The Houston Story

Gene Barry works in the Texas oil fields but he's got other plans... He's come up with a plan to steal oil from the fields and sell it on the grey market. To get the plan financed, he identifies a jane doe suicide as the former name of torch singer Barbara Hale, who knows the local underground. Not wanting trouble, she gives in, and Barry meets up with local boss Edward Arnold and his #1 man, Paul Richards. They agree to the plan, and soon Barry is rolling in money. But Barry wants to climb higher in the organisation, while Arnold and Richards want to get rid of him.

Lee J. Cobb was originally planned to play the lead role, but I really can't imagine him in this role. Barry ('Naked Alibi') does a great job and also has nice chemistry with Hale ('The Clay Pigeon'), who is an almost unrecognizable platinum blonde femme fatale here. The rest of the cast are good, but it's Barry and Hale who excel here. Hale even pulls off a convincing 'Put The Blame On Mame', altho she's no Rita Hayworth.

A bit of a derivative story (and title), but who cares when it's executed this well. This was director William Castle's last noir ('Johnny Stool Pigeon', 'New Orleans Uncensored') and he keeps things interesting, aided by some nice cinematography by Henry Freulich ('Chicago Syndicate', 'The Miami Story'). I was more than pleasantly surprised by this late noir. Recommended! 8/10

Oil driller Frank Duncan has an idea to steal oil worth millions. He goes through nightclub singer Zoe Crane to recruit Houston mobster Paul Atlas for the scheme. Atlas intends to double-cross him but Duncan intends to win in the end.

This is a functional crime noir. I don't recognize any of the faces. The acting is fair. It's good that the lead character is a bad guy but still one worth rooting interest. The slap fight is kinda funny but I get the reason. The production looks good and the style is mostly fine.

The Houston Story is a slightly formulaic yet very entertaining film from William Castle of The House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler fame. The movie is about a young, ambitious oil-driller who involves himself with organized crime and double crosses his way to the top of his respective racket. Gene Barry turns out a solid performance as well as Perry Mason veteran Barbara Hale, who plays the femme fatale to a tee, always following the money and the man in charge. Hale is introduced in a very enjoyable song act that did the job of conveying her character as well as,if not better than, the writing did.

Despite a few predictable scenes and some forced writing, The Houston Story is a thoroughly enjoyable film worth viewing.

Also, watch for a few entertaining performances from Edward Arnold and Paul Richards.(remember Beneath the Planet of the Apes??)

In The Houston Story Gene Barry plays an oil company executive who has come up with an interesting idea for robbing the oil fields of crude. But he needs operating money and a lot of it. His torch singer girl friend Barbara Hale puts him in touch with some local Houston wise guys and upon that our story begins.

Barry wants to slant or side drill some existing oil fields. You might remember in the Paul Newman film The Drowning Pool, oil millionaire Murray Hamilton makes some illusions to slant drilling. Basically it's drilling into an existing pool on an angle and pumping out hat you need.

The big surprise her is Barbara Hale best known as Della Street on the Perry Mason series. She's one sultry chanteuse and she's good. But they should gave dubbed her singing of Put The Blame On Mame as they did for Rita Hayworth. Hale just is not a good singer.

Edward Arnold is a mid level hood in the Houston organized crime scene and Paul Richards as usual does a fine job as a torpedo for hire.

As for Barry he does good for a while, but in the end he's batting way out of his league.

"The Houston Story" is a film noir movie from director William Castle about an overly ambitious guy who wants to move too quickly up the ranks of organized crime.

Gene Barry plays Frank Duncan, an oil worker who has dreams of being a big man. So he comes up with a scheme to do some slant drilling (in essence, drilling sideways instead of down) and tapping into other folks' oil claims. But he lacks the money to do this and makes a pitch to some guys in organized crime. After a short time, it becomes very apparent that Frank is pretty nutty as he wants to scheme to replace the hoods running this local deal. And, for a while it looks like he'll succeed....at first!

This is a good, tough film. I enjoyed the dialog, the femme fatale and the story idea. But it also felt very rushed....as Frank goes from a nobody to a huge man too quickly and it just felt a bit ridiculous...though STILL a very good film...especially for noir fans.