MexicaliRick-16mmRick

Painful beyond description. It probably would have been more fun watching Blake kill his wife.

I won't at this juncture append a rating to this "review" as I've yet to see the entire movie. About 1970, around the time I began collecting 16mm film I managed to acquire some odd reels (incomplete prints of some rather peculiar films) which I gladly added to my burgeoning collection for want of something (anything) to show. Among these curiosities was the first half (1200'/16mm) of STRANGE JOURNEY. After screening it initially I wondered what caused this print to have been separated from itself and where the other half might be if indeed someone possibly still had it. Forty years later I'm still wondering who got stuck with part two of this epic. It's really a nothing film with a nothing story and a nothing cast. No user involved with this database claims to have seen it (or if they have, they've chosen not to review it) nor have the authors of the A.F.I. catalogues claimed to have screened a print. I've never seen it scheduled for a television airing and I would bet that this one would stump Robert Osborne. Lousy as the film is I've been waiting over 40 years to see how it ends; stupid perhaps but I just gotta know.... If anyone knows where the second half of my print is or knows where I might find a complete copy of this Sol M. Wurtzel masterpiece I'd be beholden to you if you'd impart the information to me.

addendum, 1/31/13:

With considerable gratitude to a gentleman who read the above remarks and who was kind enough to contact me with certain relevant information, I can now say that I've seen the entire film. In retrospect and with the knowledge that I've wasted a fair portion of the last 40+ years, I can state unequivocally that this film really makes me wish I had had the cranberry concessions at every theater in which it played. The second half is marginally better than the the first but to little overall avail. The film's one saving grace is the presence of Hillary Brooke doing a reasonably good job in a fairly routine "mean girl" act. She's no Ann Savage in "DETOUR", but then again this film makes "DETOUR" look like "DUEL IN THE SUN." At one point she gets thrown into a bath tub presumably to "cool her off". Brooke who is probably best remembered as Abbott and Costello's neighbor down the hall in their rooming house projected a poise and overall demeanor that made you wonder how she ever ended up in the company of Bud, Lou, Mr. Fields, Mike the cop and Stinky. This same aplomb and grace was likewise evident in her subsequent film and television work. If I've given the impression that I dislike this film then let me for the record disabuse anyone reading these thoughts of that notion. I love "B" films be they from studios who made virtually nothing but or from the majors who turned out product like this to fill the lower halves of double bills. This item was actually produced independently by Wurtzel for release through Fox. Wurtzel was to Fox's "B" unit what Brian Foy was to Warner's a decade earlier. If taken at face value and without unrealistically elevated expectations this film can be an innocuous 63 minute experience. The only caveat; there are "B" films (I WAKE UP SCREAMING [1941], arguably the greatest "B" of all time) and then there are "B" films like STRANGE JOURNEY curiously from the same studio.