Last night, Scott Brady starred in "Canon City"(1948), the story of a prison break in that Rocky Mountain town, shot in and around the lockup it occurred in. The real warden co-stars. Brady, the brother of Lawrence Tierney (and just as good an actor) plays "Jim Sherbondy", a con doing a 10 year stretch for armed robbery. Some older felons in the machine shop are planning a breakout; Jim doesn't want any part of it, or them, because he's getting out in two years. He tells the ringleader to shove off. But they need him because his workspace has a locker where they can hide their prison-made guns. They strong arm him by essentially saying, "You may have been sentenced for a bank job, but we know you also killed a cop." Thus blackmailed, he is forced to join them.
The breakout takes place on a pre-planned night during a shift change. But it just so happens that a blizzard is raging outside - bad timing for the convicts, who already have to fight their way out through the remaining barriers and guard posts in the medieval prison, then jump the barbed wire wall. And when they land on the other side, they fall waist deep in snow, which wets their clothes and gets in their shoes, freezing their feet.
They make it to a farmhouse across Rocky Mountain terrain, and a suspension bridge that's higher than the Empire State Building. One guy falls over the side. A hardened lifer played by Jeff Corey splits from the group and ends up at a house where he takes a family hostage. Their grandmother eventually hits him on the head with a hammer. The other escapees fall one by one, in the snow. Two are caught by cops and returned to Canon City. That leaves Scott Brady, who invades the home of an average American family. He never wanted to be part of the break in the first place, but now that he's out, he certainly doesn't want to be recaptured. "I don't wanna hurt nobody, I just wanna be free. So don't cross me and you'll all be fine." The psychological aspects of the plot now kick in. The Mom feeds him, which cracks his facade. The little girl says, "I like you. You aren't like they say on the radio." That further mellows him, though he's still desperate. Finally, the little boy gets a cramp. It turns out hes got a ruptured appendix. Mom begs Brady to let her take the kid to a hospital. He reluctantly agrees, with a warning: "Just remember, I've got your husband and your daughter right here with me." Mom returns, having delivered her boy to the emergency room without calling the cops. Dad says to Brady, "I'll tell you what. Since you gave my son a chance to live, I am willing to drive you out of town, past the roadblocks. That will get you out of our house and give you a chance at freedom. If you stay here it will only mean death for us all."
Brady agrees. The daughter rides along, and they drive him through a mountain pass but the cops have it blocked off at the top. Brady gives up rather than take Dad and daughter hostage, and the warden says, "We'll consider that you did the honorable thing" as they take him back to Canon City prison. It's one of those prison redemption flicks that in this case happens to be a true story. It was Scott Brady's first role, he would go on to make many Noirs. Shot by the great John Alton, the picture is unfortunately soft. A restoration would be nice. Two Big Thumbs Up, with a high recommendation. ////
The night before that, we had "Mad Dog Coll"(1961) starring the creepy John Davis Chandler as a sociopathic young gangster, abused as a child and so angry that he's crazy enough to take on the legendary Dutch Schultz. Nothing Dutch or the cops can dish out can be one-tenth as bad as what his dad subjected him to, which we see at the beginning of the movie. He has a military-grade machine gun, rare in the early 30s, which gives him an advantage over the rifles and Tommyguns of the other gangster squads. Telly Savalas plays the cop who tried to set him straight as a teen. But he went bad and badder, and it's a true story. Two Big Thumbs Up, if you can handle 90 minutes of Davis-Chandler's performance, which is very good, but eerie. The picture is very good also.
Sorry for the short review on that one, but the going is rough at the moment.
We do have a bonus movie, made for TV, called "Weekend of Terror"(1970), about two weirdos who botch a kidnapping, then kidnap three nuns to try and fix the situation. Lee Majors and Robert Conrad are the bad guys, with Conrad very convincingly playing the psychotic one. Remember when he said "I dare you to knock this off" in that Eveready battery commercial? That used to tick me off as a teen. But he was great in "Wild, Wild, West" and he's very good here (though frightening). Lee Majors plays the emotionally damaged army pilot who is both cowed by Conrad and compassionate toward their captives. But when push comes to shove he's just as unstable. Lois Nettleton plays a former nun who has become a New Age Hippie, wearing a short skirt when she visits her former Sisters on vacation. They hope to convince her to rejoin the convent, but she speaks a whole new language now, using phrases of the era like "can you dig it?" Still, she retains their Godly spirit. The trio head out on a road trip to the convent, but have engine trouble in the Arizona desert. When their car stalls, they are offered roadside assistance by Conrad, who has "accidentally" killed the original, intended kidnap victim by putting her through torturous "escape games" for his amusement, truly terrifying stuff.
With their hostage dead, Conrad and Majors are screwed as far as collecting any ransom, because the girl's Dad is demanding proof of life before he'll pay. Conrad gets the idea to kidnap another woman and dress her in the dead girl's clothes and with a wig. That's when he happens upon Lois Nettleton, who is flagging down cars to help the stalled trio. He thinks she's alone, so he stops with the intention of kidnapping her, but then he sees the other two nuns in the car, dressed in habits, and he tricks them into riding back to his house, which is located in the middle of nowhere. The head nun has a bad feeling on the way, and it turns out she's right. Majors prevents Conrad from abusing them in any way, ("Cmon, they're nuns!"), so the viewer is spared any atrocities, including violence. But they still know he plans to kill them when the ransom money is delivered, because they've heard Conrad say "we can't leave any witnesses." The plot then becomes their attempts to escape, and the movie lives up to it's title. The ending seemed to me a little too "Stockholm Syndrome", and I didn't agree with it whatsoever. Other than that, a gripping TV movie. The picture is good not great. ////
And that's all I've got for the moment. I hope you have a nice weekend. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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