Just in time for Valentine's Day, we have an appropriate movie courtesy of TCM and their spotlight on B movies from last summer. The movie in question is Lighthouse.
After a brief title card about the significance of the lighthouse, we get to the action, in a lighthouse just off the coast on an island. Sam (Don Castle) is the assistant lighthouse-keeper, to Hank (John Litel). He develops a toothache, which is really just an excuse to go ashore. There, he's got a girlfriend in port in the form of Connie (Julie Lang), who works at the cannery with her best friend JoJo (Marion Martin).
Or, at least, Connie used to work at the cannery. She just got fired from the cannery because her boss had been putting the moves on her and she said no, considering that she's got a boyfriend in Sam. Back in those days, you couldn't really sue for sexual harassment. But with Sam coming ashore, Connie tells him that now would finally be a good time for the two of them to get married, and that perhaps this would be a good time for him to stop putting it off.
That's a problem because Sam already has a wife. At least, she's an estranged wife who kicked Sam out and she keeps pestering him for money instead of granting him a divorce. Sam can't marrie Connie until he can get a divorce. Eventually, Connie feels that she just have to go over to the lighthouse and beg Sam to marry her since he hasn't visited her in a couple of weeks, and communication wasn't so much back in those days.
The first tine Connie see when she goes over to the island is Hank, who informs her that he in fact is the manager and Sam is the manager. Hank doesn't yet know about the relationship between Connie and Sam. So when Connie goes into the house, she sees the picture of Sam's wife, and figures that it must be Hank's wife. Hank kindly points out that it's Sam's wife. This gives Connie a ridiculous idea: she's going to woo Hank and get him to marry her, just to get back at Sam!
Unbelievably, she does get him to propose, and the two get married and take up residence at the lighthouse. They get back to the lighthouse, at which point Sam finds out who Hank's new wife really is. Dramatic tensions ensue.
Lighthouse was released by Producers' Releasing Corporation, the same studio that made Edgar Ulmer's ultra-low-budget classic Detour. Lighthouse isn't quite as cheap, but it's definitely made on a low budget. That having been said, it's surprisingly good for a low-budget movie that has a relatively predictable plot. It's absolutely worth watching if you can find it.
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