle (Al Nesor), whose "triple whammy" paralyzes Abner just inches before the finish line. If you think all this is unbelievable, wait till you see how the story resolves itself. Featured in the cast is Stubby Kaye as Marryin' Sam, who leads the hillbilly chorus in the musical's best number, "Jubilation T. Corpone". Other Johnny Mercer-Gene de Paul tunes carried over from the Broadway version of Li'l Abner are "A Typical Day," "If I Had My Druthers," "Namely You," "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands," "Past My Prime," "Put 'Em Back (The Way They Wuz)" and "The Matrimonial Stomp."The film is staged in the same broad, caricatured manner as the play, which only adds to the fun. An earlier, unrelated movie adaptation of Li'l Abner, filmed in 1940, is best forgotten, as is a series of lukewarm Abner cartoons produced by Screen Gems in the late forties. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Congdon plays Tony Nelson, a brilliant but foolhardy young scientist who is experimenting with matter and its relationship to time and space. Using a specially designed amplifier, he thinks he has found a way of releasing matter from the time and space that it occupies, thus allowing its atoms to freely intermingle with any surrounding matter without losing its integrity. After accidentally destroying the lab where he is working, he goes to his older brother Scott (Robert Lansing) for help. Scott is even more brilliant than Tony, but is his opposite in every other way: very orthodox, highly respected in his field, and also horribly overworked in his job and responsibilities. The two also have a fiercely competitive relationship that becomes more strained when Tony develops an attraction to Linda Davis (Lee Meriwether), Scott's fiancée. In testing Tony's equipment, Scott gets the experiment to work, passing one object through another, and achieves much more; his own hand accidentally passes through one of the test objects, gets caught, and then released. When he tries to repeat the experiment for Tony, he again passes his hand through the test object, and then discovers that the amplifier isn't functioning properly; the power to move into 4D is now being channeled through his own brain. He can pass through any solid object at will, and the previously staid, stolid scientist is uncharacteristically exultant at this success, though it seems to nullify the project he has spent years working on, the development of a supposedly impenetrable substance. Possessing this power causes Scott's basest desires to emerge for the first time; he starts out by going on a robbery spree, passing through locked bank vaults and stealing the financial reward that has been denied him in his job. The truly dire consequences of his new-found powers emerge the next morning, however, when Scott awakens to discover that he looks and feels at least 15 years older; apparently, using his new ability to move into 4D drains his life force. Worse yet, he discovers that he can replenish his life energy, but only by passing himself through people; this contact restores him, but accelerates their aging so that they shrivel up and die in seconds. Scott is riven by the struggle between his basic decency and his desire to survive, coupled with his now unbridled lust and greed, and the body count keeps rising as he rampages through the city. The police are unable to stop him, and Tony, feeling more responsibility than he's ever displayed before, prepares to turn the 4D amplifier on himself so that he can battle his brother. It is Linda, however, who takes the ultimate risk, luring Scott back to normal one last time. The story is exciting (albeit a bit grim) and played in a lively fashion, and the careful use of Ralph Carmichael's jazz-based score to accent the action also helps set 4D Man apart from other science fiction films of the era. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this standard adventure yarn shown in 3-D, four people on a "borrowed" boat -- three men and a woman -- take off looking for sunken gold worth millions. A young, handsome man (Asher Dann) works on the yacht of a Parisian tycoon who happens to be away at the moment. Two nautical layabouts (Mark Stevens and Robert Strauss) convince the man to take them out looking for the sunken treasure, so the three of them set off on their adventure with a beautiful New York model (Joanne Dru) on board. There is some underwater diving and chasing after the model, and as the title indicates, the violent storm that shakes everyone up and makes this run for gold a dangerous proposition. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular comic strip, this touching children's drama centers on an adorable saucer-eyed Italian war orphan who sneaks into the U.S. by stowing away aboard a returning naval ship. He did this in part to be with the benevolent soldiers who showed him kindness on the Christmas Eve before the war ended. Once they dock in New York, poor Dondi's friends go their separate ways and he ends up lost and having several adventures alone until happiness and peace return in the form of one of the sailors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide