Last night's movie was "Incident in an Alley"(1962), a police drama based on a story by Rod Serling, It sounds like a Rod title, right? And, it has the polemics one expects from his best writing. As it opens, a gang of teenage hoodlums are robbing a music store, breaking and entering late at night. When a cleaning lady surprises them, their leader "Charlie" (Gary Judis) hits her with a lead pipe. As the gang are stashing the stolen musical instruments in the attic of a warehouse across the alley, several things happen at once. First, they are seen by the night watchman. Then, a man and wife are closing and leaving their restaurant, just as a police car is driving by. One of the gang, a young kid, panics and runs. He knocks the restaurant lady down. She screams, attracting the cops, who run down the alley and split up. One officer follows the kid and his older brother "Gussie" (Michael Vandever), who is also part of the gang. In the darkness, one of the boys disappears, while the other keeps running. Not knowing who they are, or their ages, only that they are running from a police pursuit, Officer "Bill Joddy" (Chris Warfield) issues a verbal warning, then fires a warning shot (which may have been required at the time, I'll have to ask Uncle Rod. Mom used to say that the police were required to yell "halt" three times before shooting). At any rate, Officer Joddy, in the darkness and chaos, does his best to terminate the situation, in which - to his knowledge - a woman has already been assaulted. So, he kneels in a shooters' position and fires...and kills the runner, a 14 year old boy.
Naturally, he is devastated. His captain vows the full support of the force, but the DA says otherwise, and the yellow journalists are having a field day. Rod Serling covers all the bases here, leaving no conundrum unturned. At Joddy's trial, the prosecutor does a smarmy job, appealing to the jury's base emotions. He's almost held in contempt by the judge, and his approach backfires when the jury finds Joddy not guilty. By the way, Joddy is pronounced as "Jody", which may have been Rod's effort to get his daughter's name in there (hers is spelled Jodi).
Joddy goes home, but he doesn't feel innocent, especially when confronted at his doorstep by "Mrs. Connell", the mother of the dead boy (played by Virginia Christine, aka "Mrs.Olsen" of Folger's fame). She does an amazing job here, to convey the mixture of rage and sadness that a mother would feel in such a situation, including the responsibility that must overwhelm the parent of a juvenile delinquent whose actions have gotten him accidentally killed. Serling could not have thought up a more complex moral dilemma, and it presaged a lot of today's police shootings, where - in some cases - the criminal provoked or chanced the encounter by running and not acquiescing to commands to stop. Rod examines the issue of identity: "When a policeman stops you," Joddy's lawyer tells the press, "He doesn't know who you are. Every stop he makes could put him face to face with a killer". In other words, when they ask you to stop, you should stop, not run. Rod points all this out in the dialogue. Cops are human and accidents happen, and they are left as part of the wreckage, having to live with the mistake they've made, and the family they've ruined. But in this case, the boy's older brother was involved in the robbery and Joddy knows it.
After he is reinstated, he approaches Gussie in private, to pry him from the clutches of gang leader Charlie, a ruthless punk with no qualms about killing. As played by Gary Judis, he's reminiscent of Charles Schmid, and looks like him, too. Joddy takes Gussie back to his apartment, where he offers him beers (tall boys!) and when the Gussie refuses, he drinks them all himself! Soon he's getting hammered. Is he about to go rogue? "When a cop doesn't care anymore, you should worry," he tells Gussie.
By now, Charlie the gang leader thinks Gussie is gonna rat them out, and now, it's not just a music store robbery anymore but murder, because the cleaning lady has died. Charlie decides they've gotta kill both Gussie and Joddy, who he refers to as "Officer Trigger Happy". This is one of Rod's best stories, if less well known. He's totally pro-law and order. Mrs. Connell and Officer Joddy make a devastated duo in the end, but he saves Gussie's life and they reconcile. With slightly elevated direction, it would've earned Two Huge Thumbs. Still, let's give it Two Bigs with a a very high recommendation. High marks to Virginia Christine and Gary Judis, who went on to found Aames Home Loan. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we found a tense, realistic little war movie from the always reliable Lippert Pictures, called "Silent Raiders"(1954), about a Marine Corps "suicide squad" sent in to destroy a German communications barn at a French farm inland of Normandy, on the eve of the Allied invasion. Rowing ashore in a rubber raft in the middle of the night, the seven squad members, led by "Lieutenant Finch" (Robert Knapp), ascend the cliff, then carry their boat to a river, where they silently row some more, en route to the farm four miles down. The plan is to wait a few hours, do some recon, then attack the barn at 5 am. After they destroy the comm equipment, making sure all lines are cut, they'll race back to the beach where a ship will be waiting. The LT tells them they'd be better off "saying your prayers" than joking around, which they do at mealtime, "because none of you, including me, are likely to make it." Make it back alive, that is.
