Reviews

I have to disagree quite strongly with the other review. The narrative of this film is most certainly not one we have seen a million times or more. It is highly original and well worth describing.

A gang of high class corporate thieves use blackmail to induce their victims to sell property at knock-down prices. The victims refuse to talk to the police. A police inspector is aware of the racket and persuades a shifty private investigator to work for the gang while reporting back to him. The P. I. joins the crooks, none of whom trusts the others, and each of them tries to enlist his services for their own exclusive advantage. There are two murders and it is not clear until the last surprise twist scene who committed the second murder.

The Share-Out has an excellent cast including Alexander Knox and Bernard Lee. As with all these Edgar Wallace films, the story unfolds quickly and the audience is never bored.

The Verdict is typical of the Edgar Wallace films that were made quickly and cheaply in the early 1960s in Britain. The main story is not credible but the film is so tightly edited that the audience does not notice until the film has ended.

An American gangster has been deported to England but when he arrives a police detective informs him that he is suspected of murdering a man several years previously. The gangster demands that a colleague try to corrupt members of the jury. His colleague is reluctant but as he investigates various possibilities, an idea occurs to him. An idea also occurs to the gangster's mistress. Each idea produces a plot twist at the end of the film.

The Verdict has an interesting cast, three of whom later appeared in James Bond films: Zena Marshall, Paul Stassino and Cec Linder. Nigel Davenport plays the gangster's partner.

As was always the case with this series of Edgar Wallace films, The Verdict was well photographed.

Strangler's Web is an interesting story about a murder that is not nearly as open-and-shut as it first seems. The characters are unconventional and are well-drawn by both the screenplay and the actors while the investigation into what really happened trawls through various strata of British society.

The opening scene where the murder takes place borrows ideas from the pre-credit sequence of From Russia With Love. The murdered woman's common-law husband is found at the scene and is the obvious suspect. A solicitor with a drink problem and a tendency to beat his wife is appointed to prepare the defence. He finds that the suspect's conduct towards the murdered woman was not unlike his own towards his wife. He pulls himself together and gets to work. He comes across a wide variety of people including a confidence trickster, an air-brained young woman and a disfigured ex-matinée idol.

Not a moment is wasted in Strangler's Web and the pace never lets up. As were the other films in this Edgar Wallace series, the movie is well- photographed and edited.

When a film is made very cheaply and within an extremely tight shooting schedule, the result is often embarrassing to watch. If such a film is adapted from a story by a much respected author, the narrative may hold the audience's attention even though the film has been badly made. Return To Sender reverses this expectation. Despite having been made in 20 days on a minimal budget, Return To Sender is a well made film with a sloppy narrative, based on a story by Edgar Wallace.

A corporate fraudster is arrested for stealing a large sum of money from his partners. He is informed that a particularly brilliant and persistent barrister will lead the prosecution against him. To undermine the credibility of the barrister, the fraudster engages the services of a sleazy individual who specialises in dirty tricks and smear tactics. The plan is set in motion but the fraudster intends to twist it to ruin both the barrister and the scheme's architect.

The central premise of Return To Sender does not make sense because evidence in a case is obtained by the police, not the prosecuting barrister. The story is further weakened by relying on two totally implausible coincidences and the final nail in the coffin is that the fraudster has no reason to betray the man he has hired.

Despite the very poor material, Return To Sender is an enjoyable movie. Most of the acting is quite good and it is probable that with a longer shooting schedule, the acting would have been better still. Geoffrey Keen and Nigel Davenport were two ultra professional actors and both give excellent performances. William Russell is consistently interesting as the seemingly unemotional black arts practitioner. The exuberantly feminine Yvonne Romain overplays her role slightly. It would have been better if she had not delivered her lines so forcefully and had spoken a little more slowly, but she is so good-looking that many viewers will not care!

The camera work is admirable. As is so often the case in films shot very quickly, few camera set-up were used, obliging the actors to move about within the compositions.

Return To Sender is today almost forgotten but it is still worth watching despite the weak story line.

"The Don Is Dead" is clearly an attempt to cash in on the success of "The Godfather" which was made the previous year. Very few people regard "The Don Is Dead" as a great movie, but many admire "The Godfather" enormously. (There are also many who do not, particularly fans of gangster films in general. Their attitude was brilliantly summarised by Ian Cameron in his book "The Gangster Film" where he described "The Godfather" as "built to be the "Gone With The Wind" of the crime genre, which is to say a crime movie for people who despise crime movies but are impressed by gigantic, best selling novels, a movie for people who do not even much like movies.")

"The Don Is Dead" borrows from "The Godfather" the central theme of a younger, less forceful, less impressive brother maturing during a crisis and developing both leadership qualities and murderous ruthlessness. It also borrows the carefully explained structure of the crime family with its leader (the Don) and its adviser. Fortunately, "The Don Is Dead" takes nothing else from "The Godfather". It does not aspire to be a "Gone With The Wind" of gangster movies. It is content to be an enjoyable, fast-moving well-made crime film. "The Don Is Dead" was made by a team of top Hollywood professionals, and their expertise is evident throughout.

