We're on a mini-Warren Hull kick lately, he being the handsome chap who co-starred with Anne Nagel in our last two films. Tonight he's got top billing in a prison break movie called "Desert Escape"(1940), in which he plays "Bill Carver", a convict with two more months on his sentence who is nevertheless forced to escape with a gang of convicted bank robbers. The prison must be pretty lax, because three of the gang walk into a storage room where their leader "Mallon" (Paul Bryan) and Bill are taking a cigarette break. The three are dressed in suits and carrying packages like they just returned from an afternoon of shopping. I guess the guards are asleep and they left the cells unlocked. We don't even see the escape, but that's okay because it's a Sam Newfield flick and he's gotta save time (and money) by keeping the running time close to one hour (66 mins). But the boys have made their breakout, and we see Bill alone in the desert, walking and walking. He seems to know his way out of there, and he has an unexplained bedroll. I guess he must've taken it from the joint.
He sleeps under the desert stars, and awakens to a frightful howling sound. As the sun is coming up, he sees a pack of wolves keeping vigil on the hillside. They know he's alone and are waiting to strike. Somehow, they resemble German Shepherds, haha, so it must be a canine actors union thing, playing a different ethnic group, like Boris Karloff playing Mr. Wong. Luckily for Bill Carver, one of the "wolves" really is a German Shepherd, who somehow found himself tagging along with the pack. But by nature he's man's best friend, so when the "wolves" stalk Bill that morning, he rebels and fights them off. Bill is grateful and takes the dog on as a sidekick, naming him "Wolf." Now they are traveling buddies, and they make their way to Tempe, Arizona. While strolling down a sidewalk, they randomly bump into "Linda Harkness" (Isabel Jewell), who is walking her small dog Hercules. He and Wolf become instant pals, and Wolf follows Hercules as he breaks leash and runs back home, close by, to have a bite of dog food for lunch, which he shares with his new buddy Wolf.
All of this is a romantic bonding exercise for the humans, Linda and Bill. Because their dogs have buddied up, they will fall in love, and they do, after having lunch themselves at her house. She offers Bill a job as her Dad's assistant, mowing the lawn, running errands. Dad is the town doctor, and all the locals like the new guy Bill "Grey" (as he calls himself), because they love Linda and have been waiting for her to find a boyfriend. You know how small towns are; everyone fixates on the pretty lass. The trouble for Bill - a genuinely nice guy - is that he doesn't want any attention. He's a prison escapee, for cryin' out loud. When the Shurff (i.e. Sheriff) sees him on the schtreet and calls him over, he's nervous as heck. But it's no big deal. The Shurff just tells him he needs to get Wolf a dog licence.
However, in the Shurff's office, Bill notices a wanted poster...for himself! Lordy Moses. And the Shurff keeps saying, "I could swear I've seen you somewhere before."
At a town picnic, Bill becomes a hero when he rescues a girl from the lake. He saves her from drowning and makes the front page of the paper. That's when the Shurff realises he's the guy in the wanted poster. He calls Bill in again, and Bill cops to the truth: "yes, I escaped, but I was forced to. And I didn't shoot that bank guard, and I was also tricked into driving for Mallon's gang." The Shurff (pronouced ala Gabby Johnson) believes him, but still has to turn him in. "I'll give you 24 hours to go see Linda and explain it to her. Then you've gotta come back here and surrender." Bill agrees to those terms, but has a plan. With Wolf the dog assisting him, he sends a message to Linda, telling her to meet him on the Tempe highway with her car. Then he locates and tracks the Mallon gang in the desert. Recall that they were his fellow escapees. He tricks Mallon into thinking he's still on their side. "I was always gonna catch up with you guys." He also tells Mallon he knows a way to the Mexican border, so Mallon takes him on, but Bill's actual plan is to lead the gang back to the highway, where Linda and the cops will await. Then, Mallon and the gang will be sent back to prison and Bill will have proved his innocence. "Desert Escape" is one of the better Sam Newfield movies, with actual location shooting in Tempe. That's big budget stuff for Newfield. His Western regulars Al St. John and Budd Buster both make appearances. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, and a high recommendation. The movie is also known as "Marked Men", so keep that in mind when searching it. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, Anne Nagel was back, this time in a crime film called "Should a Girl Marry?"(1939). Given the title, I thought it was another comedy. Also, she was teamed with Warren Hull again, though she didn't have as much to do as she did in "A Bride for Henry". Here, Nagle is "Margaret Wilson", who lives with her kind older parents. She's engaged to "Dr. Robert Benson" (Hull), a brilliant up-and-coming surgeon at a prestigious hospital. The movie opens in a woman's prison, where "Betty Gilbert" (Mayo Methot) is about to be paroled. Before she leaves, she visits a friend in the infirmary, an inmate named "Mary Winters" (Helen Brown). Winters was on Death Row, but now she's very ill and will soon die a natural death. She reveals to Betty, her only friend in prison, that she had a daughter she gave up for adoption. The daughter was born in the prison, but the secret can never be told because it would ruin her life. "Look out for her if you can. I've seen in the newspaper that she's getting married." Mary gives Betty some news clippings she's saved on her daughter's impending marriage. "But never tell her about me."
