Uranium Boom

I was impressed by William Castle horror movies, but unfortunetely didn't see them with their unique gimmick screenings. However, I was puzzled when I read his autobiography « Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul » (don't miss the chapter on the production of "Rosemary's baby") , he was so imaginative (even if inspired by Hitchcock). That's why I love B movies, they can be so inventive, like Castle's "When strangers marry". But "Uranium Boom" is desperetly slow with lot of conversations, even the fights are badly choreographed. And even when Morgan, Talman and their Indian friend Charlie have their jeep saboted by dishonest competitors, while Charlie saboted their truck at the same time, there was no sequence showing how they repaired their jeep, and no sequence showing the angryness of the crooks when their truck gets out of order, only one general shot of the jeep repaired driving next to the truck, really shot quickly with no interest. Well, the only minor attraction is gorgeous Patricia Medina in profile, and as the trailer says, she is "the girl who set all the Geiger counters clicking". So a very chatty script, speaking about action without showing it. From William Castle from the 50's, I advise "Cave of outlaws".

What should have been a scathing critique of cut-throat capitalism emerges as a very dull and cliched B-picture from Sam Katzman over at Columbia Pictures, designed to bore the hell out of a "I'll sit through anything audience" of the '50s. William Castle as director is on auto-pilot throughout, yet to discover his niche as a gimmickry king.

The story is creaky and with some very poor dialogue at times, not believable. Two guys meet, fight, become partners as Colorado uranium prospectors, fall for the same girl, bombshell Patricia Medina, become enemies and climax the film with another fist-fight, a rushed reconciliation and ridiculous happy ending, "sharing" (not sexually) Medina to ride off into the sunset. It's phony throughout, pulling punches at every turn in order to earn a double-G rating I suppose.

There were many, many roadblocks along the way to interfere with my enjoyment of a simple, old-fashioned piece of escapism. It's hard to imagine weaker heroes than Dennis Morgan and William Talman -both are playing either bad good guys or good bad guys -take your pick. Early on is Dutch actor Philip Van Zandt, a familiar bit player. With darkened-up makeup (not blackface but serving a similar purpose) he plays their cheerful Indian sidekick, pleasant racism on the half shell. He's about as convincing as would be casting Steven Van Zandt as an Indian, except Steven has that bandana and a scowl to help him get into character.

Then there's a beautiful young blonde named Sue introduced being friendly to Morgan in an early scene, immediately to disappear from the show. She gets no screen credit, and no eagle-eyed IMDb-er has yet identified the actress and submitted her name (uncredited).

After their Yellow Rock mine hits it big, Morgan inexplicably turns into a cut-throat, acquisitive capitalist, squeezing out all the little miners to try and build an empire worthy of John D. Rockefeller. Leader of the nice-guy indies is Henry Rowland, odd casting as he's a wonderful heavy (adept at portraying Nazis), who a decade later became a regular in Russ Meyer's wonderful softcore action movies. Here he's a bland good guy.

Then we have an effective femme fatale type, blonde Tina Carver, cast as a hired hand from Talman to undo his now-enemy Morgan both financially and matrimonially, as Morgan has married Medina. She should have been exciting, but her role is poorly written and squeaky-clean.

I grew up with Edward G. Robinson as my favorite actor, watching all his "defeated by hubris" classics from Warner Brothers on the late show, notably "Silver Dollar", "Smart Money" and especially "I Loved a Woman". "Uranium Boom" follows the pattern but muffs it. The "get rich" version of the American Dream in this film is fake and unenlightening.

Dennis Morgan and William Talman strike uranium. While Talman stands guard. Morgan goes to register the claim. He meets Patricia Medina, woos her and marries her. When he brings her out to the mine, it turns out Talman was already in love with her. He walks out.

It's the sort of movie that had already been made many times, usually with a setting of wildcat oil drillers. The principals are as good as you might expect, but given producer Sam Katzman, there are no frills in the production, and the ending seems to settle things up oddly quickly.

It was Morgan's last movie; Talman would settle into a long run on television losing cases to Raymond Burr's Perry Mason. With Philip van Zandt, Tina Carver and Frank Wilcox.

I did not know that the greedy awful producer Sam Katzman was involved in such adventures dramas, for which I expected the worst of the worst. But I was very surprised to find here a rather acceptable, however flat and uninspired, but never awful junk to watch. It is not a crap, only no ambition is revealed here, nor from the producer - Katzman - or director William Castle whose work is bland at the most. William Castle has given us much much better in his pre horror part of his career. It is a rare film though, hard to find from William Castle for whom there are still fans; But I warn you, it is totally forgettable. Fun, not really boring but forgettable.

I realized very quickly that "Uranium Boom" wasn't a particularly good film when only five minute into the movie, two guys meet and decide to have a fist fight over who gets a hotel room! Such macho histrionics don't bode well for the story. And as for the story, it's set in Colorado in the 1950s and there is a Uranium rush...sort of like the Gold Rush of 1847. Lots of prospectors are trying to get rich and the two guys who were slugging each other a few minutes ago are now partners! Along the way, Brad (Dennis Morgan) and Grady (William Tallman) pick up a ridiculous guide, Navajo Charlie. Charlie is a whole lot of stupid stereotypes rolled into one...some offensive but mostly stupid.

Eventually the trio strike it rich. However, when Brad goes into town to register their big claim, he runs into Jean (Patricia Medina) and they fall in love and marry...and the courtship is whirlwind to say the least. But when they return to Grady and the claim, they realize that Grady is Jean's boyfriend...the one she hasn't yet told she was breaking it off with him. Ooops! Well, not surprisingly, Grady and Brad are no longer friends. Grady goes east and concocts a scheme to destroy Brad and Brad becomes the local Uranium baron...gobbling up all the land around him and making many enemies in the process. What's next? Well, who really cares? I know I didn't.

To say the characters are one-dimensional caricatures is putting it very succinctly. Morgan's character makes no sense, Tallman's character makes no sense and, thankfully, Philip Van Zandt (Navajo Charlie) just disappears from the movie and nothing more is said of him. Their arguments seem contrived, their actions seem inconsistent and you can't help but think the script could have used a re-write. Dull nonsense...and evidence that Morgan's star, once very bright, was now faded to be in such a sub-par B.

By the way, there's a second fight between Brad and Grady near the end. Watch as Grady jumps out of his chair to hit Brad...it's clearly not Tallman at all. In fact, again and again, it's VERY obvious they are using stuntmen...and not hiding them well at all. Sloppy and funny at the same time.