Danger Zone

Long before he was Beaver Cleaver's father, Hugh Beaumont had an earlier television series in TV's infancy where he played a private detective complete with Raymond Chandler patter. Lippert managed to get three feature films from this series by stringing two of the half hour episodes together.

Beaumont works out of San Francisco where he lives on his charter boat when he's not sleuthing for a fee. This episode concerns him getting in trouble twice because a woman asked him for a favor. The man is not Sam Spade he's more like Miles Archer.

Favor one is Virginia Dale who asks him to bid on a suitcase at a public auction. That gets him involved with a smuggling racket and a saxophone. Favor two is when another private eye Tom Neal gets him to 'escort' a young lady to a private party on a boat. That gets him involved with a murder and a divorce. Is anyone sensing a pattern here?

Nothing special here though Beaumont is good in a part that's a quantum leap from Ward Cleaver.

Hugh Beaumont makes his contribution to the Gumshoe Genre as wise cracking Charter Boat Operator / Private Investigator Dennis O'Brien. When the Charter Boat business is a little slow, O'brien likes to pick up a few extra bucks as a PI. Showing a greater penchant for witty repartee than character judgment and well grounded decision making, O'Brien finds himself at odds with an assortment of characters he meets during the course of the day.

Danger Zone is filmed as two separate stories combined into a feature length film. In Part One O'Brien is duped by a mysterious woman (Virginia Dale) into bidding on her behalf at auction for a suitcase. As it turns out she isn't the only one interested in the suitcase and it's contents. O'Brien is soon up to the lapels of his overcoat in larceny and murder. Part Two finds O'Brien, apparently none the wiser from his previous experience in Part One, bamboozled by a fellow detective (Tom Neal) into escorting a rich socialite to a party. O'Brien is offered a quick fifty bucks to play tag-along to a rich society dame for the evening. So what could go wrong here you ask? As it turns out plenty.The situation goes sideways when O'Brien is accused of murder by the obligatory hard-nosed police Lieutenant (Richard Travis). Fortunately there to assist O'Brien in his travails is his sidekick Prof. Frederick Simpson Schicker (Edward Brophy). Schicker a Runyonesque type character, given to drink and sesquipedalian lingo, keeps an ear out for the word on the street.

Released by Lippert Pictures, this was the first part of a three picture package, each filmed as two separate stories. Lippert was a creative organization, more so financially than artistically, that was able to assimilate name talent that had been cut from their contracts at major studios. Here Lippert filmed two stories that were to be later released as stand alone television episodes. However nothing beyond the original three movies were ever made and as fate would have it, Beaumont never became one of television's legendary detectives.

Danger Zone is a low budget double bill programmer and an oddly constructed one at that. As such it's easy to say "keep moving, nothing to see here" but despite the fact that it lacks the gravitas to be a feature film, it might have made a decent television series given the chance.

Hugh Beaumont Eventually Made it to TV...Not as a Chandler-Marlowe Cloned "Mini-Me"...

but in the Form of a Mega-Hit-Ultra-Loved-Sit-Com..."Leave it to Beaver" 1957-62).

Here the Men Pushing the Buttons Behind the "Idiot-Box" were Offered this "Neat Little Show" Called "Danger Zone", with Beaumont Following in the "Gum-Shoe" Footsteps of Phillip Marlowe.

Re-Located from L. A. to S. F, with an Office on "Fisherman's Wharf" (..."if you love sea-food", Narrates Beaumont in 1 of the Many Voice-Overs),

He has a Roommate Assistant, Called "The Professor" who Provides High-Brow Verbiages of Witticisms, Declarations, and Reports.

In Contrast to Beaumont's Low-Brow "Snappy-Patter"...He also Does Research for His Pal-Roomie-Employer.

The Writers Hacking Chandler took His Snap-Patt SERIOUSLY...

it is the Bedrock of 90% of the Dialog and Narration and in such Large Doses, Contains a Lot of Pretentious Fails.

They Must have Consulted the "Film-Noir Playbook", and Skipped the Chapter on Restraint.

You can Fake a "Style" but You Can't Fake Talent.

The Unhappy End to this "TV-Show-Pitch"...

No One was Buying... so "Lippert Studios" Improvised (that must be in the "Poverty Row" Playbook as a Last Resort).

Sent 2-Stiched as 1 to Theaters as a 1 Hr Movie and a Cheap Rental.

But After That...The Trail Goes Cold.

Everyone Loves a Good "Detective/Mystery" and Raymond Chandler was a Star.

He and His Creation (Marlowe) are Still Being Copied and Enjoyed Today.

"Danger Zone"...Minimalism for the Masses...

Worth a Watch

Note...Be on the Look-Out for "Tom Neal",,,Famous for Edgar G. Ulmer's "Detour" (1949)..."Infamous" for Other-Things Off-the-Screen.

Hugh Beaumont is Dennis O'Brien, a guy who lives on the docks of San Francisco with drunkard Eddie Brophy. O'Brien makes most of his living renting out boats, but he has a sideline as an unlicensed PI, available for quick jobs for small sums. Unfortunately the jobs always wind up involving corpses, and police lieutenant Richard Travis is always anxious to put him in the hot seat. This means Beaumont must solve the case for him. In the first one, there's a murder over a saxophone. In the second, he's framed as a co-respondent in a divorce, only for the husband to turn up dead.

It's a typically cheap Lippert production built off scripts from the Jack Webb radio show Johnny Madero, Pier 23. Lippert followed this up with two more movies much like this, talky and full of people speaking like they should be talking out of the sides of their mouths. Still, director William Berke keeps things moving along like the B movie director he was, and the cast includes Tom Neal and Pamela Blake. If you want to know what Old Time Radio would have been like as TV, this is a movie for you.

Hugh Beaumont starring in this film might surprise many viewers today. After all, he's known to most as the sweet father of the Beaver on "Leave it to Beaver". However, before he appeared on this show, he appeared in many B-movies...many of which are crime films. He often played private detectives, though he sometimes played villains or cops...hardly the Ward Cleaver sorts of characters! Here in "Danger Zone" he plays a cheap private eye.

When the story begins, Dennis (Beaumont) is at an auction when a woman approaches him and begs him to be the highest bidder for an unopened suitcase. He agrees and wins it for $1000....a princely sum for 1951. But after buying it, the lady disappears and Dennis takes the case home. After opening it, he finds there's just a sax inside...and soon the losing bidder shows up to buy the sax. But before Dennis can make a deal, he gets slugged...and awakens much later. Why?? Why did the guy slug him and why did the lady insist he buy it?

Now all this sounds very interesting, right? Well, that's only HALF the movie. As it consisted of a couple TV episodes edited together to make a full-length film, there's a second story.

In this second part, Dennis is hired to use one of his boats to take some socialite to a party on a yacht anchored off shore. It's an odd job...and it's not surprising that just like the sax, there is MUCH more to the story...including murder and Dennis being left holding the bag!

The oddest thing for me isn't seeing Beaumont in such a role but seeing Eddie Brophy as "the Professor'...an overly erudite guy with a strong penchant for the bottle. Seeing and hearing him talking like some out of work Oxford professor was indeed odd, as he normally played a dopey New York hood or the like.

So is it good? Well, it's not bad but it also feels rushed. Stretching out each story into its own movie would have helped. I mostly recommend it because of its interest as a curio...evidence that Beaumont was more than just some nice-guy TV dad.