Dark Mountain

Ellen Drew marries Regis Toomey not knowing he is a smuggler. When her husband commits a murder and she is in trouble she turns to her former boyfriend for help.

Standard programmer film, less then an hour in length. Good performances by all in the film, also including Eddie Quillian and Robert Lowery. This film is in the public domain and is now available on DVD.

Had a chance to check out this "B" quickie last night and didn't think it was anything special. With it's 57 minute running time, fairly bland characters and familiar plot, it felt more like an episode of some 1950's anthology series as opposed to a movie. Basically, Ellen Drew plays a woman who marries a mobster (Regis Toomey) without knowing it and becomes innocently implicated in a murder her husband commits. The authorities are after her so jilted love, Robert Lowery, a park ranger, hides her away in a cabin on a remote mountain-top because he correctly believes she is innocent. The gangster husband followed them and now holds his wife hostage in the cabin. Not really much action here until the end when a car chase ensues around the twisting roads of the the mountain but that's really about it. Lot's of corny dialogue and weak attempts at comic relief by Eddie Quillan as Lowery's partner. Probably the best thing about the movie are some of the outdoor location shots utilized by Director William A. Berke that gave the film a nice atmosphere. All in all, it's probably a film that should be passed up unless your an absolute hard core crime film nitwit like I am.

This was thankfully short.

From 1944, Dark Mountain stars Robert Lowery, Ellen Drew, Regis Toomey, Eddie Quillan, and Elisha Cook, Jr.

Kay Downey (Drew) finds out her new husband Steve (Toomey) is a total gangster, dealing in stolen goods and stooping even lower - murder. He has to get out of town and insists she accompany him, when all she wants to do is leave, period. At a certain point, they separate - he gives her a way to reach him after things have cooled off.

Kay goes running to Don Bradley, who is madly in love with her and in fact, came to propose to her without realizing she had married. He is a park ranger and, finding out what happened, he sets her up in an unused cabin.

Little do either one of them know that Steve never had any intention of leaving Kay behind - he just wanted to know her hiding place so he could hide with her. Despite Don visiting the cabin and bringing supplies, Kay has to pretend Steve isn't in the next room.

B movie done on the cheap, and it's one of those public domain films. I am following a film noir list because I want to see as many as I can; unfortunately, some of them just aren't very good.

Had a chance to check out this "B" quickie the other night and didn't think it was anything special. With it's 57 minute running time, fairly bland characters and familiar plot, it felt more like an episode of some 1950's anthology series as opposed to a movie. Basically, Ellen Drew plays a woman who marries a mobster (Regis Toomey) without knowing it and becomes innocently implicated in a murder her husband commits. The authorities are after her so jilted love, Robert Lowery, a park ranger, hides her away in a cabin on a remote mountain-top because he correctly believes she is innocent. The gangster husband followed them and now holds his wife hostage in the cabin. Not really much action here until the end when a car chase ensues around the twisting roads of the the mountain but that's really about it. Lot's of corny dialogue and weak attempts at comic relief by Eddie Quillan as Lowery's partner. Probably the best thing about the movie are some of the outdoor location shots utilized by Director William A. Berke that gave the film a nice atmosphere. All in all, it's probably a film that should be passed up unless your an absolute hard core crime film nitwit like I am.

One of the earliest Pine-Thomas B films from Paramount casts Ellen Drew as a young woman who had a choice between honest forest ranger Robert Lowery and businessman Regis Toomey. She chooses Toomey and finds out that the business he's in is the black market. At that time in 1944 a business frowned on what with war rationing an all.

Gangster Toomey gets involved with two killings, one a cop who rather stupidly tried to bust Toomey without backup and an associate Elisha Cook, Jr., who made it a habit in getting bumped in films one way or another. Now he's a fugitive and he and Drew are hiding out in a mountain cabin provided by Lowery for Drew, although the ranger is no fool and he's getting mighty suspicious.

The leads are attractive enough and Robert Lowery had a decent enough career as a lead in B films like Dark Mountain. But this film really belongs to Regis Toomey. In his rather long career Toomey mostly played nice guys, usually second leads or support. You probably best remember him as the soda jerk in Meet John Doe and as the police lieutenant in The Big Sleep. On television he was a regular in the first incarnation of Burke's Law.

Dark Mountain gave Toomey an opportunity to play a villain and he does well with it. Being stuck up in that mountain cabin for days gave him one of the worst cases of cabin fever I've ever seen on the screen. The lonely life is what a Forest Ranger signs up for, but city boy Toomey is really going stir crazy up there with only Drew to talk to.

Some nice forest fire sequences are in Dark Mountain. Since I haven't seen that film in years I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they're from the Paramount A feature, The Forest Ranger. Dark Mountain is a good noir feature and likely to give shut-ins a bit of familiarity.