Reviews

I just watched this episode on Antenna TV. It shows George Burns and Gracie Allen episodes from 7-8AM weekdays. This one has Ronnie's confidence shaken because he can't play Cyrano as well as Jose Ferrer. The comedy comes from Ronnie with the big false nose and his friend Jim wearing Gracie's blonde wig. And, of course, Gracie and George's efforts to restore Ronnie's confidence. Hart Sprager had a recurring role as Ronnie's friend Jim Boardman. Hart bore an amazing resemblance to George Reeves, TV's first Superman. I had to check IMDB to see if that was George Reeves, the resemblance is so noticeable.

The Ranger and Tonto capture the McKeever gang. It's three members are brothers Seth and Ward, and their young nephew Chris. It's going to be a long trip as the nearest town is five days away and there is a lot of bad desert in between. When Ward gets bitten by a rattlesnake, Chris helps the Ranger save Ward's life, and the Ranger sees that Chris may not be as bad as his uncles. Eventually, Tonto gets trapped in quicksand and the Ranger has to release the McKeevers so that they can help get Tonto out. But Seth only wants to kill the Ranger and Tonto and escape. Will Chris help his uncle, or keep him from committing murder? That's the "Decision of Chris McKeever."

Andy Norton is about to get married when he learns Craig Ormond is coming to town. Andy thinks Craig murdered his father and is determined to kill him. Craig has been lured back to Mineral City by his two crooked cousins who want Andy to kill him so they can inherit his valuable land, which nobody but them knows has sulfur deposits on it. Roy kidnaps Craig to keep him from facing Andy, which isn't a very good lesson for kids. The episode is really brightened by Dale singing "There's Only One You" to the wedding couple. Future western star Stuart Whitman plays Andy. Overall a good entertaining episode.

The Ranger and Tonto are in Mexico where they assist flamboyant, red-bearded Irish/Mexican Don Pedro O'Sullivan protect his ranch from a Mexican colonel who wants the ranch and O'Sullivan dead. Once again, Clayton Moore shows off his real acting skills by disguising himself as Don Pedro. Tudor Owen plays Don Pedro O'Sullivan. The evil colonel's two heanchmen are played by former Major League Baseball player and future soap opera star John Berardino, and familiar tough guy Mickey Simpson.

Just watched this episode on The Cowboy Channel. Roy gets kidnapped by the dreaded Wolf Gang who want him to get them past any lawmen they encounter. But it's really a light-hearted episode with a lot of laughs. John Doucette plays Oley Wolf and he shows a real flair for comedy. The gang stops at a ranch house where Dale poses as a doctor and tells the outlaw they have all been exposed to the mumps and have to be quarantined. John Doucette is really funny and he makes the episode work. Myron Healy, Steve Pendleton, and Tom London are also in it.

The Ranger and Tonto rescue a stagecoach from attacking Indians. One of the passengers is Talana (Yvette Duguay), an Indian girl who has been to school in the east. She is returning to her tribe to start a school for the children. Her brother, Kat-Kem (Christopher Dark) is in jail for murder. New Indian agent Bradford (Frank Wilcox) is reluctant to let her teach what with her brother being held for murder. It's all a bad situation, especially when Talana breaks Kat-Kem out of jail. It's up to The Ranger and Tonto to figure things out and head off an Indian war. Another good episode.

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer appeared on TRRS several times. This time he plays Dale's nephew, Bob. Bob neglects his chores after idolizing gun slick Draw Reardon. He even goes so far as to dress exactly like Reardon. Reardon is actually serving as a distraction for a couple of local outlaws. It doesn't take Roy and Dale long to see through Reardon's bluff and bluster. With some help from Roy, Bob eventually learns to pick better heroes to look up to. This is a good episode for young kids, even today. It teaches them about looking beyond the surface to see what a person is really like.

The Ranger and Tomto investigate a series of stagecoach robberies. They learn that beautiful woman artist Julie Gregory is actually the leader of the gang. Unfortunately, the local sheriff Will Harrington is so in love with her that he can't see her for what she really is. The Ranger uses a disguise to fool the woman but this is one smart babe. She and her two henchmen capture both Tonto and The Ranger. Zorro wasn't there to rescue them, so they have to try to turn the tables themselves. Mort Mills as one of the henchmen and Emmett Lynn as a stage driver have good roles. Elaine Riley plays the evil Julia. She was married to Richard Martin (Chito Rafferty) for many years. Guy Williams plays the clueless Sheriff. This was a few years before he became Disney's Zorro. If he had some of Zorro's smarts in this episode, he could caught those outlaws all by himself!

