Daniel Mainwaring Movies

A remake of Jacques Tourneur's noir classic Out of the Past (1947), in this version a labyrinthine web of corruption touches on the world of pro football. When an injury-riddled body causes pro football player Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) to be cut by his team, Jake Wise (James Woods), a shady gambler friend, hires him to locate his spoiled, erratic girlfriend Jessie (Rachel Ward). Terry's attempt to glean Jessie's whereabouts from the girl's coldly aristocratic mother (Jane Greer) leads to a lucrative counteroffer to keep Jessie away from Jake if he finds her. After refusing, Terry heads for scenic Cozumel, where he eventually runs down the stunning young woman. A mutual attraction quickly develops and the pair are less than eager to return to California. Painfully, Terry tells Jessie about his involvement in a betting scandal which has put him under Jake's control. Meanwhile Jake, who is angered by the delay, senses that something is going on, and sends Terry's conditioning coach, Sully (Alex Karras), to find the couple. When he finally locates them, sweatily making love in a Mayan temple, tragedy ensues, spinning the ill-fated Terry into a world of boundless deceit and corruption. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

In this creepy thriller a husband and his conniving boss conspire to murder his overly-demanding crippled wife. The friend wants her gone so that the husband will begin dating her niece. The husband is doing it because his boss is blackmailing him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this biblical drama, set during the waning years of the Roman Empire, the trouble begins as the Christians continue to be persecuted. The daughter of a wealthy patrician whips the stuffing out of a newly purchased Christian slave who stubbornly refuses to wrestle in the ring. Later the girl and the slave fall in love, and she comes to understand their plight. She then learns that some of her closest friends and relatives are closet Christians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

According to the Greeks, the Minotaur was a legendary half-man, half-bull who lived on Crete and demanded the sacrifice of humans, according to the scripters of this typical Italian costume drama, the real story is about twin sisters (both played by Rosanna Schiaffino), one evil and one pure-hearted. This story has the Minotaur as a secondary figure, all bull, who stands up on his hind legs to indicate his god-like status. The real hero is Theseus (Bob Mathias) who ultimately kills the Minotaur (for the Greeks, too) because he has fallen in love with the good sister and has to save her from being sacrificed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Originally released as La Granda Caccia, East of Kilimanjaro was filmed on location in Africa. Marshall Thompson plays American photojournalist Marsh Conners, assigned to cover a cattle epidemic. Falling in love with research scientist Dr. Marie Avedon (Gaby Andre), Conners attempts to help her convince the Masai tribesmen to have their cattle inoculated, and to locate the source of the disease. While the plot proper ends happily, the romantic subplot is less satisfying. East of Kilimanjaro was also distributed as The Big Search. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third and (as of 2005) the last film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story To Have and Have Not, The Gun Runners was as topical as this morning's news when it came out in 1958. Audie Murphy plays Sam Martin, a charter-boat skipper based in Key West, whose bad luck has enlarged from the gambling tables to his business. He's managed to stay honest up to this point, with a little help from his boozy friend and first-mate, Harvey (Everett Sloane), and a lot from his loyal, loving wife, Lucy (Patricia Owens), both of whom represent the best things in Sam's life. But then he finds himself about to lose his boat, and the only opportunity he has to save it lies with a larcenous American arms seller named Hannagan (Eddie Albert), who isn't above murder to get what he wants. Sam falls in with him, first for a quick trip in and out of Cuba and then up to his neck, and he is suddenly faced with destroying the most decent part of himself and the only people who care about him. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Fittingly directed by Illinois native and bad-guy filmmaker Don Siegel, this action-packed film stars Mickey Rooney as the unflinching, trigger-happy member of the infamous Dillinger gang that besieged the Midwest circa 1933. Rooney is Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis and Carolyn Jones his gun moll, Sue, in this fictionalized tale of a scrawny street tough turned psychotic gangster. After being released from prison, Nelson goes to work for mob boss Rocca (Ted De Corsia), who eventually recognizes that a madman is in his service and turns him in to the cops. Managing to elude capture, Nelson kills Rocca and takes Sue with him. He then joins Dillinger's gang in a series of savage robberies, obliterating anyone who gets in his way. Inevitably, FBI agents ambush and injure Nelson, who finally admits his own ruthlessness to himself and Sue, conceding that he would even murder children if necessary. He orders Sue to kill him before he commits any more savage acts. This is a coarse and deliberately aggressive film, distinguished by Rooney's frenzied performance as an unruly and deranged criminal. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Don Siegel's classic exercise in psychological science fiction has often been interpreted as a cautionary fable about the blacklisting hysteria of the McCarthy era. It can be read as a political metaphor or enjoyed as a fine low-budget suspense movie, and it works well either way. Kevin McCarthy stars as Miles Bennel, a doctor in the small California community of Santa Mira, where several patients begin reporting that their loved ones don't seem to be themselves lately. They look the same but seem cold, emotionally distant, and somehow unfamiliar. The longer Miles looks into these reports, the more stock he places in them, and in time he makes a shocking discovery: aliens from another world are taking over Santa Mira, one citizen at a time. Emissaries from a distant planet have sent massive seed pods containing creatures that can assume the exact physical likeness of anyone they choose. When Santa Mirans go to sleep, the pod creatures take on the shape of their victims and then destroy their bodies. The aliens may look the same, but they possess no human emotions and, like plants, are concerned only with propagating themselves and eventually subsuming the earth. Needless to say, Miles and his friends are terrified, but since it's hard to tell who's a person and who's a pod, they're at a loss for what to do, especially when it seems that there are increasingly more aliens than humans. Invasion of the Body Snatchers builds tension slowly and steadily, dealing not in the shock of bug-eyed monsters common to other 1950s science-fiction movies but in the unnerving possibility that the enemy is among us -- and impossible to tell from our allies. The ultra-paranoid conclusion of Siegel's original cut was softened by Allied Artists, who added a framing device that suggested help was on the way. This coda was as effective in blunting the film's grim conclusion as giving a Band-Aid to a beheading victim; few films of the era make it more painfully clear that for these people (and maybe for ourselves), there's no turning back and no way home. Keep an eye peeled for a bit part by soon-to-be-legendary Western director Sam Peckinpah, who plays a meter reader and also (uncredited) helped write the screenplay. Based on a novel by Jack Finney, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman and in 1993 by Abel Ferrara (as Body Snatchers); and its influence can be felt from The Stepford Wives (1975) to The X-Files. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on actual events, The Phenix City Story tells the tale of a wide-open "Sin City" in Alabama (across a bridge from Columbus, GA, and just a stone's throw from the Ft. Benning Army base) where gambling, prostitution, and any number of other vices were tolerated openly by the law, most of it centered on the main downtown drag, 14th Street, thanks to the 50-year influence of organized crime on the local government. Reform groups, mostly in the form of vigilantes, had tried to clean up "the wickedest city in the United States" before, even taking the law into their own hands and wrecking some of the establishments, only to be stymied by the courts (which were otherwise indifferent to activities on 14th Street). At the outset of the movie, set in 1954 -- when the actual events took place -- a new reform group is trying to organize and attempting to get the city's most prominent attorney, Albert Patterson (John McIntire) on their side; so are the club owners on 14th Street, led by Rhett Tanner (Edward Andrews), a cheerful, affable sort with a mean streak not far from the surface. But Patterson wants no part of either side's activities -- he's been a reformer, even a successful candidate, only to see his efforts come to little, and has also successfully defended Tanner and the others on 14th Street in an investigation of a murder of which they weren't guilty. Now he's old, and he wants to sit back with his wife and enjoy the return of his army office/lawyer son, John (Richard Kiley), and his family from Germany. But when the 14th Street boys, led by Clem Wilson (John Larch), go too far beating up Patterson's friends, and involve his son John, and then turn to murder and intimidation, it forces the elder Patterson and his son to join the reformers.