Betty takes the clippings with her as she leaves prison and goes to the apartment of her husband "Harry" (Weldon Heyburn), a small-time crook who has no intention of going straight. Betty wants to do just that; she's had enough of prison life. They argue, and the clippings fall out of her pocket. "What're these?" Harry asks. When she won't tell him, he does some research on his own. Then he finds out who Margaret Wilson is, and he goes to her house to blackmail her adoptive parents. He threatens to tell Margaret's doctor fiance that her mother was a convict and she was born in prison. In 1939, that would be a scandal that would derail the doctor's promising career. After chiseling a few thousand bucks out of "Mr. Wilson" (Gordon Hart), Harry tries to force Wilson to mortgage his house for even bigger money. But then Harry is injured in a car accident, and lo and behold, it is Dr. Robert Benson who is called to operate on him, the very object of his blackmail!
Now then: Dr. Benson is in a subplot of his own, and it's a major one. At the hospital, Benson is up for a promotion to become Chief of Surgery. But a long-time surgical staffer is jealous and feels he should get the nod. So, when Benson operates on Betty's husband - Harry the blackmailer - and Harry dies due to extensive injuries, the jealous older doctor then tries to blackmail Dr. Benson! "You let him die on purpose because he was blackmailing you. he knew your fiancee's secret!" Now there's a double blackmail plot going on, and all because the town would be shocked if they found out Margaret was born in prison. For her part, Margaret couldn't care less what anyone thinks. When her parents tell her she was adopted, and that her birth mother was a criminal, she says "You two are my parents." They all wish the birth mother well, though she's going to die soon. But what to do about all these blackmailers? Harry Gilbert is now dead, but the jealous surgeon is blackmailing Dr. Benson, threatening to expose his "motive" for "botching" Harry's surgery. But Benson didn't botch it, deliberately or otherwise. Harry would have died anyway, his injuries were too severe. Betty Gilbert feels guilty about all the trouble Harry caused, so she visits the jealous surgeon, to ask him to back off. "Dr. Benson has suffered enough, and so has Margaret". The surgeon has robbed her of her newspaper clippings and is threatening to expose the prison secret, so she pulls a gun, they struggle, and he gets shot in the head. Now he faces brain surgery, with the slimmest chance to survive. Well, who should be his surgeon, but Dr. Benson, the very guy he was blackmailing because he wanted Benson's promotion. Benson, taking the noble high road, operates on the surgeon. But does he save his life? You'll have to discover that part. I've told you enough as it is.
As for Anne Nagel, though the movie is about her character "Margaret", she has only half the screen time of the male stars, and half as much as she did in "Bride for Henry." She's still very good, but for the first 35 minutes, Harry the blackmailer is the star. Then Dr. Benson. The movie gets Two Big Thumbs Up, however, for an excellent, jam-packed script. The picture is very good. ////
That's the whole shootin' match for tonight. Have you noticed that David Lynch has stopped doing his daily Weather Reports? It took me a few days to realize. Then, during the week before Christmas, I went, "what happened to David Lynch?" I checked his Youtube channel, and his last report was December 16th. It was a couple days after Angelo Badalamenti died, so maybe that had something to do with it. He also stopped "Today's Number", so you won't be able to Swirl the Numbers anymore, unless he starts it up again. I've been watching the Weather Report most days since the beginning of the pandemic (ditto the numbers) so I'm gonna miss DL if he doesn't come back. His videos were a substitute for his lack of recent movies.
My blogging music tonight is two albums from The Nice: "Five Bridges" and "Ars Longa Vita Brevis". Confession: I had never heard "Five Bridges". Tonight was the first time. You may not have heard it either, but H.O.L.Y. S.M.O.K.E......it's like the long-lost ELP album. Man, is it great, especially the orchestral Five Bridges Suite, which Keith scored and also added some jazz inflections. He's all over this record, and his Hammond playing is as good as it ever was with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. That's also true of the "Ars Longa" album, which I hadn't heard in eons, but now I need to buy both. Go back and listen to 'em. I had no idea The Nice were this great.
My late night music is the "Belshazzar" oratorio by Handel. I hope your New Year is going well. Can you believe it's January 4th already? (here it comes, oh no........) : Man, the year is just flying by.
I'm supposed to make that joke on January 2nd. Sorry for the delay. I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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