Parkland Picks with Popcorn #9

Pop Goes: The Whole Truth, Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, Absolute Quiet, and Santa Fe Passage

THE WHOLE TRUTH (1958) --- Producer Stewart Granger ram-rods another of chaotic oversea film crews that Vincente Minnelli would definitively characterize in Two Weeks In Another Town a few years later. What better atmosphere for a murder, and of the hot-blood leading lady at that? Naturally, she's Italian; it seemed in 50's pics that all divas off Rome plazas were just itching to be bumped off. They too would be celebrated down the line with La Dolce Vita, but for meantime, here was The Whole Truth mirroring whole truth of stars on dimmer playing crime like chess in that sophisticated way we imagine film folk would in offscreen life. Stewart Granger is put in the frame by "psychopath" George Sanders, who looks and acts ready to leave because he's bored, to quote the note GS later left for his own exit. There's much transit in sport cars to retrieve evidence and hide same. Pic was produced by Romulus, late of The African Queen and Moulin Rouge, but Huston had left their sets and now it was John Guillermin driving, not a bad prospect as his was generally fine work in genre context. Hammer folks are in credits and onscreen, Roy Ashton at make-up and John Van Eyssen performing. It never seems likely that rakish Granger would be married to Montana farm girl Donna Reed, or that he would care especially if she stays despite his infidelities, The Whole Truth merely another where sense is suspended in service to "mystery" that must be unraveled. Fun for the curious, however, as it's always interesting to see how Brits were going about spade work as TV spread over their rooftops and carried cinema audiences away. The Whole Truth is 1.85 available as a nice Columbia On-Demand DVD.

INSIDE THE WALLS OF FOLSOM PRISON (1951) --- Warners scores a coup, invited inside dreaded cage that was Folsom and laying its brutal past on the line, emphasis on past, of course, to insure present cooperation. WB pulled in horns since I Am A Fugitive days and willingness to take on the Man. Folsom is strictly B by Byrnie Foy cut from soiled cloth and written/directed besides by once-leading man, Crane Wilbur, who actually untied Pauline from train tracks back in 1915. Folsom's "expose" is safely set at turn of the century, only evidence of this a handful of vintage cars in and out of gates. Presumption was that no one would be around to bitch or sue over negative depiction. Dates, of course, are non-specific. We never see calendar leaves like with most prison movies.

Using the actual site was a hypo to verisimilitude, a thing most mellers lacked for not shooting Inside The Walls of ... whatever. Enough stock heavies are here to put some in service to good, thus David Brian as unaccustomed reformer instead of inmate looking to bust out. Steve Cochran is a least rehabilitated of prison population and leads the climactic break, plus there is Ted de Corsia as ultimate of sadistic wardens. Final montage emphasizes "the model prison that Folsom is today," and you wonder what reaction that got where this movie was unspooled to inmates (query: Were prison movies ever shown inside prisons?). WB assurance that all is well in nationwide stirs is a gesture they'd not have made in cynical context of precode filmmaking. Still, Inside The Walls Of Folsom Prison carries a sock the lot of best B's and was something of a twilight for Warners working efficient at an old and favored forge.

ABSOLUTE QUIET (1936) --- Made after MGM had their B unit up/running, a brisk 70 minutes with good ideas and fast runner George B. Seitz as director. He'd do more of these, then steer one after other Andy Hardy afterward. Did pace lead to premature passing in 1944 at age 56? Seitz began in serials, so knew from speed. Though action is confined in Absolute Quiet, there's still movement among a colorful ensemble, Lionel Atwill as string-puller and slightly more benign update on Count Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game, luring guests to his isolated cabin voluntary or not. Atwill saved many a venture like this, he could enhance A's and reliably rescue B's. The situation looks frankly borrowed from The Petrified Forest, though instead of Duke Mantee holding a cast at bay, there is "Jack and Judy," a squirrelly pair of ex-vaudevillians played to hilt by Wallace Ford and Bernadene Hayes, the pair turned loose to show how close support could come to stealing a show, if only Atwill weren't the banker. Absolute Quiet had a negative cost of $168K, played mostly doubles, and ended up breaking even. It surfaces from time to time on TCM.

SANTA FE PASSAGE (1955) --- Trail guide John Payne goes sour on Indians after a flock of them massacre women/kids while he's negotiating with the chief. Santa Fe Passage could be argued as Republic's Trucolor jump on The Searchers, Payne ordeal not unlike Wayne's the following year. JP doesn't like redskins and speaks it plain, going so far as to half-scalp aforementioned renegade chief to leave him looking House Of Wax-y in further battle, this a neatly gory touch in a big-scale (for Republic) western that was anything but "B," despite quick-draw William Witney directing from sun going up to same going down. Don't let anyone kid you that all Republic saddlers were cheapies --- they upgraded after the war and made westerns a lush equal to anybody's. Herb Yates also hired name casts, particularly good character/support people, and there was mostly color policy in effect from 50's dawn. Even some of B's got rainbow treatment.

Santa Fe Passage is near-all outdoors on stunner Southwest Utah sites, action dwarfed by red cliffs put to vivid use by numerous westerns, time aplenty spent against natural landscapes. All this compensates for distinction the story lacks, Witney keeping the pace brisk, Payne plenty good in hard-bitten postwar image-change mode. Faith Domergue is a half-breed heroine Payne must learn to love (she'd later call Witney her favorite director), Slim Pickens an inoffensive sidekick, while Rod Cameron, downgraded from hero leads, is unmasked eventually for a heavy but dies nobly. Santa Fe Passage played once upon better times of Amazon streaming and is surprisingly stout in full-frame, which it shouldn't be, though I cropped the image to 1.85 and the show looked great.