Friday, January 17, 2025

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

TCM's "Is it a dream" spotlight this month brings a movie from a star I don't get to mention very often, I think because his movies are generally not from studios part of the old TCM library: Danny Kaye. That movie is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which comes on tonight at 9:00 PM. (Yes, 9:00 PM ET might seem like an odd starting time for a TCM presentation since prime time begins invariably at 8:00 PM, but the first film at 8:00 is the 51-minute silent Sherlock Jr..)

Danny Kaye plays Walter Mitty, and you probably already know a bit about the character because the movie is loosely based on a short story by James Thurber; the Mitty name has entered the lexicon as a byword for a daydreamer; and there was another film version about a decade ago. Walter Mitty here is a daydreamer mostly to escape his crappy personal life. He lives in the New Jersey suburbs with his overbearing mother Eunice (Fay Bainter); commutes to New York to work as a proofreader at a publishing company that puts out pulp fiction, where his boss Mr. Pierce (Thurston Hall) steals his ideas; and has a fiancée Gertrude (Ann Rutherford) who you wonder whether she's part of an arranged marriage just to give Walter someone for a wife. Indeed, she's got another guy pursuing her. Dr. Hollingshead (Boris Karloff) comes along to give Walter a bad, unoriginal idea for another dime novel, and it's all too much.

So when Walter has to deal with the doctor, he finds himself imagining that he's a doctor, specifically a surgeon performing a celebrated new operation. Later, he sees himself as an RAF pilot fighting the Nazis in World War II, which also gives him the opportunity to sing a song when he's celebrating after another great aerial success. In all of these fantasies, there's a woman involved, a very pretty one indeed. It's also well known to everyone around Walter that he has a tendency to fantasize and is terribly absent-minded as a result, which is why nobody is going to believe him for the second half of the movie.

One day on the commuter train to work, whom should Walter see but the woman who's been in all those daydreams he's had! And, she approaches him! This time, it's a story that you'd think is so crazy even Walter can't believe it. The woman says her name is Roasalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo), and that she's being followed by another passenger on the train. So would Walter be so kind as to pretend to be Rosalind's boyfriend? Walter, being a fantasist, goes along at least until he gets to his office. But he forgets his briefcase, and his need to go back and get it is going to bring him much further into the intrigue with which Rosalind is involved.

The actual nature of the intrigue, and what everybody is looking for, is of course a macguffin. Suffice it to say, however, that the bad guys know Walter has (or had) what they're looking for, and they're willing to kill him for it. Moreover, because of all of Walter's daydreams, nobody believes him when he says that there are well and truly bad men after him.

James Thurber didn't care for this movie version of his work, and I can understand why. There's not enough in a short story to turn it into a full-length movie, and the Goldwyn studio both had to do a lot of padding and tailor the material to Danny Kaye's talents, which are not going to be to everyone's tastes. I didn't dislike this version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but it's also certainly not a favorite movie of mine.

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Tower of London (1962)

Roger Corman died last year, and a few months later TCM had a multi-night tribute to Corman with some movies he produced as well as some he directed. Surprisingly, I haven't seen as much of the Corman oeuvre as you might think, so this gave me the opportunity to record several movies. Among them was the 1962 version of the movie Tower of London, directed by Roger and produced by his younger brother Eugene.

The movie opens up in April, 1483, and as the narrator (Paul Frees, if you couldn't tell by the voice) informs us, it's the night that England's king, Edward IV, is dying. Edward is going to leave behind quite the family. This includes two minor children and two younger brothers. The more notable brother from history is Richard (Vincent Price), at the time Duke of Gloucester. Richard is hoping to become regent, raising the children until they become adults, at which point son Edward V would be a king with full power. However, Edward IV, on his deathbed, announces that the other brother, George, will be regent.

This enrages poor Richard, who responds by inviting George down to the wine cellar to have a talk in private, away from all the wailing women, or at least that's his stated reasoning. In fact, he's down here so that he can murder George without anybody seeing it, and then dumping George's body in a vat of wine! And he does so with a knife that belongs to someone in the family of the Queen Consort. Richard is very clearly guilty, to the point that he sees the ghost of George shortly before some stones fall from one of the parapets, nearly killing Richard. Perhaps he's going nuts.

Of course, there are still those two sons of Edward IV, and they have more of a right to the throne than Richard does, at least in the order of succession to the throne. Richard knows this, and the two kids being relatively young and having no power base, it's not too difficult for Richard to get them confined to palace chambers. Worse, Richard kills one of the ladies-in-waiting as part of a plot to spread rumors that Edward V and his brother are illegitimate. There's a lot of palace intrigue trying to keep the child king and his brother safe, while Richard tries to stop all of this. Eventually, he's successful, at least for some values of successful, in that the two children die (by murder in the movie, of course; how exactly they died in real life is not 100% certain). Richard becomes King Richard III.

Now, as we also, know the Wars of the Roses were convulsing England at this point in history, and if you remember your English history or your Shakespeare, you'll recall that the humpbacked Richard will meet his end on the field of battle at Bosworth Field. This happens here, and along the way Richard sees a lot more ghosts, implying that he's going insane.

This version of Tower of London is never less than entertaining, showing how Roger Corman was adept at taking a modest budget and making something reasonably worthwhile with it. It's not great, in part because it's material that should have been done in garish color but got black-and-white; the other reason being that Vincent Price is not the right actor to play Richard III. But it still succeeds at what it did, and entertains six decades later. Definitely worth at least one watch.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

I've mentioned before that musicals aren't my favorite genre of movies, in part because they're even more artificial than other movies in that nobody just breaks out into song like that in real life. Never mind that I don't always care for the voices of the singers. So I have to admit that as a result I've put off watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for a while. It was on TCM last month, and is on again tomorrow, January 16, at 6:00 PM, so I've finally gotten around to watching it to do a full-length review.

A title card just after the opening credits informs us that the action is set in the Oregon Territory, 1850. Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) is a farmer out in the backwoods who has come into town in part because he's in want of a wife. Outside one of those hotel/restaurants you see in old westerns, he meets Milly (Jane Powell). Seeing the way she can handle the rough men who pass through town, he realizes she can handle life on a farm, and so almost immediately proposes to her. This is a rather shocking idea, but back in those days it wasn't as if there was much way for men and women to meet, so she takes him up on the marriage proposal.

It's only when the two of them get back to the farm that Adam informs Milly that he's got six brothers, all of whom work the farm with him. Amazingly, none of the brothers gets jealous and tries to do anything inappropriate with Milly, at least not in the way you'd think of men doing in a place where there's only one woman around. But they are uncouth, not having had the civilizing presence of a woman around, and poor Milly has to try to civilize them.

The brothers go to a barn raising, which is an excuse for the big dance number in the film and the number that everybody remembers with good reason. More importantly, however, its a chance for the brothers to be around women, and for them to cotton on to the idea that they need wives as well. However, they come up with a rather dumb way of trying to find themselves wives. As winter is setting in, they go into town and look for the women they met at the dance... and basically kidnap the women to bring them back to the farm for a marriage ceremony. And they set off an avalanche on the way back so that the women's angry fathers and brothers won't be able to follow them until spring, which will give the women time to accept the situation and fall in love with the brothers the way Milly has fallen in love with Adam. The only thing is, they don't have anyone to perform the wedding, and there's no way the brides are going to consummate a non-marriage relationship. Never mind what the Production Code says. Adam is disgusted with this behavior and goes to a trapping cabin to spend the winter, even though Milly is now pregnant with his child.

Of course, there is that pesky Production Code, so we know that in the end everything is going to be made right. The fact that Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is also supposed to be a light musical also requires the sort of happy ending that we're going to get once spring comes and the brides' families come for the brothers.

Fans of musicals will love Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, although most of those will probably already have seen the movie. I didn't dislike it, although I have to say that I'm still generally more of a fan of backstage musicals about putting on a show like 42nd Street or Gold Diggers of 1933 or biographical musicals since songs and dance numbers tend to make more sense there. It's easy to see why Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has such high critical praise.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Ah yes, it's Tennessee Williams

I think we're up to the first of the movies that ran in TCM's 2024 Christmas marathon that I'm doing a post on this year. That's because the movie is getting another airing on TCM less than a month after its previous showing: Period of Adjustment, which you can see tomorrow, Jan. 15, at 9:15 AM.

Over the opening credits, we see George Haverstick (Jim Hutton). He served in the Korean War, and wound up with some sort of condition that put him in a hospital for it. There, among the nurses treating him, is Isabel (Jane Fonda). The two fall in love during his treatment, and get married when George finally gets out of the hospital. And they live happily ever after, ending the movie. Yeah right. This is based on a Tennessee Williams play, so you know it's not going to be happy ever after, especially considering all of the above finsishes with the end of the opening credits.

George has also been somewhat dishonest with Isabel about his personal life. He'd decided to quit his old job in search of better pastures, and when they get in the "just married" car to head out into their new life, Isabel finds that it's not a regular sedan, but a hearse! Worse, George is only able to take the couple to a cheap roadside motel on their first night to try to consummate their marriage, which he doesn't seem to be able to do.

The couple continue to drive on until they reach the home of George's old army buddy Ralph Bates (Tony Franciosa). Ralph has been married rather longer, to Dorothea (Lois Nettleton), and has a son by her. She comes from money, with Ralph working for her father's (John McGiver) business. Perhaps George may be able to make a fresh start there. But then again, George and Isabel aren't the only unhappy couple, as there's a good bit of strife in the Bates marriage too. Dorothea's father is beginning to think that perhaps Ralph only married Dorothea for the family money. And when George and Isabel show up, it's not hard to give her the impression that perhaps Ralph and Isabel are beginning to develop some sort of feelings for each other.

It's all enough to give everybody in the piece good reason to get overheated and start bickering with each other through the use of overheated dialog, much as in most of Tennessee Williams' other work that I've seen. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Williams' work, in no small part because it's consistently too overheated and loud for its own good, leading to none of the characters being particularly likeable. And because it's a Tennessee Williams work, Isabel is written as a southern belle, leading to Jane Fonda essaying an obnoxious accent.

People who like Tennessee Williams may enjoy Period of Adjustment. I didn't.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Not at the end of the soufflé

One of the classics of the French Novelle Vague (translation: New Vague) is the Jean-Luc Godard film Breathless. It's not a movie I care for because the main character is a talky jerk. But all the critic and filmmaker types love it. So in the early 1980s, some of them got the brilliant idea to remake it, also calling the movie Breathless. TCM ran it some months back, so I figured I'd give this remake a chance.

Richard Gere stars as Jesse Lujack, a man-child who, as the movie opens, is in Las Vegas seemingly partying, although that's not really why he's there. He seems to be a car thief for hire, as he steals a Porsche with the intention of taking it to his home in Los Angeles. However, he insists on bringing attention to himself by driving recklessly, so it doesn't take all that long before the highway patrol spots him and one of the cops approaches him. Thankfully, Jesse has looked in the car's glove compartment, where he finds a gun. So, he can shoot the cop, not that this was what he meant to do, and head off to Los Angeles to try to get away. Naturally, the cop is going to be found, and when it does, Jesse is the prime suspect, to the point that his picture is already in the papers when he gets back to LA.

Jesse makes it back to Los Angeles, and sees that the cop's murder has already made the news. He looks at his calendar and sees a bunch of women's names on it, which he of course would know as old girlfriends although we don't. One of them is Monica Poiccard (Valerie Kaprisky), a French woman studying architecture at UCLA. Jesse immediately starts harassing her by showing up on campus and then being an utter jerk to her. But there are women dumb enough to want a bad boy, and Monica seems to be one of those women.

Jesse tries to convince Monica to go off to Mexico with him, he trying to get there to escape. She's ambivalent about it, but damn if the sex isn't spectacular. However, Jesse needs money to be able to live on once he gets to Mexico, and he doesn't have that in hand yet. That's going to require him to stay in Los Angeles for another day, and the cops are going to be on his case.

As I said in the opening paragraph, I really didn't care for the original French Breathless, although to be fair I'm not a big fan of the French New Wave. I had big problems with this Hollywood remake, but not quite for the same reasons. Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays the killer in the original, is a bit more of a glib charmer, but still a somewhat annoying guy. Richard Gere plays the character (or the screenplay has him play it) as a much more obnoxious type of unlikeable antihero. The production design also is stylized in a way that I felt didn't really suit the material.

For once, I'm generally in agreement with the critics in my negative review of the movie, albeit for different reasons. While critics tend to love the French original and not see the need for a Hollywood remake, I didn't care for either version.

TCM's Kris Kristofferson tribute

Actor and singer Kris Kristofferson died last September at the age of 88. TCM is finally getting around to doing a programming salute to him, which is a bit surprising since I'd have thought he'd be the sort of person to get one movie in December; some of the people who did only get that treatment were bigger stars than Kristofferson. At any rate, TCM's salute to Kristofferson is tonight in prime time, with five of his films:

8:00 PM Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, starring Ellen Burstyn as the New Mexico mom whose husband dies, prompting her to pick up and move west;
10:00 PM A Star Is Born, the 1970s version of the story where a singer (Barbra Streisand) rises up the ladder of success while her formerly at the top lover (Kristofferson) sinks into alcoholism;
12:30 AM Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, where Kristofferson plays Billy the Kid opposite James Coburn's Pat Garrett;
2:30 AM Blume in Love, in which Kristofferson is the new boyfriend of the ex-wife (Susan Anspach) of George Segal; and
4:15 AM Rollover, with Kristofferson investigating a bank where there's a lot going on underneath the surface.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid actually ran over the weekend, but I didn't record it and didn't really have the time to watch it and do a post on it before putting up this short post on TCM's programming salute. It was also directed by Sam Peckinpah, who is not one of my favorite directors. I'll record tonight's showing and get around to doing a post on it sometime, however.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

The Promoter

A movie that I think I briefly mentioned a couple of times in conjunction with planning to record it on my DVR is an early Alec Guinness movie from his native UK called The Card. IMDb and Wikipedia both say it was retitled The Promoter for its first American release, but the print TCM ran was titled The Card. The last time TCM ran it, I finally got the chance to record it, and recently watched it.

Alec Guinness plays Denry Machin, although as the movie opens we don't see Guinness because the opening scenes are with Denry as a child. Young Denry is an average at best student, but he's able to get access to the report cards to change his grade to something much better. This allows him to get accepted to the sort of school when where the scions of better families attend, although obviously not actual upper-class Britons since the movie is set at the turn of the last century when Britain's class structure was even more rigid than it is today. Poor Denry is the son of a washerwoman, and worse, one who seems happy with her lot in life and has no desire to have a life of luxury and convenience In any case, once Denry graduates from school, he gets a job working as a clerk for the solicitor Duncalf, which is where we first meet Guinness as the adult Denry.

On one of his first days at the job, the Countess of Chell (Valerie Hobson) comes in. She's engaged Duncalf for the job of sending out admissions to the big charity ball, something which is strictly by invitation only and something to which a man of Denry's station is never going to receive an invite. However, Duncalf has Denry fill in and address all the invitations, a job that should keep him up half the night. Denry ends up with several invitation blanks, and decides to use one to send himself an invitation. Since it's an invitation ball, he's going to need learn how to dance, and goes to the dance school run by Ruth Earp (Glynis Johns), albeit not successfully. However, the two begin to develop a romantic relationship.

Denry gets fired from his job with Duncalf for his stunt, but taking this sort of initiative gives him ideas, as he gets himself hired into one job after another that requires a person with the sort of go-getter attitude that I get the impression was decidedly frowned upon in the Britain of the era. Denry eventually becomes reasonably wealthy and offers some of his money to his mother, but she feels like it's somewhat ill-gotten, and besides, she couldn't stop working as that would be immoral. The relationship with Ruth begins to go a bit sour, but she's got a lady's companion in Nellie (Petula Clark), who also likes Denry, although she too isn't from the highest class of family.

The Card is yet another of those movies where you see the basic idea and the source material (it's based upon a novel from 1911 that I haven't read), and you can obviously understand why filmmakers would believe there's a good story here. However, something in the making of The Card doesn't go quite right. I think it's that the screenplay makes Alec Guinness' character out to be a bit too much of a grasper when the material really calls for lighter comedy. I'm not quite certain, however, how the screenplay could square that circle.

Still, all of the cast do a a professional job, and it's nice to see all the location shooting, even if it's all in black and white. The Card isn't a bad movie; it's just a bit of a shame that it's not quite up to the level of some of Guinness' other work from this era.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

The shoes of color

I've briefly mentioned the movie The Red Shoes a couple of times before, most recently when the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were part of a TCM spotlight back in November. The Red Shoes is back on the TCM schedule again quite soon, tomorrow (January 12) at 11:45 AM, so I made a point of re-watching the film so that I could do a full-length post on it.

The movie opens up with what feels like suprisingly long exposition. The ballet company run by impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) is performing in London, and a bunch of starving artist types from the ballet/classical music world have spent their hard-earned money to get balcony tickets to watch the performance. Among them are dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) and composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). Julian hears the music, and is shocked to discover that one of his professors of composition from the conservatory has basically lifted themes that Julian himself wrote. Julian writes a letter to Lermontov to complain, and eventually goes to meet Lermontov when he decides that perhaps he doesn't want to burn his bridges that way. The bad news is that Lermontov already read the letter; the good news is that he admires Craster's talent and drive.

As for Victoria, she's about to meet Lermontov as well because her aunt is putting on a party for Lermontov after the show. Lermontov asks her about dance, and she of course gives the obligatory answer that dance is her one true love and that she'll sacrifice everything else just to be able to dance professionally, as opposed to someone like Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point who opts for motherhood. It's the answer she needs to give if she wants to advance in her career, but you suspect she really means it at least at this point in her life. As for Lermontov, he has a policy that nobody in the troupe can keep their job after getting married since it'll put too much strain on the dancers and take away from their dancing; indeed, he's going to have to replace his prima ballerina later in the movie.

And, unsurprisingly, it's going to be Victoria who becomes the new prima ballerina. She starts off in the corps de ballet, getting noticed when she does a charity version of Swan Lake for the old company she grew up with performing at a grimy theater in a decidedly unglamorous part of London. The joy she shows in dancing, however, is enough to get Lermontov to hire her and bring her on the company's tour of first Paris and then the French Riviera. Julian has wound up with the company, too, as an assistant to the conductor. He and Victoria have a rocky relationship since they both have their own ambitions, but they fall in love eventually.

In the film's highlight, which is somewhat surprisingly only halfway through the movie, Julian writes a score for a new adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Red Shoes, about a woman who gets a magical pair of red ballet shoes that have the curse of forcing the wearer to dance until the wearer drops dead. The ballet is a hit, and Virginia is the only one to dance the lead role. She eventually decides to get married to Julian, forcing her to leave the company, and leading Lermontov to decide not to re-stage The Red Shoes without Virginia.

Virginia's career stalls, however, and she eventually goes back to the Riviera to beg Lermontov to let her dance again. But Lermontov is ruthless in trying to get Virginia to conclude that she's going to have to give up Julian to regain the passion for dance she first had. Julian, meanwhile, has had a more successful career, writing a new opera that's about to premiere in London. But when Victoria leaves him to resume her dance career, he decides to go to France to try to win her back....

In watching The Red Shoes, the movie that I was reminded enough was one that may surprise you: A Clockwork Orange. The reason why I thought of it is that I had the same visceral reaction to both of them. That reaction is that it's easy to see why all the critics -- at least latter-day critics -- heap such high praise on the movie. It's a technical marvel, with gorgeous color and stunning dance scenes. However, it's also a movie that leaves me emotionally cold, which I think it in no small part down to the fact that I'm not into ballet at all. That's not to say that The Red Shoes is a bad movie at all; indeed, I'd highly recommend it to all those who enjoy dance movies. It's more that I feel like I'd need to have a more intimate knowledge of the world portrayed here to empathize with the characters' motivations.

Friday, January 10, 2025

Three Faces East

A year or so ago, when TCM had a festival of B movies, one of the selections was a 1940 movie called British Intelligence, based on a World War I-era play called Three Faces East. The play was made into a silent film, and then again at the beginning of the sound era with the same title as the play Three Faces East, so when TCM ran the 1930 version, I recorded it and recently got around to watching it.

The movie opens up on the Western Front during World War I. In Belgium, a man named Valdar (Erich von Stroheim) is getting a medal from the Belgian Army. At about the same time as this, we're transferred behind the German lines. They've captured a nurse to be a POW, but it turns out that despite her being British, she's really working as a double agent, with the code name Z-1 (Constance Bennett). Being in field hospitals enables her to gather intelligence, and eventually she's able to convince her "captors" of her identity as Z-1.

The Germans have an idea for her. One of their former POWs was a man named Robert Chamblerain, son of one of the Lords of the Admiralty, Sir Winston Chamberlain (the original William Holden, not the one who worked with von Stroheim on Sunset Blvd.). Robert is dead, and the Germans will send Z-1, taking on the name Frances Hawtree, to visit the Chamberlains under the ruse that, as a field hospital nurse, she too was taken POW and became the lover of Robert before she died. Of course, her real job is to get inside the Chamberlain house and gather intelligence which she'll pass on to the unseen Blecher.

Surprisingly, Frances' ruse works, although that's in part because the Germans collected a bunch of Robert's personal effects for Frances to bring to London to give to the Chamberlains. Still, a bunch of the military types are suspicious of anybody and everybody. Heck, they're even suspicious of Valdar whom they know has German ancestry even though he's Belgian. (There's still a small German-speaking minority in Belgium, in the southeast along the German and Luxembourg borders.) They're right to be suspicious, since Frances' contact between herself and Blecher turns out to be Valdar.

So we now have the British military on one side, and a known nest of German spies under the same roof as the British. This being a movie from 1930, and since we know that the English won the war, we can assume that the Germans are not going to win this skirmish in the war. And if you saw the remake British Intelligence you'll know that too. But how this happens is something you'll have to see.

This version of Three Faces East is pretty well done, at least within the context of the early sound technology of the era and the story's provenance as a stage play. There are better movies out there, but the studios were in need of material in 1930, so an adapted stage play like Three Faces East adequately fit the bill.

Thursday, January 9, 2025

The Mine Wolf

Ruth Roman was TCM's Star of the Month back in November, and once again that gave me the chance to record several movies I hadn't seen before. One of those movies is coming up on the TCM schedule, so I watched it now to do a review on: Barricade, which airs tomorrow (January 10) at 3:00 PM.

We don't see Roman at first; instead we see Dane Clark. He's playing Bob Peters, a man running from the law, with a saddlebag draped over his shoulder. Bob may be a crook, but he's no dummy, and is able to evade the posse and make it to the next town. But there's a mine foreman there gathering supplies for the mine some ways out of town. The mine can always use more workers, and as a mining camp there's room and board included. Bob, needing a way out, takes this lifeline.

Showing up in town at the same time is the stage, with a pair of passengers. Aubrey Milburn (Robert Douglas) is a bit mysterious, while the lady, Judith Burns (Ruth Roman, not as if you couldn't figure that out), is quickly revealed to be a convict escaped from a women's prison back east in Indiana. She tries to get Milburn to cover for her when she discovers the sheriff has her picture. He doesn't, and Judith tries to escape by taking the stagecoach, with Milburn hopping aboard. Neither of them knows how to drive it, and it predictably crashes, injuring both of them substantially.

The wagon with the mine foreman shows up and since the two aren't dead, takes both of them aboard and brings them to the mining camp. The mine is owned by Boss Kruger (Raymond Massey), and he'll let Milburn stay to recuperate, at least if he pays his way by working. With a broken ankle, it's only kitchen work for him, which is degrading in the other men's eyes. As for Bob, he'd like to move on, but there's only back to town, as the other way is 35 miles of desert. Kruger takes Bob on as a demolition expert, to set of the charges to clear out more mine.

Boss Kruger fairly quickly reveals himself to be one nasty man. To an extent, he has to be in this harsh environment. But you get the sense that he was amoral even before getting to the mine, as he's willing to hire any sort of bad guy trying to escape his past -- indeed, Kruger won't question the men's pasts. There's more to it however, which sets off Milburn's curiosity, as he goes snooping around in Kruger's quarters on the premise of cleaning them. There was a dispute between Kruger and a putative co-owner some time back, and for the time being, Kruger seems to have won. But the co-owner is bound to show up again sometime, Kruger may well have hired these men to be the muscle defending the mine.

There's also the question of what's going to happen to Bob and Judith. After all, Barricade was released in 1950, and the Production Code was still most definitely in force back them. Perhaps they can come up with some deus ex machina to pardon both of them, or maybe they can die heroically trying to save to good guys from the bad guys.

Barricade is based on the Jack London story The Sea Wolf, which had already been made into a memorable movie a decade earlier. Obviously, there's no sea here, but I think it's a good decision to change the location so that it wouldn't bring up too much comparison to the earlier movie. Then again, one can't help but make the comparison. Barricade doesn't come up to The Sea Wolf, but it's not a bad little western programmer. You could do better, but you could do a lot worse.