skywaymo

What in the world was Karloff doing in this B-picture quicky years after his triumph as The Frankenstein Monster??? Karloff tries his best but nothing could save this snoozer. The plot summary pretty much gives you the entire plot. Tries to be a sassy sexy comedy, a thriller and a who dunnit all at once. Fails miserable at all 3! The "comedy" is sophomoric. There are no real "thrills". The "mystery" wouldn't fool a 5 year old. Lots of good character actors wasted (Regis Toomey, the perpetual sergeant/policeman, "Dobie Gillis'" father Frank Faylen, and others). For Karloff completists only!

Just watched this on cable for the first time in about 40 years. As a really little kid I was a big fan of Lash LaRue. This was probably because his all black outfit and whip tricks were sooo Cool. He also looks and even sounds like (minus lisp) another favorite of mine Humphrey Bogart. This is your standard PRC "B" Oater of the era. Goes through all of the cliches: bad guy tricks friends into a feud for his own benefit, the feuding families have a member on either side who are secretly in love with each other, the real identity of the "evil overlord" is not revealed to the audience till near the end, the bad guy spouts lines like "now this is my plan"...and the film jump cuts to another location,guns fire forever without reloading, and on and on. The acting is up to (down to??) the usual PRC standards. Fuzzy StJohn is funny, but then he's been at this stuff since the Keystone Cops days. Lash is especially wooden in this one. Since he is given no opportunity to use his whip, there just isn't much use in having him in the movie. The plot is fairly dense for the short running time. Oddly it was written by a woman, which must have been fairly unusual for a Western at that time. All in all not a great film and not one of Lash's best outings. Still, if it's on cable and you have an hour to waste, give it a watch.

I saw this movie when it was in its first theatrical release. I have heard many times that it was planned to be shot in color and they decided to save money with black and white. They must have shot some color footage, because when I saw it the whole credit sequence (until the police arrive at the chrushed trailer) was in COLOR, then it went to black and white. I noted this in a little book of "my movie reviews" that I kept as a kid, mainly because it was so odd...why in the world would they process a part of it in color for a release print when (even if parts of it were already shot in color), the print could have been all black and white. I saw it a few years later at a drive in and it was all b/w.

Forry Akerman also mentioned this oddity once in FMOF. I just watched Them! on Movieplex this morning and this little classic holds up just as well as it ever did (the Fess Parker bit is still hilarious.)