In a city dominated by three crime families, the adviser of one hatches a scheme to grab control of the city by setting the other crime families against each other. For a time his plan works well, and gang warfare breaks out. One of the family heads is dependant on two brothers who kill for him. The younger of these brothers is reluctant to participate but is more intelligent than both his brother and his friend, the crime Don. Gradually, as the violence accelerates, the younger brother assumes command.

The pacing of "The Don Is Dead" is excellent. Each scene is tightly cut but nothing is rushed. Whether an action scene or a whispered conversation, everything is given as much time as necessary but nothing more. The shootings and bombings - of which there are many - are done properly: in other words quickly but credibly. Neither John Woo-style ludicrously fast cutting nor Sam Packinpah-type slow motion diminish "The Don Is Dead".

With one exception, the acting is good throughout. It was enjoyable to see Anthony Quinn in a modern role and wearing smart city clothes. Quinn, of course, has enormous power on screen, but so too have some of the actors in supporting roles. The exception is Frederic Forrest who has neither the acting skill nor the screen charisma adequately to flesh out the main role of the younger brother. He is further hampered by his whining voice. Throughout he gives the impression of being weak and petulant. A key scene is when he returns to his base which has been bombed in his absence and learns that his brother has been killed. His men are about to quit. After a moment or two of private grief, he shouts at his men that they will strike back, and restores their self-confidence and determination. Actors like Charlton Heston and George C. Scott could have worked miracles with that material, but Frederic Forrest just stands there and whines. It is difficult to imagine any hardened criminal regarding him as a leader.

The cinematography is excellent, and Richard H. Kline deserves congratulation for creating in a colour movie the chiaroscuros traditionally found in black and white crime films of the 1940s. Jerry Goldsmith provides an atmospheric, low-key score which consistently increases the tension. During his career Richard Fleischer never received due credit for being a brilliant director, probably for the same reason that Michael Curtiz, John Huston and Robert Wise did not: he was versatile and made a wide variety of movies instead of working with the same subject matter again and again. In his staging and pacing of scenes, his handling of the actors - with that one exception - his placement of the camera and in the high quality work he elicited from his crew, Fleischer demonstrates in "The Don Is Dead" that he was a master film director.

"The Don Is Dead" is probably not a film for every-one, but any-one who likes a good gangster movie should make a point of seeing it.

"Mister Cory" is a fast-moving and very engaging Cinemascope movie about a slick go-getter who cuts corners to get to the top. As played by Tony Curtis, Mister Cory - we never learn his Christian name - is charming and amusing, and the audience never dislikes him.

Mister Cory leaves his Chicago slum home and starts work as a busboy in a lake-side holiday resort for the very rich. Quickly he makes extra money by various games of chance. When he sees the elegant and beautiful Abigail Vollard (Martha Hyer) he decides he must have her, even though he is warned that she is a practised heart-breaker. Cory pretends to Abby that he is a rich guest at the resort, but his tactics come to nothing when a jealous colleague lets Abby know that Cory works in the kitchen. Cory leaves and becomes a small-time professional gambler. He teams up with Jeremiah Caldwell (Charles Bickford) who introduces him to big-league gambling. (N. B. "Mister Cory was made a few years before "The Hustler" which had the same premise.) They open up their own gambling house and invite Abby and her fiancé. Mister Cory and Abby re-start their liaison with dramatic consequences.

"Mister Cory" is an early Blake Edwards movie, and incorporates his usual fascination with the difference between appearance and reality. That difference is obvious with Cory but is much more real and important with Abby. This was one of the best parts Martha Hyer ever had, and she plays her role well, bringing out both the sexual hypocrisy and the smooth good manners of a well brought-up beauty from a privileged background. Hair stylist Joan St. Oegger and cinematographer Russell Metty made Martha Hyer very glamorous indeed, and the audience has no difficulty accepting that all men find Abby irresistible.

Other supporting players give good performances. Charles Bickford was always a strong screen presence and is so in "Mister Cory". Kathryn Grant is extremely likable as Abby's boisterous younger sister, and the remarkably handsome William Reynolds does well as Abby's rich and duped fiancé. Henry Daniell almost steals the movie playing the prim and snobbish resort manager.

The IMDb incorrectly credits the music to Henry Mancini. As Mancini himself carefully explained in his autobiography, it was the penny-pinching policy at Universal-International in the mid-fifties not to write new music for a movie, but instead to re-use music from previous Universal films. Mancini writes about "Mister Cory": "I didn't write the score for that picture, but as often happened when they needed music in a pop vein, I had been brought in for some source cues."

For some reason, "Mister Cory" is rarely screened today, even on television. An enhanced widescreen DVD would be very welcome.

UPDATE 2012: Mister Cory has now been released on DVD in Spain under the title "El Temible Mister Cory" Although in anamorphic widescreen, the picture quality is mediocre.

When "Desire Under the Elms" came out at the end of the 1950s, it was dismissed by critics who were more interested in parading their education and artistic credentials than in assessing the movie sensibly. In particular, they commented on how far the film fell short of the original stage play. Nearly fifty years later, a more balanced perspective is possible.

