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".

The writer and director of this film tried to rekindle the atmosphere of San Francisco with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. That film was a rouser. This one is a dud. There are more holes in this script than a golf course in Florida. The indian character, Charlie, is one-dimensional, Morgan is annoyingly suffering from megalomania, Talman is suffering from self-delusion about the love of the female lead, who loves neither of the two men; she just loves being in the movie, and there are several pots left boiling on the stove. For example, a mean gang at the start of film is never heard from again, we don't know how Talman met his romantic interest, we don't know why people did not do proper research before spending a few million dollars on a get richer quicker scheme, when they were already wealthy and comfortable, and we don't know how an Italian restaurant came to be in the middle of the desert (although it would make a fortune as one of the few places to get a decent meal). Watch at your own peril.

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.

Uranium Boom (1956)

*** (out of 4)

William Castle's melodrama takes place in Colorado as Brad (Dennis Morgan) and Grady (William Talman) decide to go in together to look for uranium. They finally strike it so Brad goes to town to file the claim when he meets Jean (Patricia Medina) and they fall in love. The only problem is that Grady also loves her so he turns his back on both of them. Soon Brad and Jean are rich but Grady enters the picture again to teach them a lesson.

URANIUM BOOM is pure "B" movie material, which is what you'd expect from director Castle and producer Sam Katzman. If you're looking for some sort of hard-hitting drama then you'll probably be disappointed but if you're looking for a fast and cheap but ultimately fun movie to waste a hour on then there's certainly much worst out there.

I must admit that there were all kinds of flaws with this movie including a really awful love story but at the same time the thing kept me entertained from start to finish. I think in a lot of ways the film is a rip-off of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and especially the early scenes with the men out looking to become rich. All of these scenes were fun and I thought the cast was good enough to keep you glued to what's going on.

The film starts off with one of the worst fist fights that I've ever seen but once we get into the desert things pick up and especially a few scenes with some bad guys. As the film moves along we get into the drama with the third character coming back into play and I thought this too was fun in its own way. It certainly helped that Morgan, Medina, Talman and Tina Carver were so much fun in their roles.

The film was obviously done with a very small budget and the picture certainly wears its "B" quality on its sleeve. With that being said, the film clocks in at just 67-minutes and it kept me entertained through each of them.

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.