We needed a Western fix, so we called on Buster Crabbe, who showed up with his sidekick Al "Fuzzy" St. John in tow and Charles King as the villain, in "Shadows of Death"(1945). Sam Newfield directed, making it like Old Home Week here at Movie Central, and the plot felt somehow familiar. Stop me if you've heard this one before. They're gonna run the railroad through the town of Red Rock, where Fuzzy is the sheriff, judge and barber. He's stretched pretty thin, so when "Billy Carson" (Buster) learns about the choo-choo plans, he figures there might be trouble, possibly an attempted land grab, so he rides into town to back Fuzzy up should he need it. The man delivering the railroad map in shot (in the back, of course) on his way to Red Rock, by - who else? - Charles King and his henchmen. King steals the map and opens a casino right next to the site of the proposed railroad station. He's posing as a Legitimate Businessman and suggests to Billy that "maybe that hothead Kincaid killed the map guy."
"Clay Kincaid" (Eddie Hall) is the town's gunslinger/gadabout. Billy likes him, but he's always popping off, and he's jealous of anyone who even looks at his gal "Babs Darcy" (Dona Dax). Billy takes King's advice and tracks Kincaid, even searches his house when he isn't home, but can't find the stolen railroad map anywhere. King, as always, is expert at playing the good guys off one another, so the next thing he does is tell Kincaid that Billy is trying to steal Babs, which sets up a series of punchouts. Of course, King gets caught in the end, but whenever that happens, in any of his movies, he always escapes out a window or back door and leaves his cronies to face the consequences. A good fifteen minutes of the hour-long movie are taken up with Fuzzy's hijinks, mostly at the barber shop, with shave-and-a-haircut mishaps, and a skinny, toothless guy who's trapped in the backroom bathtub. This isn't the best Buster/Fuzzy "Billy Carson" movie we've seen, and there's virtually no horse riding, which is unheard of in these films. Still, what little of the outdoors there is, is shot at Corriganville, and these three actors can't be beat. We missed our 60 minute Westerns and just had to watch one. We saw so many this year (over 150?) and we were running out of cowboys. Man, we saw all the greats: Tom Tyler, Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy, Buster Crabbe, Buck Jones, Bob Steele, Tex Ritter....we saw 'em all, and we started to run out of movies. Well anyway, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Shadows of Death". I still want my Charles King T-Shirt! The picture is soft but watchable and it's highly recommended. ////
The previous night, we had another 1950s crime flick, this time with a psychological twist, entitled "Crime Against Joe"(1956). John Bromfield is Joe, an artist who lives with his mother. Joe's about 25, a Korean war vet suffering from battle fatigue - what they'd now call PTSD. He drinks to cope, and gets frustrated easily. He destroys his paintings when they don't meet his standards, but his mom stands by him no matter what, even when he goes out and gets hammered, which he does shortly after the movie begins. Upset by yet another substandard portrait (Joe paints women), he heads out with a goal, to bring home a "good woman" to meet mother. It's a philosophical quest; he wants to prove to himself, and by association to his Mom, that somewhere - maybe at the local bar - there's at least one good woman in the world.
Joe is a sloppy but harmless drunk. After embarrassing himself and getting kicked out of several bars for bothering the ladies, he's driven home by his friend Red (Henry Calvin), a cab driver. Another friend named "Slacks" (Julie London), a carhop at the local drive-in, drives Joe's car home for him. He wakes up with a hell of a hangover, a sore jaw from getting decked by a bartender, and amnesia about where he was and what he did.
This doesn't bode well for Joe when the news comes in that a young woman was murdered during the night, in the neighborhood where Joe was barhopping. A high school class pin was found in the victim's hand; she pulled it off the killer. A detective visits Joe at home: "Weren't you in the class of '45, at such-and-such High? Where's your class pin? Do you still have it? And where were you at 2am?"
Joe can't answer those questions to the detective's satisfaction, and he quickly becomes suspect #1. But then, when his mind clears, he remembers something from his drunken night. While stumbling down the street, he came across a sleepwalking girl (Pat Blair). He helped her get home, and it was right around 2 am. Her Dad answered the door; he can vouch for Joe! But when the cops ask the man, he says it happened at 7:30. As we will see, Dad has a psychological problem that drives him to lie about the time. He hides his daughter's sleepwalking (incest is vaguely hinted at), and he's got an emotional hold over her so she will never marry and "desert" him. He's overprotective of her, and she's like a beautiful mannequin.
Joe is now charged with murder, but then Slacks the carhop comes to his rescue. She invents an alibi by telling the cops that she saw the murdered woman get in a car with "some cowboy". She swears by this, so the cops have to let Joe go, but the head detective tells him "we know you did it. we're gonna get other evidence and you'll be re-arrested again in no time."
Joe can't win. The townsfolk think he's a shell-shocked loser (a wishy-washy painter!) who lives with his Mom, and the cops think he's a psychotic murderer. They have their shrink psychoanalyse him, and of course the shrink twists things to how he wants them to sound. Now Joe is doubled-down as the main suspect. But still the cops can't hold him because of Slacks' false alibi. She invented it because she's secretly in love with Joe. This buys time for Joe and Slacks to conduct their own investigation, which they do by narrowing down possible suspects, based on how many males were in Joe's high school graduating class.
They come up with a final list of four men. Two are eliminated, leaving a local politician, and a loner who resented Joe in high school. Slacks takes a chance by interrogating him on her own. This turns out to be a huge mistake, though I can't tell you why. There's also a big twist that you may or may not see coming. I did see it, but then I second guessed it, because.......well, I can't tell you that, either! Let's just say that, with all of the psychological folderol unfolding, there are a number of potential murderers in town. Shot on location in Tuscon, Arizona, "Crime Against Joe" is a top notch B-thriller that is highly recommended. Two Bigs! The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all I know. But I have to ask ya, what's the deal? You know me, I can't stand politics, but the one thing that gets me going is Trump. So what's the deal with Merrick Garland? When's he gonna indict him? Is the January 6th Committee ever gonna charge him? Time is gonna run out now that the Dems have lost the House. That committee's gonna close up shop in two more months. Is anybody gonna do anything to stop this guy, or is he gonna be the 2024 Republican nominee, after everything he's done? It really seems like he's Mr. Untouchable, when anyone else would've been sent to prison for several lifetimes. I kind of can't believe it, and I hope Merrick Garland proves me wrong, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Well anyhow.......
My blogging music is Klause Schultze "Kontinuum", my late night is Mahler's 4th by Karajan. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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