This is one of the first season episodes that has a different view of Dale in the opening. The camera view of her is more from the side and she seems to riding Buttermilk a lot harder than in the more familiar opening which is almost from directly in front of her. An evil rancher kidnaps Jim Barton and terrorizes his wife. The bad guy knows there is gold on Jim's ranch. Can Roy save the day? Or will Bullet be the one to disarm the main villain? Veteran western performer Peggy Stewart plays Mrs. Barton. This episode also feature Zelda Cleaver (no relation to the Beaver) as tough talking, shotgun wielding maid, Magnolia. Her comic byplay with Pat, especially when they are riding in Nellybelle, is very funny. Zelda Cleaver was the sister of Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Her father was a minstrel performer and her mother a tightrope walker. Her appearance alone makes this good Roy Rogers episode even better.

I just finished watching this movie on TCM. Conspiracy was made in 1939 and was released just before the start of WWII. It stars Allan "Rocky" Lane as an American radio operator on a ship. He gets mixed up in a murder on board and jumps off and swims to a small fascist controlled country. Fortunately, he meets cafe singer Linda Hayes who is a member of the resistance and helps him try to get out of the country before the secret police gets him. Americans Robert Barrat and Charles Foy help. The movie is action packed with lots of action packed into its 56 minutes. Allan Lane does OK in a non-western, even without his trusty horse Blackjack to ride. Linda Hayes really stands out. Her foreign accent was convincing and she proves she could really sing! She should have been a major star. I won't spoil the ending, but it may remind you of Casablanca (1942). The country is never identified but it seems to be a combination of Italy, Germany, and maybe Russia. This movie received an A-1 rating from the National Legion of Decency, which means it is not objectionable to general audiences. Conspiracy (1939) is a good little movie and I found it worth watching on a Saturday morning.

I just this morning watched Sinner Take All (1936) on TCM. It is definitely a B movie, but just good enough to keep the viewer interested in finding out which suspect will be the killer. Bruce Cabot plays the reporter who is also a lawyer working on the case. Margaret Lindsay has the female lead. Neither Cabot nor Lindsay generates much interest. Joseph Calleia is always good and here plays a shady nightclub owner, as he usually does. Stanley Ridges has a small role here, but in a few years he would shine as a great nemesis for Errol Flynn in They Died With Their Boots On. It's all a fairly routine MGM production. The reporter hero works directly with the police and sometimes even seems to be in charge of the investigation. Sinner Take All is nothing special, but can be a pleasant way to spend seventy four minutes.

"La mujer de otro" (Another Man's Wife) was one of several movies that Martha Hyer made in Europe during the late 60s. Martha was a big international star in Europe. In the opening credits, her name is listed above the movie title, a rare honor for any actress.

Martha is truly the star of this soap opera. She plays Ana Maria, a happily married woman with two sons. One day, she accidentally encounters Andres (John Ronane) her college sweetheart whom she hasn't heard from in many years. Andres is also married and has a young daughter. The two begin a torrid love affair that forms the basis for the plot.

Martha Hyer was 43 when she made this movie. She was still exquisitely beautiful and her body seems to have been in fantastic shape, as evidenced by a few bathing suit scenes, which include her going snorkeling under water.

The scenery and photography are excellent. The film is done entirely in Italian, without subtitles, but it was fairly easy to tell what was going on. Martha's voice was dubbed by an Italian actress who did sound a little like Martha, who has a very distinctive voice.

This film can be enjoyed by Martha Hyer fans, even though it is in Italian without subtitles. She is clearly the star and does some great acting with her many emotional scenes.

This movie is not bad as long as you don't expect much. It was obviously shot on a very limited budget and was mainly done indoors with a lot of backdrops to make it look like the scenes are taking place in Korea during both the summer and winter.

The battle scenes have very little action involving the actors. Much of it is actual newsreel footage shot during WW II and The Korean War. There is so much newsreel stuff that it looks like the filmmakers were trying to flesh out the movie to make it long enough.

