Experiment Alcatraz

... and in a good way! The direction is rather wooden, but the acting surprised me with pretty good and authentic performances from an almost anonymous cast.

The story has to do with some prisoners from Alcatraz volunteering for a medical experiment that involves receiving large doses of radiation. If the volunteers survive, then they are promised their freedom. Question unanswered - yeah, but what good does it do to radiate these guys since they don't have the blood disease for which this treatment is a cure? Well, don't expect every loophole to be closed in these old programmers.

Then unexpected tragedy as a pair of scissors slips out of the apron of one of the military nurses who is making rounds in the ward and on to the bed of convict Barry Morgan who seizes the scissors and stabs convict Eddie Ganz through the heart, killing him. Morgan and Ganz were friends, and Morgan does not remember doing what he did. Well, a deal is a deal and Morgan is set free along with the other convicts. But since the radiation is the culprit in the killing the experiment is terminated immediately. Also, the careers of the doctor whose idea this was (John Howard as Dr. Ross Williams) and the nurse who dropped the scissors (Joan Dixon as Lt. Joan McKenna) are over. McKenna has a brother with the fatal blood disease and was hoping the experiment would be a first step toward a cure.

So Dr. Williams and Lt. Joan McKenna decide to do some investigating into Ganz' and Morgan's friendship and see if they can find out if this was truly the fault of the experiment, or was it something else? This leads them into mob filled night spots, Italian restaurants where the waiter is insulted if you don't finish the calimari, an old dark house, and to a convict who is just nutty about post cards.

This film picks up a trick from other B noirs/crime dramas/mysteries of the time. If your plot is thin and has some holes, just keep moving from scene to scene and fill your film with interesting off-beat characters. Even if you do have the doctor doing silly things like continually ducking into a phone booth to ask "Have they scheduled the destruction of the isotope yet??" like he is checking on the execution of a death row inmate.

This one is an original and not a bad way to spend an hour. I'd recommend it.

Odd Little B-Movie (clocks in at less than an hour) from Low-Budget Wunderkind Edward Cahn. There are Enough Bizarre Scenes and the Combination of Post Nuclear Radiation Experiments on Convicts & Gangsters is a Guilty Treat.

Not Enough Time or Money to Make the Thing Much More than it is, and that is an Entertaining, Good Looking Programmer that was Actually Quite Early on the Wave of Paranoia About the Bomb's After Effects.

It Tries to Spin the Concern Into a Helper of Mankind and that Radiation and the Nuclear Age Could Be a Good Thing. In Reality the Jury was Out and Truth be Told They didn't have a Clue.

The Scene that is at the Nucleus, a Murder, Post Radiation Treatment, Makes Robert Shayne Look Like a Bug-Eyed Maniacal Monster and is an Artistic Touch that is Quite Scary. There are Some (Mad) Lab Sets with Goggled Patients, and Some Gangster Activity with a Twist or Two.

Overall, Definitely Worth a Watch for its Quirky Plot and the Director's Command of Low-Budgets with an Eye for Sets and Set-Ups.

Experiment Alcatraz (1950)

** (out of 4)

John Howard plays one of a group of scientists who gather some criminals off of Alcatraz and offer them their freedom if they'll take part in an atomic experiment. Before this is carried off one of the men murders another but a nurse ends up taking the fall for it. Howard and the nurse end up teaming up to try and find out what really happened and why. I can't say this "B" film is a good one but it's certainly weird enough to warrant at least one viewing. I'm really not sure what the point of this film was and I can't say that I fully understood the story but director Cahn at least keeps the thing moving and it clocks in at a short 57-minutes. The actual story is far-fetched but I thought it was rather funny at how serious everyone was taking it. Howard is pretty good in his role as is Robert Shayne in his supporting part. The one scene that will always stick out in my mind is the most laughable fight I've seen in perhaps any movie. The convicts are working when a couple slow motion punches are thrown, which eventually leads to one man getting shot. Now, I'm really not sure if the filmmakers used an outtake or what but I'm trying to figure out why the sequence was shown in a slow motion. The actual camera speed wasn't slowed but the actor are just playing it out in slow motion. After the film I actually went back to watch this sequence a couple times and this thing alone almost makes me recommend the film.

This is a very low budgeted film. However despite this, it manages to be both entertaining and worth your time.

The story begins with a medical trial being run at Alcatraz prison. The men have been told that for participating they will be released after the study is concluded. Oddly, one of the patients (Robert Shayne) murders another one of the patients and the radioactive isotope they're using is blamed. And, the program is canceled and the men released...even the killer (which is odd).

Dr. Williams (John Howard) is frustrated that his program was canceled and he vows to prove that his formula was NOT responsible for the murder. So, he sets out to find a motive for the killing...and quickly get the crap beaten out of him and more! So why did the prisoner kill his friend?

The finale for this one is excellent but even without that the story is quite nice and the acting very good despite the folks mostly being small-time from B-movies.

I agree with mlink, being back the message boards!