88% (2) Intruder in the Dust 87 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama] [Clarence Brown] [24 Mar 1950]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 2 wins & 6 nominations.
Actors: Claude Jarman Jr., David Brian, Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall
Writer: William Faulkner (novel), Ben Maddow
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.
Rotten Tomatoes: Intruder in the Dust is one of the best of Hollywood's postwar "racial tolerance" cycle--a cycle that would come to an abrupt end in the politically paranoid 1950s. Based on a novel by William Faulkner, the film takes place in a small Mississippi town (it was filmed on location in and around Oxford, MS). Juano Hernandez plays an African-American landowner who is arrested on a murder charge. Resentful of Hernandez' industriousness, the white townsfolk are eager to see him hang. David Brian, the attorney uncle of a young white boy (Claude Jarman Jr.) who has befriended Hernandez, agrees to take the accused man's case. His job is complicated by the lynch-mob mentality fomented by the dead man's brother (Charles Kemper) and Hernandez' refusal to reveal the name of the man he suspects as the killer. The hostile atmosphere reaches a fever pitch, but justice is ultimately served. Intruder in the Dust stands out among other films of its period with its refusal to stoop to any form of condescension towards its black characters or to rationalize the behavior of the bigots. Though produced by MGM, the film wisely displays none of that studio's patented glossiness, opting instead for a dusty, sun-scorched, fleabitten veneer that enhances the film's basic realism.
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87% (2) The Breaking Point 97 min, Not Rated, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller] [Michael Curtiz] [06 Oct 1950]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Actors: John Garfield, Juano Hernandez, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter
Writer: Ranald MacDougall (screen play by), Ernest Hemingway (based on the story by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English, Spanish Country: USA
Plot: Fishing boat captain Harry Morgan charters his boat. Due to strained finances, he is none too careful as to whom he does business with. Real trouble erupts when Harry hires out his boat to transport four men who turn out to be criminals on the lam from a racetrack heist.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this taut adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not a financially struggling charter-boat captain finds himself in deep and turbulent water when he is forced to get involved with smugglers after a dishonest millionaire cheats him out of pay during a fishing excursion to Mexico; the louse also leaves his seductive girl friend, a hooker, stranded on the boat. The desperate captain agrees to illegally smuggle Chinese refugees into the US, but during the voyage, he is again double-crossed and must force his hapless passengers to jump ship when the Coast Guard suddenly appears. They take his boat away from him. Deeply depressed, he has sex with the abandoned woman and then goes home. Meanwhile, the crooked lawyer who talked him into smuggling the refugees, gets the captain's boat back and then blackmails him into taking a gang of crooks to Catalina Island. During the 26-mile voyage things come to a head when one of the crooks kills the skipper's first mate. Suddenly the captain snaps and he finally gets his revenge.
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86% (2) Kiss Me Deadly 106 min, Not Rated, [Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller] [Robert Aldrich] [01 Jul 1955]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, Rotten Tomatoes: 97%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Albert Dekker, Juano Hernandez, Paul Stewart, Ralph Meeker
Writer: Mickey Spillane (novel), A.I. Bezzerides (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English, Italian, Spanish Country: USA
Plot: A frightened woman is running barefoot on a highway, trying desperately to flag a car. After several cars pass her by, the woman sees another car approaching, and to make sure either the car stops - or, she's killed, she stands in the path of an on-coming car. Private Investigator Mike Hammer is the one at the wheel, and after almost hitting the woman, he tells her to get in. The woman's name is Christina Bailey.. She is obviously on the run, being barefoot and wearing nothing but a trench coat, and the scent of fear. Whoever was after her eventually catches up with them. Christina has information they want, but dies while being questioned. The killers fake an accident by pushing Hammer's car off the road, but, he survives, waking up in hospital two weeks later. As Mike starts to investigate Christina's death, he's told by the police to stay out of it, but, the hard-nosed PI proceeds anyways. Little did he know that Christina's secret would lead to death and destruction.
Rotten Tomatoes: This film noir stars Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane's anti-social private eye Mike Hammer. After he and a hitchhiker are kidnapped by thugs, the semiconscious Hammer helplessly watches as the girl is tortured to death. Seeking vengeance, Hammer searches for the secret behind the girl's murder.
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69% (1) Ransom! 109 min, Approved, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller] [Alex Segal] [27 Aug 1956]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Donna Reed, Glenn Ford, Juano Hernandez, Leslie Nielsen
Writer: Cyril Hume (screenplay), Richard Maibaum (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: When his son Andy is kidnapped and held for ransom, David Stannard liquidates his assets to meet the half-million dollar demand. A casual remark by newspaper reporter Charlie Telfer makes him change his mind. Despite the pleas from his wife Edith and brother Al, and the resultant condemnation of the press and public, Stannard goes on a nation-wide television program, displays the money and warns the kidnapper that not one cent will be paid for ransom; instead the money will be used to track down the kidnapper if Andy isn't returned unharmed. The police then find the boy's blood-stained shirt.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this taut, convoluted drama, the son of a small-town couple is kidnapped and ransomed for $500,000. At first the father is willing to pay, but he changes his mind and instead broadcasts a televised offer of a reward for the kidnappers' capture if any harm befalls his son.
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66% (1) Something of Value 113 min, Approved, [Drama, War] [Richard Brooks] [01 Jun 1957]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Dana Wynter, Juano Hernandez, Rock Hudson, Wendy Hiller
Writer: Richard Brooks (screen play), Robert C. Ruark (book)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Even though Peter and Kimani grow up together, Kimani soon finds that different races are treated differently. After the father of Kimani is jailed for following tribal customs, Kimani joins a band of rebels that wants all non-Kenyans out of their country. While Kimani believes in the cause, he does not agree with the indiscriminate killing of women, children and those who will not join or agree with them. Peter, even after the deaths of his little sister and brother by the Mau Mau, still believes that there is a chance for peaceful co-existence. He believes that he can stop most of the killing if he can only reason with Kimani.
Rotten Tomatoes: The literalism of writer-director Richard Brooks serves him well in this meticulously faithful adaptation of the Robert Ruark novel Something of Value. Filmed on location in Africa, this is the story of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, as seen through the eyes of a handful of protagonists. Virtually alone in a sea of racist British colonialism, gentleman farmer Peter McKenzie (Rock Hudson) strives to understand the demands of freedom and equality made by Kenya's black population in particular and his childhood friend Kimani (Sidney Poitier) in particular. Ultimately, however, McKenzie and Kimani find themselves on opposite sides of the fence when the latter aligns himself with the Mau Mau. Without advocating the terrorism of this controversial movement, the screenplay is careful to deal the ongoing iniquities and frustrations that forced men like Kimani to take arms against their white brethren. There were a few theatres in the American south who, feeling that the racial tensions inherent in Something of Value hit too close to home, refused to book this fascinating, thought-provoking, often startlingly brutal film.
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