Stop That Cab

According to IMDb, there are two versions of the film--an original and one edited down for TV. This review is for the original version.

This film stars Sid Melton--a burlesque-style comic who made a few very undistinguished movie appearances during the 1950s (in fact, many of them were simply awful). Later, he gained some fame on "The Danny Thomas Show" and as Alf Monroe on TV's "Green Acres". Melton died just a couple months back at the ripe old age of 94.

Sid plays a cab driver married to a shrewish lady (Iris Adrian). You're bound to recognize Adrian if you like old-time television and films, as she had 160 appearances to her credit. Her bossy, loud-mouth character in "Stop That Cab" is pretty typical of the sort of roles she had over the years. As far as the plot goes, well, there really isn't much of one. Throughout the film, all kinds of bad things happen to Sid--though many of them turn out to be dreams. This episodic style, while far from brilliant, had a few decent moments here and there and seemed to fit Melton's style pretty well. Not a brilliant film, but very watchable and oddly entertaining.

Here's another obscure gem from the little-known, little-seen Lippert Pictures. Although a low-budget, 55-minute programmer, with comic talents such as Sid Melton and Iris Adrian in the lead roles, the film can't help but be entertaining. The plot involves Sid, as a nightshift cab driver in L.A., encountering various odd characters as part of his nightly work...and then coming home to the ultimate domineering wife, the great Iris Adrian, at her scenery-chewing hilarious best. During the first half-hour, Sid stumbles into a crime situation involving Tom Neal (who did a lot of solid character work at Lippert in the waning days of his career in the early 50s), and after that is resolved, he stumbles into the climactic story, one involving a widowed mother (Marjorie Lord) who is trying to win a radio contest by performing a certain task within 30 minutes (you'll have to see the film to find out what it is). When I first saw this film many years ago, it struck me as somewhat odd and "different" from the usual low-budget Lippert comedy. Watching it again, it no longer seems THAT off-the-wall, but it still has a very different look and feel than the usual Lippert comedy. Perhaps some of this is due to the presence of director Eugenio de Liguoro, a distinguished Italian director whose credits date back to the early 1920's. He also did important work in India in the 1920s and in Chile in the 1940's. According to the IMDB, Stop That Cab was not only his sole American film, but his last film. One wonders how he got involved with this project? Many others on the crew of this film have interesting credits: assistant director Maurice Vaccarino worked in a similar capacity on the Elmer Clifton/Ida Lupino productions THE JUDGE and NOT WANTED just before doing this film, and later went on to do THE PHENIX CITY STORY and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS; cinematographer Carl Berger shot many jungle exploitation films in the 30's (including Love Wanga!) as well as a Yiddish film, and in the 40s worked regularly at Lippert, taking a break right before Stop That Cab to shoot Kroger Babb's ONE TOO MANY, a film that is usually praised for its slick, elegant cinematography. Because the film was shot on a few small cramped sets and is largely verbal, it has the feel of a filmed play, but classic comic actors Sid Melton and Iris Adrian are such professionals, they make it work beautifully. While STOP THAT CAB probably played for a few days at the small-town and neighborhood theatres serviced by Lippert and was probably revived back in the late 50s and early 60s when Lippert films were staples on local TV and UHF stations, I've rarely encountered anyone who has heard of let alone seen the film. Fans of Melton and Adrian should not miss it as it is a comic gem very reminiscent of the best of early-TV comedy. I would contend that ANY film with either Melton or Adrian is worth seeing! Having them together in one film is a dream come true...

It's a movie about the trials and tribulations of Sid Melton. He drives a taxi can in Hollywood, and is married to harpy Iris Adrian. Although it's mostly little bits about the insane people he runs into, there is a major subplot about Marjorie Lord, and how she's trying to win an eye operation for her little boy on QUEEN FOR A DAY.

It's a comedy, but the people aren't funny. Melton's mildly exasperated nebbish is called on to under-react. Miss Adrian is wasted. And most of the situations are trite. The whole thing looks more like a pilot for a television series than anything you'd care to see in a theater.... or on TV.