You just can't go wrong with Lippert Pictures. Robert J. Lippert is like the American version of England's Butcher Brothers: an independent producer of crime films who never turns out a bad flick. This time, he gives us "The Big Chase"(1954), a two-fold story about a rookie patrol officer just starting a family, and a gang of imprisoned criminals planning a Brink's job as soon as they're paroled. Lives will converge. The stories are framed, in flashback, by a reporter (Captain Binghamton) out for a scoop.
As the movie opens, Captain Binghamton visits "Lieutenant Ned Daggert" (Douglas Kennedy) at LAPD headquarters, asking for procedural details for a newspaper series he's writing. "I'm interested in how a murder is investigated, step by step." Daggert starts by giving him the usual police cliches, but Binghamton wants the "inside" stuff. "How do officers talk to each other? What happens the moment they find a body?" Then he sees a baby's rattle on Daggert's desk, next to a 38. revolver. "That's an interesting combination. Mind letting me in on the connection?"
Thus begins the flashback into the story of "Officer Pete Grayson" (Glenn Langan), Lt. Daggert's war buddy from Korea (Grayson was in the older Daggert's squad). Grayson always wanted to be a policeman, so he could work in the Juvenile Division. As a former delinquent, he wants to help troubled teens. Daggert would rather he try out for detective. Grayson's new wife "Doris" (Adele Jergens) wishes he wasn't a cop. "All I do is worry," she tells him. Doris is pregnant with their first child. Pete dotes on her, cooking terrible dinners (because in 1954, men can't cook), making sure she's comfortable and off her feet. So far, all is routine in his early weeks on patrol. He's learning the ropes as he waits for an opening in juvie.
CUT TO: San Quentin, where two cellies are talking about what they'll do when they get out. One vows to go straight. The other hedges. He's got a pal in another block (Northridger Jim Davis) who has a big job planned when both are released in six months. "Keep your nose clean and stay away from troublemakers," Davis tells "Bunkie" (Phil Arnold). "We do our time, we're out, and were rich."
By this time, six months later, Doris Grayson is close to giving birth. Hubby Pete is a nervous first time papa. Lieutenant Daggert tries to keep him calm. He does his job, even trains a new recruit. But boy is he nervous about the baby. Men! (I tell ya....)
Jim Davis and Bunkie are paroled and have their robbery all set to go: a Brinks job. They stay at a motel owned by Jim's wife's cousin, a ex-con mook himself. Talk about jam-packing a script! They even have time for a subtheme about an investigation at the motel. Lippert uses great L.A locations from 70 years ago.
The last twenty minutes are the Brinks robbery, which is brief, and then the Big Chase of the title, which is major-league, with Lon Chaney Jr. sitting in the back seat of the getaway convertible. Then the robbers switch to a coupe they've stashed, after Jim's wife (their driver) is shot dead on the freeway by the cops. Question: did police actually shoot at suspects in pursuit in the old days? It's a fact that they shot at chase suspects from helicopters, and they do that here. But did they also lean out the windums of their patrol cars and shoot at criminals on the highway? With citizen drivers all around? The freeway traffic was sparse then, so maybe they did.
The "Big Chase" of the title lives up to its name, and the opening credits make a point to list Robert J. Lippert as the second unit director of the chase sequence, which takes place on less-developed on ramps and off ramps of yore: less concrete, less foliage, less surrounding development, in areas we are all familiar with. I thought I detected the 101 on-ramp near Sunset and Western. There's a bunch of good ones.
The crooks are trying to get to a marina (don't know location) where they've got a rowboat that will take them to a motorboat that will get them to Mexico, they hope. But the motel owner has given them away, under a third-degree browbeating by Lt. Daggert. A police helicopter chases them down (a precursor to modern day chases), and Officer Grayson catches Jim Davis on the beach. Then he gets word that Doris has gone into labor, and makes it to the hospital just after their baby girl is born. He's all bruised up from the chase and the fight. Lon Chaney never says a word of dialogue; his role is never explained and he gets killed in a "monstrous"- looking scene, befitting his image.
Seeing his bruised-up condition, Doris again bemoans Pete's choice of profession but vows to stand by him and his terrible cooking. And, cutting back to Daggert's office from whence we began the movie, Captain Binghamton has all he needs for his story.
