High Yellow

As its title indicates, this old-fashioned, very poorly directed melodrama by Larry Buchanan, famed for his atrocious set of '60s horror movies that I used to see constantly (via AIP syndication) on TV back then, aims to be an exploitation movie, to titillate fans at drive-ins and grindhouses. Instead, it's merely an overwritten, embarrassing and amateurish stinker.

Buchanan's pretentiousness is sealed when the final scene, meant to be a climax of bittersweet "never to be" romance, is scored with library music very familiar from soft porn movies of the '60s, and ends with a freeze frame of a quote for tolerance by Irish poet James Stephens, a favorite author of mine. Yikes!

Story revolves around pipe dreams: heroine Cynthia Hull works as a maid in a wealthy white family's mansion, where she has plans to get ahead by passing for white. The exploitation movie title and subject is fake: she never does this, just talks and thinks about it. Her friend is the Black butler whose dream is merely to steal the family's valuable silver set to be his nest egg to start a new life.

A central character is the footloose, bratty daughter of the family who drives a Jaguar XK-E, and lures Cynthia to a night out on the town (sneaking away when her parents are out) that is her undoing. In a real, major studio movie, they'd go to the Whiskey a-Go-Go and see Johnny Rivers perform (this was made when he was a superstar) but instead we have to sit through Jody Daniels plus a terrible band led by deejay Jimmy Rabbit.

Buchanan's ridiculously pompous screenplay includes a preposterous gimmick: Kay Taylor is slipped a mickey by the valet who parks her Jaguar (for no reason -just seemingly a prank) that sets in motion her murder by Bill Thurman, an untalented villain who pops up in Buchanan movies regularly. The sex and violence is left out of the movie despite it being in the exploitation genre -Buchanan fails to deliver the promised sleaze. And the contrived finale where a completely unbelievable cop uses Cynthia as bait to trap Thurman is inept filmmaking.

Worst scene has Taylor's weakling brother pouring his heart out to Cynthia - relating the trama of his life when, horror of hoorors, he was ready to have sex with a nightclub girl who turned out to be a man in drag, and has felt gilty at NOT feeling disgusted when the guy revealed his identity. The scene stereotypes transvestites as predators and perpetuates the same sort of LGBTQ-hating venom as we're being exposed to some 60 years later. Thanks Larry for presenting bigotry in a movie trading on prejudice yet ending with a phony plea for tolerance. This is a "problem film", and Larry Buchanan is the problem.

Larry Buchanan has made a career out of some bad movies. High Yellow proved he could make a decent film.

High Yellow is a decent film that suffers from a rushed ending.

The movie was fine until the last reel. In High Yellow, Cynthia Hull plays Cindy, a woman of mixed race who attempts to pass as white. She takes a job as a maid for a family that brings new depth into the word dysfunctional.

Among the family members is Judy, a rebellious High School drop-out who makes friends with Cindy. Cindy also makes friends with Judy's brother, George. His character has just been expelled from military school after being falsely accused of being queer!

The film goes through some shocking moments that turn the movie into a good movie about interracial relationships without being too preachy or overly sleazy. Then the final reel. They must have run out of ideas and added a murder plot to finish the film. Oh well, we can't have it all. Regardless, this movie is proof that Buchanan could make a movie without rubber monster masks.

This film begins with a light-skinned black teenager by the name of "Cynthia Wood" (Cynthia Hull) being greeted at the bus station by a chauffeur named "Joseph" (Bill McGhee) who is there to take her to her new place of employment as a maid working for an extremely rich family. Once there, she immediately discovers that the family she now works for has its share of problems with both the head of the household "Mr. Langley" (Bob Brown) and his wife "Mrs. Langley" (Annabelle Weenick) acting both rude and arrogant to her as soon as she is introduced. Also living in the house is their teenage daughter "Judy Langley" (Kay Taylor) who is quite spoiled but at least treats Cynthia with a certain amount of respect. But of all the family members, it is the adult son "George Langley" (Warren Hammock) who makes the best impression on her. The same, however, cannot be said for Mr. Langley live-in guest "Major Bates" (Bill Thurman) who is quite cruel and not only scares Cynthia but openly dislikes Judy--to the point that he often drinks himself into a violent rage. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I didn't expect too much from this rather low-budget film--especially since I had never even heard of it until fairly recently. However, having now seen it in its entirety, I can honestly say that I was somewhat impressed as it had a concise plot and good acting on the part of Cynthia Hull. Even so, the lack of financial resources was quite evident from the very start with both the overall script and the picture quality suffering as a result. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a great picture by any means, I have to give the director (Larry Buchanan) credit for probably doing the best he could with so little and I have rated this film accordingly. Average.

"High Yellow" is an early Larry Buchanan effort and it really showcases his usual film standards of good intentions and high ideals crippled by low budgets. The entire movie plays like a mid-century "black and white" daytime soap opera (literally). It's not terrible but it is talky and does get boring after awhile because you keep waiting for something to happen.

Cynthia Hull is the films saving grace. She's actually really good in her role as Judy the mulatto servant. She's youthful and attractive, plus her vulnerability inside the house full of crazy drunk rich racists creates genuine sympathy. And I really liked how they opened and closed the film using her exact same statement.

Although the film is supposed to take place in Los Angeles it was very clearly filmed in Dallas. The opening scene takes place near White Rock Lake at the old train station that used to run between Dallas and Denton. Larry filmed many of his movies in and around White Rock Lake. After Judy is picked up at the train station they drive all the way up to Frisco, Texas, to the old Cloyce Box / Brinkmann Ranch. Viewers of the TV show "Dallas" will recognize the mansion as the original "Southfork Ranch" for the first few episodes before the location was relocated to Parker, Texas, east of Plano, for the remainder of the series.