1959 - THE SCARFACE MOB, pilot for The Untouchables TV series

Desi Arnez of I Love Lucy fame was also a television producer besides being a band leader and the husband of Lucille Ball.  Arnez bought the rights to Elliot Ness's book The Untouchables and decided to make a two part television show about Ness's attempts to put away mob boss Al Capone in the 1930's.  Arnez hired Robert Stack to play Ness and character actor Neville Brand to play Capone

For a TV show from the 1950's Arnez didn't scrimp on the production values, the film has a fairly decent noir look.  Arnez hired Phil Karlson to direct.  Karlson was good at staging action and violence on relatively low budgets since he had been brought up in the world of B movie filmmaking.   The end result was a tense and violent television film which was considered fairly tough stuff for the 1950's TV audience.

 

Arnez hired Robert Stack to play tough guy federal agent Elliott Ness.  Stack adapted a monotone delivery that made him seem like he was going to blow at any moment.  In real life Elliott Ness after busting up many of Capone's bootlegging operations finally got Capone sent to prison on tax evasion  instead of running booze.

Not to overpraise this film but it's an entertaining gangster story.  You can see where it probably was an influence on the entertaining Brian DePalma remake.  Kevin Costner's performance certainly seems influenced by Robert Stack.  It's also fun to see character actor Keenan Wynn in a film

The film was written by Paul Monash, the running time is 99 minutes.

1969 - THE WRECKING CREW, the last film in the Matt Helm quadrilogy

Dino's back for his final appearance as Matt Helm.  Probably pushing 51 years old when he made this epic.  The Wrecking Crew has some hot if some what past their prime film babes, Tina Louise, Elke Sommer and Nancy Kwan.  The film also features a kind of funny Sharon Tate reprising the Stella Stevens role from The Silencers.

IT'S DINO VS CHUCK NORRIS

The fight scenes were stages by Bruce Lee and you get to see Dino beat up Chuck Norris towards the end of the film.  Dino has his usual easy going film persona thing going on in this film.  The guy was a pretty good light comedian.  It's amazing how much mileage he got out of his lecherous drunk act through the years.

The fact that something like The Wrecking Crew actually looks good to me now speaks volumes to the current state of the action film.  This film with it's lame sex jokes and old fashioned action scenes at least never pretends to be something that it isn't an overblown ridiculous action film, (see Wanted.)

Couple of quick notes, character actor Nigel Green is the bad guy Count Contini.  Hugo Montenegro wrote the silly score.  Beverly Adams who had been playing Dino's secretary "Lovey Kravezit" did not appear in this film.  The producer Irving Allen was actually the partner of Albert R. Broccoli who made all the Bond films.  Allen and Broccoli split up because Allen wanted no part of a James Bond franchise.

The Wrecking Crew ended with the tag line, "Matt Helm will be back in THE RAVAGERS."

105 minutes, written by William McGivern.

1955 - THE PHENIX CITY STORY, trying not to overpraise this very entertaining film

The Phenix City Story, is supposedly based on a true story.  It's about a town controlled by organized crime.  The director of this film is Phil Karlson.  Karlson will never be confused with Stanley Kubrick that's for sure.  He was the mastermind behind a couple of the Dean Martin Matt Helm films, and the original Walking Tall.

Subtlety was not exactly his metier.  Karlson took this story and kept it moving at top speed with enough action and nasty violence for a 1950's film that even got my jaded attention.

For what is basically a cheap 50's B movie, Karlson had the inspired idea to shoot the  film on location in Phenix City, Alabama, using the local yokels in small speaking parts.  It really added to the authenticity of the film.

 

There is an extremely strange 15 minute news documentary short at the beginning of the film.   A newsman wanders around the town interviewing the local citizens about crime in the city.  Clearly the idea was to bring some sort of gravitas to the film but don't kid yourself this is basically an action packed and very enjoyable pulpy film.