Boy, this is how you do it, how you make a good, solid cop movie. To start with, you shoot it in black & white. Color ruins these kinds of films because it ads "reality" and we don't want that in a crime movie. We want pure story. Then, you shoot it in the early 50s, in undeveloped Los Angeles. You have a family values plot, where good guys rule and criminals are scum, and you have a winner, especially if you are Lippert Pictures and you know how to make a tight film. Two Bigs and a very high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we found an excellent Western: "Davy Crockett, Indian Scout"(1950), starring George Montgomery as the original Crockett's nephew. I wasn't able to determine if this Davy Crockett was a real person or not. The only other descendant listed on Wikipedia was an outlaw. Anyhow, the story follows the lead-up to the Battle of Manitou Pass in Utah, between the warlike Kiowa tribe and the US Army. Crockett, a frontiersman like his uncle, knows the Indians and is good at making peace. With his trusted sidekick "Red Hawk", who sides with the Army because his family was murdered by Comanches, he is able to open most doors.
But not this time. There's a spy in the wagon train Davy and Red Hawk are leading through Utah to the west coast. The Army has been sent to the area because of hostile Indians, in the wake of the Mexican-American war. The west was then opened to settlers, but the more aggressive tribes didn't appreciate that and attacked the incoming wagon trains. It wasn't entirely the fault of the white man, or the Army, as far left revisionists like to claim. There were many attempts to make peace, in a huge continent with room for everybody. As other tribes pointed out at the time, many were willing to go along with the pre-reservation peace treaties, but the warlike tribes opposed. And before the whites even arrived, these tribes attacked the peaceful tribes. On the white side, worse than the Army were the civilian settlers, who moved onto Indian land in violation of the treaties.
In the movie, all this has led up to Kiowa Chief "Lone Eagle" (Robert Barrat) declaring total war on the white man trying to cross into the West, including the Army. In the wagon train are schoolmarm "Frances Oatman" (Ellen Drew) and her driver, who Red Hawk discovers are both spies. Miss Oatman is half-Kiowa, Chief Lone Eagle is her father. He wants to be the leader of all the American tribes; "He sees himself as another Pontiac." says Frances. But really he's dictatorial and ruthless, a megalomaniac.
Red Hawk is captured by Lone Eagle's men, and is taken back to the Kiowa camp and tortured. Miss Oatman, who by now now has ridden away to join her father the Chief, feels guilty for tricking the wagon train, who - after all - are just innocent civilians. When she learns that her father is planning a massacre including "every white man woman and child", she helps Red Hawk escape. He rides back to the wagon train, consults with Davy, and they send a messenger, at great risk, through Indian country, to tell the Major at Army HQ about Chief Lone Eagle's plans. It looks like the outpost, and the wagon train en route, are doomed. Lone Eagle has hundreds of braves at his disposal, and repeating rifles as well as bows and arrows. All the Army has is a few dozen soldiers, and Davy Crockett.
But - they do have explosives, powder kegs. The climactic battle is expertly staged, and man, what a showdown. It looks like the real thing. This film needs a Criterion restoration, but the real selling point is the cast, especially George Montgomery, who had long hair for 1950, and was so handsome that he had to play down his looks, and be an "aww shucks, ma'am" type. He was Ronald Reagan's close friend and a talented artist, who later in life made bronze sculptures, including some of Reagan on horseback. Philip Reed as Red Hawk is noble. Ellen Drew as Frances Oatman is alternately treacherous, then guilt-ridden and self sacrificing. Noah Beery Jr. plays "Tex", a sharpshooting fur-trapper. There's also the racist settler "Simms" (Erik Rolf), who hates "Injuns" because his wife got shot in an attack. He'd hate 'em anyway, but his honesty and loyalty are tested when he has to man-up and help Red Hawk in the shootout with the deadly Kiowa.
In our 60 minute Westerns of last year, we didn't see many Indian battles. It was mostly Wild West stuff, Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, and all Americans, lawmen vs. criminals. This is a more epic Western, albeit produced by the unknown Reliant Pictures (distributed by UA), but it delivers the big-time goods while giving us some history. We love George Montgomery, a precursor to Clint Eastwood, if Eastwood was easy going. Therefore Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation for "Davy Crockett, Indian Scout". The picture is slightly soft. ////
That's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Green" by the great Steve Hillage, in honor of his birthday. My late night is "Rienzi" by Richard Wagner. I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo :):)
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