Scott Brady speaks his lines as though he were reading them from cue cards. Elaine Edwards gives a very wooden performance with little or no emotion at all. The best acting is done by Robert Blake, who is very good as one of the platoon members. He definitely makes the viewer take notice every time he appears in a scene.

The plot is an unusual one for a Korean War movie, with the U.S. Marines trying to rescue five Navy nurses taken prisoner by the Chinese. The senior nurse (Edwards) is the former lover of the Marine commanding officer (Brady) and that adds spice to the story. Part of this movie's problem is that all that newsreel footage gets in the way of the plot.

As long as the viewer does not require excellent production values and great acting, Battle Flame is an OK little Korean War film that can be enjoyed for its 78 minutes in black and white.

Thunderboat Row is a TV movie filmed as a pilot for an ABC series, but the network chose not to pick it up. The film features some great shots of high-speed powerboats. The story concerns a task force made up of various law enforcement agencies in South Florida, chasing the bad guy drug runners in the fastest boats in the world.

Chad Everett stars as Ben Bishop. The Ben Bishop character is based on real-life boat builder and powerboat racing legend Don Aronow. Many of the events that are seen in this movie actually occurred in real life. The book "Speed Kills," by Artur Jay Harris, tells the story of how drug runners incorporated powerboats into their smuggling and anyone who reads this book will see that some of the incidents in the movie were taken directly from real life.

Also in the cast is the beautiful Freddie Simpson. She is best remembered for her role as Ellen Sue in the classic baseball movie, "A League of Their Own" (1992). In Thunderboat Row, Freddie Simpson has some very emotional scenes, and she handles them quite well.

Also in the movie are Jason Adams, sometimes billed as Ash Adams, Nick Corri, also known as Jsu Garcia, Dennis Boutsikaris as the bad guy, Anthony Rene Jones, Peter Murnik, Todd Schaeffer, John J. York, and Robert Estes, who later starred in the TV series "Silk Stalkings." Carrell Myers has a small role as Tami, Ben Bishop's girlfriend.

Thunderboat Row is an entertaining and exciting movie. It was very well made with great production values. Those sleek, super-fast powerboats ripping through the water are worth watching all by themselves. This is an old-fashioned good guys vs. bad guys movie and it will keep you interested from start to finish.

This is a very entertaining British murder mystery. The plot concerns a gang of four jewel thieves, led by Diana Napier, who steal two highly valuable diamonds out of a set of earrings. Napier sells them to a dishonest businessman (Willoughby Goddard) at his country estate, but the gang plans to return later and steal them back. However, Goddard's long-lost half-brother (John Benley) suddenly returns to the estate accompanied by his new fiancée (Patricia Owens). Bentley wants to claim his half of the inheritance, but soon discovers that his half-brother has squandered the family fortune and is now engaged in buying and selling stolen gems. He confronts Goddard, who panics, and hits Bentley over the head with a poker. As he is about to strike a death blow, a shot rings out and Goddard falls dead. The police arrest Bentley for the murder but soon have to release him for lack of evidence. Meanwhile, Patricia Owens tries to find the real killer by playing up to one of the members of the gang, who happens to be an old boyfriend of hers. The best scenes in the movie occur when Diana Napier pulls a gun on Patricia Owens and ties her hands behind her back. Later, while tied hand and foot and gagged, Patricia manages to stand up and hop to a table where she grabs a telephone by its cord. She then hops across the room and is able to hurl the telephone through a glass window to attract attention and get help. Eventually, John Bentley comes up with a plan to lure the gang to the mansion and expose the real killer. There is a neat plot twist and surprise at then end of the movie. It is definitely worth watching, especially for mystery fans.

I saw this movie many years ago on the late late show and thought it was an outstanding film about espionage in Saigon during the Vietnam War. The acting is very good with Joseph Cotten and Martha Hyer heading a fine cast. It is truly an unusual film as I don't know of any other movies which deal with the subject of spying in Saigon during Viet Nam. It was made in 1967 and so was very topical at the time and is truly a walk down memory lane for those of us who living through it during the 1960s. Joseph Cotten plays an Army colonel who is trying to find out who the spy is and Martha Hyer plays a computer programmer whose husband is the spy. It keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. I would like to see this movie come out on VHS or DVD. It is definitely worth watching.