In addition to Lieutenant Finch, there are two Sergeants, "Jack" (Richard Bartlett, who also directed) and "Malloy" (Earle Lyon), old pals from Stateside service. When Finch "buys it" during a brief shootout with German patrol troops, Sgt. Jack reluctantly takes over. He dreads the responsibility of soldiers dying under his command. The four enlisted men are "Chief" (Fred Foote), a tall, silent Indian who never says a word but is fearless. Then there are two mooks: "Horse" (Frank Stanlow), a wimpy blowhard from Chicago, and "Pepe" (Earl Hansen) from Brooklyn. Pepe's the real deal, a tough guy and former gang member. He proves his mettle early on in the fight with the German foot soldiers. It's as grim as the violence in "Platoon", not glossed over as in the bigger Hollywood WW2 productions. In war, death is grim and brutal, and freaking awful. It's savage, because it's kill-or-be-killed, and you have to tell yourself that the other guys deserve it, because they're the freaking enemy.
Or do they deserve it? This picture was made in 1954, but even that early, the filmmakers question the need to kill prisoners. 45 years before "Saving Private Ryan", there's a scene almost exactly like the one in that movie, where a German soldier is caught. The platoon members all want to kill him. He speaks English but hedges his answers, and lies. But Sergeant Jack, with his pacifist tendencies, won't agree to kill him. "Why should we?", he asks. "just tie him up". This is exactly (or very similar to) Private Ryan, in which the German, having been spared, comes back to attack the Americans. "Should've killed him in the first place!" Pepe shouts at Sgt. Jack. Once again, I have to question if a famous director, in this case Spielberg, saw and cribbed from a little-known film.
The squad makes it to the farm, but there's a small outbuilding on the boundary. "Check it out", Sgt. Jack says to Pepe and Horse. They do, and find a goat on the way back, bringing it along for its milk. Small details like this add to the realism. A machine gun nest lies ahead. This time, Sgt. Jack sends his pal Sgt. Malloy to check it out. He does, and the tension is ratcheted.
A small house stands near the machine gun nest. A light is on inside, so Malloy inspects it, too, and discovers a French maiden and German officer at a table, sharing wine. He quickly stabs the officer, and then, something so preposterous happens, at the 56 minute mark, that I'm amazed it was allowed into the script, because it would absolutely never happen in real life. Never in a million years. I could understand including it, if this were a stylized war movie. But it's not; the whole point is its gritty realism, so to throw this action in, out of the blue, almost negated the whole shebang for me. Then, there's a follow up, where another soldier is sent to look for Malloy. He comes back and reports, "Malloy's okay, he'll be back in a couple minutes." In connection with the first action, this would also never happen in a million years, especially on a mission of this utmost importance.
If you can ignore these two things (and I'd love to ask the screenwriter, "Are you kidding?") the movie is one of the better low-budget WW2 flicks we've seen. Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. The picture is good, not great. The budget was so low that only improbable spots were used to light the sets and make the nighttime action visible. ////
And that's all I know. My blogging music is "Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble" and "The Magician's Birthday", both by Uriah Heep, who - I've come to the conclusion - are one of the greatest bands of all time. Think about it: first off, you've got David Byron, undoubtedly the best of the operatic hard rock singers, which is saying something in the company of Gillan, Halford and the like. Then you have Ken Hensley, Heep's leader, on keys, rhythm guitar and harmony vocals. Hensley wasn't as technical a keyboard player as Jon Lord, and nowhere near the level of an Emerson or Wakeman, but Heep's music didn't call for that type of playing. What he did instead was create a distinctive, grinding organ sound that became a band signature. He also wrote most of the music, one great song after another, and what made Uriah Heep different from a band like Deep Purple (and Pat pointed this out), was that - while they weren't as instrumentally complex as DP - they were perhaps more dramatic and progressive, as a song like "July Morning" demonstrates. They also had multiple harmonies on many songs, complimenting the high tenor of David Byron, making the vocal line even more powerful and dynamic. Their secret weapon was Gary Thain, and it must be noted again, that he should be more famous than he is, because Thain (who died of a heroin overdose in 1975), is quite simply on the level of a John Entwhistle or a Geddy Lee, in his own way. The way in which he plays inside a riff, and not only drives it, but turns it around by anticipating the beat, bouncing and dribbling it around, is amazing. This guy redefined "groove" and "pocket". Find some live Heep clips on Youtube and watch him, he's phenomenal. Lastly, UH had Lee Kerslake and Mick Box on drums and guitar respectively, neither one a shredder but both extremely musical where it counts.
That's how I'd sum up Uriah Heep: they were very musical. I was surprised to discover Ritchie Blackmore is also a fan; Blackmore's Night have covered two Heep songs, "Gypsy" and "Lady in Black". Heep's "Sweet Freedom" from 1973 is one of the first records I ever bought (at College Records), and I've always liked the band, but in the last two years I've realised just how great they are, and they've become one of my favorites, right up there with Deep Purple themselves. So there you have it. Long live Uriah Heep.
My late night is Handel's Joseph and His Brethren Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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