Joe Turkel Movies

Sword in the Desert is set in Palestine during World War II. Dana Andrews plays an American seaman engaged in smuggling European Jewish refugees into the Holy Land, despite the restrictions levied by the British occupation troops. Fifth-billed Jeff Chandler makes his movie debut as an Israeli rebel leader; his performance garnered so much fan mail that Chandler was given a seven-year contract at Universal. Few of those letters came from Britain, where Sword in the Desert ran into distribution difficulties due to its blatant anti-British slant--especially as manifested in the underground radio broadcasts of leading lady Marta Toren. The principal complaint was that the British seemed to be the sole villains in the script, which virtually ignored the Arab resistance to the formation of Israel. Sword in the Desert represents a low-key warm-up to the blood-and-thunder excesses of Otto Preminger's 1960 Exodus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This slightly bowdlerized version of Irving Shulman's The Amboy Dukes was used by Universal-International to showcase several of its new male contractees. Set in the slums of Brooklyn, the film follows the exploits of the Amboy Dukes, a teenaged street gang. Foremost among the Dukes is Frank Cusack (Peter Fernandez), who loses all opportunity to escape his grim existence when he accidentally kills his high-school teacher. The film tries to demonstrate that the so-called "code of the streets"--never rat on a pal--is possibly more destructive than any brass knuckle or switchblade. Maxwell Shane and Dennis Cooper's screenplay resists any temptation to sentimentalize the kids or trivialize their plight; the closest the film comes to comedy relief are the shattered romantic illusions of the near-moronic Crazy Perrin. Prominent among the supporting players are Thelma Ritter as Frank Cusack's anguished mother, Stephen McNally as a community center counselor, and Anthony (Tony) Curtis as the leather-jacketed gang leader. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No good deed goes unpunished in the "Bowery Boys" entry Triple Trouble. When Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the Bowery Boys attempt to stop a robbery, it is they who wind up in prison. Once behind bars, the boys learn of an escape plan, but when they try to relay this information to the warden, they're threatened with solitary confinement. And when Slip and Sach try to sabotage a short-wave radio that is being used by one of the prisoners to orchestrate burglaries on the outside, our two heroes are thrown into solitary. Even poor sweet-shop owner Louie (Bernard Gorcey) is not spared; running into the street and calling for help after being robbed, Louie is told by the beat cop that he risks arrest for disturbing the peace! Amazingly, the Bowery Boys manage to survive all these knocks and bring the film's genuine bad guys to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Starlift was Warner Bros' attempt to revive the "all-star patriotic musical" format which had worked so well during WW II. The wisp of a plot concerns Mike Nolan (Dick Wesson) and Rick Williams (Ron Hagherty), San Francisco-based airmen who serve as crew members on a shuttle to Korea. To impress a group of movie starlets making a personal appearance, Mike and Rick claim that they're due to be sent into combat. Actress Nell Wayne (Janice Rule) falls in love with Rick, leading to a major publicity blitz and culminating with a special USO presentation for all the Korea-bound servicemen in Frisco, starring virtually everyone on the Warners' contract roster. Among the stars making personal appearances (and sometimes delivering songs, whether they can sing or not!) include Gordon MacRae, James Cagney, Ruth Roman, Doris Day, Gary Cooper, Frank Lovejoy, Phil Harris, Randolph Scott and Jane Wyman. Reportedly, the comedy team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall made its movie debut in Starlift, though they don't appear in the currently available prints. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"Slight" is right: this harmless comedy programmer is as inconsequential as it is enjoyable. It's the tale of two Army buddies: go-getter Geechy Cheevers (Mickey Rooney) and sedate family man Freddie Clopp (Eddie Bracken). Inveigling his way into Freddie's household, Geechy drives everyone bonkers with his get-rich-quick schemes. After convincing Freddie to quit his job and mortgage his home in order to set up a gas station, Geechy cooks up an underhanded scheme to tap the gas pipe of a rival station. Standing on the sidelines is Geechy's long-suffering girlfriend Beverly (Elaine Stewart) and Freddy's far-from-understanding wife Emily (Marilyn Erskine). An obligatory slapstick chase finale caps this exercise in lunacy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Neville Brand receives top billing by default in 20th Century-Fox's Man Crazy. The main characters--three larcenous Minnesota girls who travel to Hollywood with stolen funds--are played by newcomers Christine White, Irene Anders and Coleen Miller. The ladies have a high old time while trying to evade both the law and the man (John Brown) they ripped off back home. Paul Wocynski (Brand) is a shifty type who forces Georgia (White) into marriage when he learns the source of her money. As it turns out, he's one of the few likeable characters in the whole affair. John Brown, who plays the robbery victim in Man Crazy, would soon be blacklisted from films because of his alleged communist ties; radio fans will best remember Brown as Digger O'Dell, the "friendly undertaker" on The Life of Riley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A ruthless crime lord saves his sister from social embarrassment by working diligently to get the gangster who fathered her unborn baby off death row and out of prison so he can do the decent thing and marry the girl. The freed gangster is not thrilled with his new bride, but stays loyal until the woman miscarries. He then returns to crime and begins messing with other women, something that outrages his wife's nefarious brother and leads him to frame the cocky youth and get him sent back to prison and certain death. Just before he is to die, the youth tells his story to a sympathetic reporter, who decides to go after the real troublemaker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This probing drama offers an inside look into corruption within the United Auto Workers and is loosely adapted from the true tale of the Reuther brothers. The story begins when someone bombs the union headquarters. Blair Vickers (Dennis O'Keefe), the head of the union, is an honest man whose brother is killed during the crime. The man behind the bombing, Gus Linden (Pat O'Brien), a gangster who has just finished serving time for labor racketeering, is determined to gain control of the UAW. Linden's children do not believe their father is capable of such a terrible crime, and accuse Vickers of having framed him. However, Vickers gradually turns them against their father by having them see for themselves that he is a corrupt, murderous thug who is unfaithful to their mother to boot. Eventually, with the reluctant help of Linden's mistress, Joni Calvin (Tina Carver), Vickers defeats the mob, and restores decency to the union. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

Future "first couple" Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis made their only joint film appearance in Hellcats of the Navy. Ronnie plays Casey Abbott, commander of a WW2 submarine, while Nancy portrays navy nurse Helen Blair, Abbott's off-and-on girlfriend. During a delicate mission in which his sub is ordered to retrieve a revolutionary new Japanese mine, Abbott is forced to leave frogman Wes Barton (Harry Lauter) behind to save the rest of his crew. But Abbott's second-in-command Don Landon (Eduard Franz) is convincing that Abbott's sacrifice of Barton was due to the fact that the dead man had been amorously pursuing Helen. The rest of the film is spent proving Abbott right and Barton wrong. Based on a book by former USN vice-admiral Charles A. Lockwood (played in the film by Maurice Manson) and retired USAF colonel Hans Christian Adamson, Hellcats of the Navy is a much better film than Reagan's detractors would have one believe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapting Humphrey Cobb's novel to the screen, director Stanley Kubrick and his collaborators Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson set out to make a devastating anti-war statement, and they succeeded above and beyond the call of duty. In the third year of World War I, the erudite but morally bankrupt French general Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders his troops to seize the heavily fortified "Ant Hill" from the Germans. General Mireau (George MacReady) knows that this action will be suicidal, but he will sacrfice his men to enhance his own reputation. Against his better judgment, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) leads the charge, and the results are appalling. When, after witnessing the slaughter of their comrades, a handful of the French troops refuse to leave the trenches, Mireau very nearly orders the artillery to fire on his own men. Still smarting from the defeat, Mireau cannot admit to himself that the attack was a bad idea from the outset: he convinces himself that loss of Ant Hill was due to the cowardice of his men. Mireau demands that three soldiers be selected by lot to be executed as an example to rest of the troops. Acting as defense attorney, Colonel Dax pleads eloquently for the lives of the unfortunate three, but their fate is a done deal. Even an eleventh-hour piece of evidence proving Mireau's incompetence is ignored by the smirking Broulard, who is only interested in putting on a show of bravado. A failure when first released (it was banned outright in France for several years), Paths of Glory has since taken its place in the pantheon of classic war movies, its message growing only more pertinent and potent with each passing year (it was especially popular during the Vietnam era). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This gripping drama uses archival footage combined with new footage to re-create the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. It is also the love story between a devout communist woman and the liberal son of a prominent professor. Because of their political differences, the two can never be together. Central to the story is the conflict between the father and the son. It is only after his father dies, that the son sees the ugly reality of communism. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dorothy Provine gives her all to the title role in The Bonnie Parker Story. Billed in the picture's ad campaign as "the cigar-smoking she-devil of the thirties", the tommy-gun wielding Bonnie cuts quite a swath across the South after her husband (Richard Bakalyan) is sent to jail for life . Teaming up with a young bucko named Guy--not Clyde!--Barrow (Jack Hogan), Bonnie robs banks, kills people, and broods about the pointlessness of her existence. Put as charitably as possible, this isn't Bonnie and Clyde, not by a long shot. The Bonnie Parker Story was originally released on a double bill with Machine Gun Kelly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Warlock offers us a mean-spirited, mercenary Henry Fonda and an honest, peaceloving Richard Widmark. A Wyatt Earp-like frontier marshal, Fonda agrees to protect the small town of Warlock from an outlaw gang, but only if he's permitted to plunder the town's cash reserve. Widmark, the town deputy, is a reformed outlaw whose willingness to fend off the invading criminals is motivated by his fondness for his new neighbors. Looming large in the proceedings is Anthony Quinn as the glory-grabbing Fonda's sidekick. Adapted by Robert Alan Aurthur from a novel by Oakley Hall, Warlock is a good example of the "thinking man's westerns" prevalent in the late 1950s-early 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide