Noche candente

By 1957, the dark fire of the noir cycle had all but died down, yet amid the embers were a few live coals. Plunder Road was one; another is Hot Summer Night. It stars the young Leslie Nielsen, then being groomed as a tough romantic lead, as an out-of-work newspaper man from Kansas City on his honeymoon in the Ozarks who can't pass up a lead on a brutal bank robbery.

Trouble is, in the possum-run of a town he's staying in, the head of the gang (Robert Wilke) has become a local hero; nobody wants to whisper a word, both out of pride and fear of reprisal. When Nielsen finally gets taken to the rural hideout, long-simmering violence among the thieves erupts, and he finds himself held for ransom by the trigger-happy new leader (Paul Richards). Meanwhile the poor bride (Colleen Miller) doesn't know where her husband has disappeared to, and finds herself running into the same obstinate wall of silence....

Produced by MGM (which head of production Dore Schary had nudged toward noir), Hot Summer Night boasts a clean, straightforward script, a score by André Previn, and a roster of well-cast players even in small parts, among them Marianne Stewart, Claude Akins, and the always excellent Jay C. Flippen. It's a modest but workmanlike picture that holds up well close to half a century after its release.

Note: Another commentator called this movie `Ma and Pa Kettle meet Cornell Woolrich.' While the point is appreciated, the immortal Kettles made their debut in the Claudette Colbert/Fred MacMurray vehicle The Egg and I of 1947, which was set in the Pacific Northwest, not, as is often assumed, in the Ozarks or Appalachia.

Tom Ellis and his murderous bank robbery crew have their hideout in rural Ozarks. Newspaper reporter Bill Partain (Leslie Nielsen) and his wife are on their honeymoon in a nearby cabin. He's in between jobs after a newspaper merger. When he gets a tip on the robbers, he decides to investigate but finds the locals less than welcoming.

It's interesting to see Leslie Nielsen as the young leading man. He has a stoic sincerity to his performance but he has trouble showing fear. That's the missing element which keeps the tension at a lower level. He doesn't feel like he's in danger despite the fact that his character is definitely in danger. All in all, this is an interesting little noir.

A newlywed ex-reporter sees a big story in a desperado gang holed up near his honeymoon site. Trouble is the townsfolk like the bank-robbers a lot more than they do the city outsider. But the persistent newsman smells the kind of story that might get him re-employed.

I guess I'm in a minority, but I found the results here pretty ordinary. Glossy MGM simply did not have a feel for B-movies, not even with RKO's former noir impresario Dore Scary at the helm. The movie's real potential is in a first-rate supporting cast that should have been allowed to ooze menace. Trouble is director Friedkin films events flatly and from an impersonal distance. Thus we're denied Paul Richards' (Elly) special brand of unnerving facial tics; at the same time, Wilke (Ellis) is robbed of his usual brand of thuggish menace. I realize Ellis has got to have enough nice-nice to merit the town's respect, still that undercuts the distinctive presence the movie needs. On the other hand, Flippen's fine as the levelheaded Oren, the sort of avuncular role he did so well in the previous year's The Killing. Nielsen's okay in the starring role, but the lightweight Miller has way too much malt shop for a crime drama, and is a poor match for the sturdy Nielsen.

Get set, however, for the film's one distinguishing feature, a startling development halfway through. Too bad the direction didn't reach this level of imagination.

On a more historical note, it's probably worth pointing out that many areas of the US idolized 1930's bank-robbing desperadoes like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde. Needless to say, foreclosure banks were not exactly popular among depression-era folks. In fact, Floyd was reputed to have destroyed mortgage paperwork among the banks he robbed. So that part of the movie is interesting and based on what's now little known fact.

All in all, the crime drama's not a bad movie just a cheaply produced programmer that should have been more effective than it is.

Late fifties Metro addition to the film noir genre, Ozarks-style, featuring Leslie Nielsen. A comedy, you say,--perish the thought! Nielsen was in his 'next-Glenn Ford' phase, and plays it straight down the line, no chaser, no jokes, and he's very good. This is an exceedingly well-crafted, offbeat little thriller about a big city reporter in over his head as he tracks down a legendary outlaw in an extremely backward, backwoods community. The sense of isolation is very well built up, as is the cluelessness of the man and his wife, who simply don't know what to do, or even how to talk to these people. Among the denizens of the backwoods are such choice Hollywood masters of the cretinous as Claude Akins and James Best. The po-faced Paul Richards plays an unhinged character; a nice piece of offbeat casting, this. Robert Wilkie manages to be both warm and frightening as the honcho bad guy. What makes the film work is its marvelous and all-pervading sense of not only the unknown but the unknowable, as we learn just how naive city folks can be when out of their element. It is literally a night movie, thus there is no question about it being film noir. Strangeness lurks everywhere on these back roads, where one might expect Robert Mitchum to turn up, or maybe Bonnie and Clyde, or maybe Jeff Dahmer. One never can tell. You think rural communities are idyllic? Think again. The biggest surprise and most charming performance in the film by far is by Edward Andrews, who normally plays smarmy, scheming or mean-spirited white collar types, often with a comic touch, totally absent here. In Hot Summer Night he is the local sheriff, and he is salvation itself. The movie just goes to show, for the umpteenth time, how far creative people can go with seemingly routine material; how it can be exciting and shocking and even, in its presentation, new. It also shows how fun it can be to see stereotypes played with, altered, turned upside down and inside out, both as to casting, locale and viewer expectation.

Newlyweds Leslie Nielsen and Colleen Miller are traveling through the Ozarks in search of a story. He's a recently laid off reporter and what he's looking for is an interview with a John Dillinger like criminal who is from there and is a local legend. And the town is very protective f that legend.

It takes a while but Nielsen finds the legend played by Robert Wilke. He gets his interview. But quite suddenly Nielsen becomes the story.

A lot of familiar character players turn in some top drawer performances. No stars in this film give it a nice authentic ring. if I had to choose one it would be Paul Richards ho made a career of playing deranged individuals. Richards may have got a career role here.

No frills for ts B film, but a great cast and story.