Phillip Dorn is in the desert making his way to the coast, when he stops at one of those gas station/motel/Indian curio shop/restaurant places that used to dot the west. There's talk on the radio about escaped Nazi POWs, Jean Sullivan wants to get away, Samuel S. Hinds is doing the Old Coot Act..... well, it's THE PETRIFIED FOREST updated a bit. The Warners liked to use successful movie ideas over and over again, rubbing off the serial numbers until the nickel plating wore away. Here it is again.
And it's certainly good on those terms, even without Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. Dorn is a fine actor, Jean Sullivan is winsome in the Bette Davis role, albeit reduced to the shrinking girl while Dantine beats up on Hinds, and Dantine plays the Nazty Nazi. There's a rousing action finish, and Western democracy is saved again for the time being. Director Edward Blatt does a good job, or perhaps it's the well-oiled Warners machine. It probably played a week or even two, but it was another rah-rah movie, and the distribution guys knew they had to shove them out the door immediately, because the War would be done in three weeks in Europe, and then people wouldn't want it.
And it's certainly good on those terms, even without Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. Dorn is a fine actor, Jean Sullivan is winsome in the Bette Davis role, albeit reduced to the shrinking girl while Dantine beats up on Hinds, and Dantine plays the Nazty Nazi. There's a rousing action finish, and Western democracy is saved again for the time being. Director Edward Blatt does a good job, or perhaps it's the well-oiled Warners machine. It probably played a week or even two, but it was another rah-rah movie, and the distribution guys knew they had to shove them out the door immediately, because the War would be done in three weeks in Europe, and then people wouldn't want it.