Director: William J. Hole, Jr.
Cast: John Russell, June Blair, Stuart Whitman, Margo Woode
Have I Seen it Before: Never.
Did I Like It: The film is filled with all of the trappings of the noir genre. Criminal plan meant to put all of the characters on easy street is so well planned that it is absolutely inevitable that all of the bad twists of luck and betrayals, the plot will lead to pretty much everybody getting themselves killed. Some play with those constraints, somehow manage to wring a little surprise out of those trappings and rise to the top of the genre. Others move their camp quotient to a level where one would have to be mostly cardboard to not be entertained.
Then there’s this one. I could live to be 1000-years-old, and I will never quite understand why Jordan (Russell) is so down on his luck that he needs to reach for the convoluted scheme to separate the cache of nondescript drugs from an incoming ship and yet can still afford to make a short industrial film pitching the scheme to his backers. I suppose every Noir film needs to set up the scheme just so we can see it all unravel, but making industrial films feels like a semi-lucrative way to make a living, right?
Frankly, I considered not even writing a review of this one. Years ago when I started writing these reviews, I decided that I wouldn’t write a review for any movie where I fell asleep while watching. It’s a big reason why I’ve yet to get a review posted for A League of Their Own (1992). Frankly I fell asleep in the middle of this film, too. Unfortunately, I don’t think I missed much. On the plus side, being relaxed enough to fall asleep in the middle of a movie is its own reward sometimes.