The Phenix City Story runs 87 minutes, but most prints also include a 13-minute preface, compiled from newsreel footage and interviews with the original participants, that provides background on the events that inspired the film (and also spoils a few plot points). Ironically, given the negative image that it portrays of Alabama, the movie was surprisingly well-received in the state at the time; residents were simply fascinated by and taken with the notion of a feature film set in their home state and even including a couple of actual local residents in its cast. Director Phil Karlson was to enjoy even greater success 18 years later with a similar story about one man fighting a city turned bad, Walking Tall, which included many similarly staged action scenes amid its somewhat wider plot-canvas. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The third of four Wayne Morris B-westerns for Allied Artists, Desperado casts Morris as fugitive gunman Sam Garrett. The early reels are devoted to Tall Cameron (James Lydon) and Ray Novac (Rayford Barnes), who run afoul of the post-Civil War Texas State Police, as represented by sadistic Captain Thornton (Nestor Paiva). Escaping Thornton's wrath, Tall and Ray meet Garrett, who becomes Tall's friend and advisor when Ray proves to be a louse. Seeking revenge, Ray kills Thornton and frames Tall for the crime. Sympathetic sheriff Jim Langley (Dabbs Greer) joins forces with "friendly enemy" Garrett to clear Tall and mete out just desserts to Ray. Beverly Garland costars as a more resourceful heroine than one usually finds in westerns of this nature. Though hamstrung by a low budget, Desperado is an intellingently written, well-paced endeavor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Black Horse Canyon was adapted from The Wild Horse, a novel by Lee Savage Jr. Joel McCrea stars as novice rancher Del Rockwell, who takes it upon himself to capture a magnificent wild black stallion who has been spiriting mares away from other ranchers. Rockwell hopes to use the stallion for stud purposes, as does his disreputable neighbor Jennings (Murvyn Vye). Also desirous of corralling the stallion for her ranch is Aldia Spain (Mari Blanchard), who throws in with Rockwell. An exciting climax which reveals everyone's true nature caps this beautifully photographed western. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A climactic donnybrook between hero Allan Lane and ace Republic villain Roy Barcroft is the highlight of this otherwise routine B-Western effort directed by John Ford's nephew Philip Ford. The railroad is coming to El Dorado on the Powder River and a phony agent, Devereaux (Douglas Evans), persuades the citizens that they must come up with $50,000 within three days or the building project may be in trouble. "Rocky" Lane, who is a genuine railroad man, knows that Devereaux is only an actor hired to swindle the good folks of El Dorado and that the real representative, Bob Manning (Bruce Edwards), may be in danger. The plot thickens when Manning's wife, Louise (Gerry Gantzer), arrives in El Dorado and immediately becomes a target of the swindlers. Using a phony telegram, Lane manages to flush out the leader of the gang, local tailor Shears Williams (Francis McDonald), but is then falsely accused of pocketing the $50,000 himself. Managing to prove his innocence, "Rocky" tracks down the villains in the tailor shop where a furious fight between good and evil ensues. Although stabbed in the shoulder, Lane succeeds in disarming his opponents. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Daniel Mainwaring took this story right out of the headlines of the day, penning this true story of a mass murderer who was eventually executed in San Quentin's gas chamber. Released during McCarthy's witch-hunt, Mainwaring was not given credit because Howard R. Hughes, who produced it under RKO, refused to give credit to any "radicals." The story is that of two men on a fishing trip who pick up a hitchhiker. He turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who has committed multiple murders, a sociopath who hates humanity because of his own abuse as a child. He also has an affliction which terrifies these two men: an eye which is permanently open, thereby never allowing them to know if he is really asleep or just faking it--something which he does with regularity to scare them...letting them take off and then meeting up with them just as they feel they have escaped from him. A tense thriller skillfully directed by the only female director of the time, Ida Lupino, it is a suspenseful tale of terror on the highways. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide