Showing posts with label Crane Wilbur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crane Wilbur. Show all posts

Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951)

Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951) is a violent prison gang riot escape attempt Crane Wilbur brutal warden crime exploitation jailtime film noir favourite, with docu over tones, and a blazing Steve Cochrane facing down a sadistic screwlord Ted de Corsia while good boy jailor David Brian attempts to bring peaceful methods to the brutalised American penal colony, Folsom California State Prison.

Steve Cochrane grimaces dirty smirking handsome revenge as con Chuck Daniels, a name we should have left at the cell door. Chuck it is though. Chuck is angry. Chuck is gritty. Chuck wants to chuck it all. He is pure dirty fed up with stir.

Women's Prison (1955)

Women's Prison (1955) is a high period women's prison drama film noir, with a wealth of noir talent and an outré head of steam as it tackles psychopathically sublimated sexual suppression in the form of a violent warder played by Ida Lupino.

Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, Juanita Moore, Cleo Moore make a cell block of sass and noir dialogue, while outlandish banter and bravado make stir seem fun, although not for the mortally bullied cracked up manslaughter case of a gentle woman cast into hellish chokey, played by Phyllis Thaxter.

Howard Duff plays a pipe pokin heart throbbin prison doctor, who is deeply concerned for the welfare of in particular Phyliss Thaxter's broken form, as she is strait-jacketed, broken, and psychologically torn apart.

House of Wax (1953)

House of Wax (1953) is a 3D remake historic horror chiller thriller non film noir blockbuster movie from the gold age of 3D cinema.

House of Wax, filmed under the working title The Wax Works, was Warner Bros.' response to the unexpected success of the 3D film Bwana Devil, which premiered in November 1952. 

Recognizing the potential of 3D technology, Warner Bros. adopted Julian and Milton Gunzburg's Natural Vision 3D system, the same system used in Bwana Devil.

 They chose to remake their 1933 Technicolor thriller, Mystery of the Wax Museum, originally based on Charles S. Belden's play The Wax Works

While Mystery included a newspaper subplot and was set in its release year, House of Wax, set around 1902, retained much of the original's plot and dialogue.

He Walked By Night (1948)

He Walked By Night (1948) is a procedural lone psychopath hunter killer thriller semi-documentary police technical adviser film noir starring Richard Basehart and directed by Alfred Werker.

Drain dwelling hi-technology oscillograph and television projector building full fat classic film noir, He Walked By Night may also be appreciated for the stunning array of tech gadgets and insight into the technical electronic industry as it might have stood in 1948, as well as its stunning lack of female actors and characters and for what it says about the battles for social control that went on as fascism was unspooled across social institutions after World War II

Gun totin and fast moving, He Walked By Night rides through the night of course, that being its charm, and of course it's night in the storm drains too, where master lone wolf Richard Basehart - the character's name is Roy Martin or Roy Morgan - has a stash of guns too. 

When it comes to doggy nemesis none are harder and cleverer and more determined and sharp as Scott Brady, who also plays a mean police milkman when need be.

Outside The Wall (1950)

Outside The Wall (1950) is an ex-con sap in the city thriller from the height of the classic film noir era, starring Richard Basehart as an innocent abroad, released from prison never having seen a woman, and at large and trying to remain crime-free in Philly.

However this is film noir and fate comes a-calling as do three women at once for hapless sap in a cap Richard Basehart as he negotiates his way into peril and romance.

Outside The Wall (1950) performs as a fairly standard film noir with its story of a man going straight being dragged by the heels back into the world of crime.

However there is something fantastical about the story as well, which offers a darkened fairy tale aspect contained within the innocent-abroad-style adventures of Richard Basehart's character, Larry Nelson.