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Preston Foster plays the mastermind who plans a bank heist and recruits his team separately from one another. He insists that everyone must wear a mask at all times so that nobody can identify anyone else. Innocent John Payne (Joe) is falsely accused of the robbery and once he is released, he makes it his mission to track down who is responsible for framing him.

The film follows the pattern of stakeout, recruitment and robbery in the first section. We then follow Payne's storyline and we end up in a small Mexican town waiting for everyone to reveal themselves to one another and share out the loot. You just sense that there is something a bit tricky about mastermind Foster.

This is an intense film with absolutely zero jolly bits in it and many fight sequences. That loses a mark for me. It also doesn't make much sense. But that's ok as the story carries you along with the action. The female roles are purely incidental which is a shame and I think that there should have been more made of the mask-wearing in the second half of the film once in Mexico. They were creepy masks.

My friend once put on a balaclava mask to nick a bottle of wine from an off-licence. It was so obviously him, though, especially as he had just been refused the sale about five minutes earlier. He left the shop, put on the mask and returned to nick it. And he is really tall! However, I'm not sure that he had a bottle opener.

Ship captain Rock Hudson (Panama) makes his living by delivering his cargos to various ports. On the first night in each port, he likes to take out his crew to a lively bar for some rowdy entertainment. He is streetwise and likes a brawl. This film has 3 bar-room brawls. Too many if you ask me. He comes across escort Yvonne De Carlo (Roxy) at the "Scarlet Angel" bar who tries to fleece him and they end up bumping into widow Bodil Miller (Linda) and her baby. Circumstances transpire so that De Carlo goes on the run and ends up posing as the baby's mother in order to trick her way into a wealthy family. Big Rock is having none of this behaviour.

I was unsure where the film was going at first as there are several paths it could have taken. Once the baby is introduced, I was dreading a sappy film about bringing up a baby. Thank goodness the film pivots its focus to follow De Carlo's deception which brings tension to the proceedings in this easy-to-watch film.

Hudson and De Carlo work well together and the rest of the cast also do well, especially the suspicious cousin Amanda Blake (Susan) who suspects that De Carlo isn't who she claims to be. The technicolour has faded so that the vibrant colours are more of a pale shade but it is always a treat and the costumes are good. We get some humour thrown in and the film is more of a feelgood comedy drama than an action/adventure film.

Time for some wine. Real wine!

We follow a group of fire-fighters as they tackle a blaze in the mountain forests of Montana. The team is led by Richard Widmark (Cliff) and contains an older guy on his last job - Joe Sawyer (Pop). Prior to this mission, we have focused on the fact that Sawyer carries an identity bracelet and spend a disproportionate amount of time with him as we listen to talk of his family life and watch as he undergoes horseplay with his adult son Jeffrey Hunter (who is stationed at the same headquarters and does a similar job). Off he goes on the mission. Do we think he is going to make it? Ha ha. We are told that he isn't from a mile off! No spoiler there at all. The rest of the film follows the dynamic between Hunter and Widmark as Widmark needs to prove that he was not responsible for Sawyer's death.

The story scores points for the different setting and there is some drama and useful information regarding fire-fighting in these conditions. Unfortunately, outside of Widmark, the cast are pretty awful. Hunter is just thoroughly unpleasant whilst the female roles are atrociously saccharine and make you want to vomit. There was no point at all in having Constance Smith (Peg) in the film. Her dreadful attempt at an Irish accent also adds to the irritation as does the films false camaraderie with everyone smiling and back-patting at the end. How about fire chief Richard Boone's comical throaty voice yelling through a loud speaker from a plane!

Still, the film is ok as you watch it despite some annoying moments and it is educational.

I now know what to do if caught in a wild fire. You basically get out your shovel, dig a hole in a clearing, douse yourself in water, put a fire blanket over yourself and then wait for the fire to pass over you. Alternatively, you can get into the cracks of a rockfall and again, wait for the fire to pass over you. You need to find a rockfall for this method, though.