Regardless of how it compares with the theatrical original, "Desire Under The Elms" works successfully as a dramatic movie. There is real tension as the drama unfolds, and the audience feels a sense of horror when it realises what Anna (Sophia Loren) is going to do to prove her love. The resolution is genuinely tragic, and this is reinforced by the fact that the two lovers were unlikable people until love entered their lives and gave them humanity and consideration for others.

The acting is quite good all round, and presumably much of the credit goes to the director Delbert Mann. (Some of his other films during this period were also well-acted: "The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs"/"The Bachelor Party"). Sophia Loren is a real surprise. I have never worshipped at her throne, but she is excellent in this movie, playing a greedy, calculating woman who marries a much older man merely to have a comfortable home. At the beginning, her venality and disregard for other people make her highly unpleasant, and she is not particularly attractive physically either. As love gradually dominates her, she becomes physically very attractive - her fans, no doubt, will say she becomes beautiful - until the circumstances she has helped create imprison her. Then once again, her physical allure subsides and she becomes gaunt and drawn. Obviously this play with Sophia Loren's looks was a joint effort, and presumably the camera department, costume department and make-up department all deserve credit.

Daniel L. Fapp's Vista-Vision cinematography is crystal clear and a major asset. The film's only big failing is the blatant artificiality of the back drops. "Desire Under The Elms" was obviously made in a studio.

"Horizons West" is the kind of unpretentious, fast-paced Technicolor western that Universal-International churned out in the 1950s. The pared-down narrative combined with tight cutting ensures that the movie proceeds briskly even though "Horizons West" was directed without any dramatic intensity. The basic narrative material could have been stretched out to 120 minutes or more, but director Budd Boetticher and editor Ted Kent brought the film in at less than 85 minutes.

Dan Hammond (Robert Ryan), his brother Neil (Rock Hudson) and their ranch colleague Tiny (James Arness) return to Texas from the Civil War. Neil and Tiny are content to return to their previous way of life, but Dan has much bigger ideas. He recruits a gang of army deserters and rustles cattle in a big way. He is very successful and expands into land grabbing and claim jumping. Soon money and success go to his head, and hubris clouds his judgement. Eventually his loyal and loving family turn against him and take it upon themselves to bring him down.

Robert Ryan was always a good, unshowy actor, and he brings out the many sides of Dan Hammond very well. John McIntire, another reliable actor, is also very good as the simple, unambitious father. Julia Adams for once is not given a peaches and cream part, and she too is successful at showing the different aspects of her character. Rock Hudson and Dennis Weaver are still at the beginnings of their careers, and their inexperience and lack of screen presence shows. As was so often the case in those days, Raymond Burr plays an unpleasant character and really makes the audience dislike him.

"Horizons West" is a very minor film and is unlikely to make it onto DVD, but if it appears on television, it is well worth watching.

UPDATE: A Region 2 DVD of this movie will be issued in France in November, 2008. It will have the original English language soundtrack with French subtitles.

"Broadway" is a little-known semi-musical that grips the audience despite being handicapped with two pointless gimmicks. The first gimmick is that George Raft plays himself, and the movie supposedly recounts an episode early in his career. The second gimmick is that the story is told in flashback. Neither gimmick helps the film at all, and "Broadway" would have been better without them.

Once the flashback starts, the story unfolds quickly and blends a gangster story with a back-stage musical drama. Many films have tried this mixture. A few, like "Party Girl" succeed but most, like "The Cotton Club" fail. "Broadway" succeeds, and does not glamorise life back-stage. It shows the tackiness of show business in a small club which is small and shabby. No new songs were written for the film and familiar old songs like "Dinah" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry" are performed.

Apart from the gimmicks, the film has two other problems. Many of the characters are clichés, both as written and as acted. For example both S. J. Sakall and Pat O'Brien give the same performance they gave in several other movies, and S. J Sakall, in particular, is completely wrong for this movie. By contrast, Broderick Crawford gives an interesting performance as the main gangster and avoids cliché acting. The second weakness is that the screenplay does not bring out clearly what motivates the characters. For example, the Janet Blair character is attracted to the gangster and closes her eyes to what he really is. At a celebration party she is propositioned by an unwelcome admirer and the gangster intervenes. The man backs down and there is no violence. Nevertheless, the girl now sees the gangster for what he is and is no longer attracted to him. This would have made more sense if there had been a fight in which the gangster displayed sadism and brutality.

Although George Raft and Janet Blair were reasonable dancers, they were nothing special and "Broadway" succeeds more as a melodrama than as a musical. (If Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth had been cast, and more prominence given to the dancing, "Broadway" might have been a great musical.)

I saw this movie when it first came out and I was still a boy. As the IMDb has no information about the movie's plot or quality, I am appending a few thoughts although I remember very little about this film.

A man (Lex Barker) is driving a glamorous car in the south of France, and gives a lift to a stranger. When the stranger gets out, he does not close the car door and so the driver has to lean over to pull the door shut himself. As he does so, the hitchhiker clubs him with a cosh (or some such implement).

The man wakes up in a luxurious bed within a luxurious bedroom. A very good-looking girl (Lisa Gastoni) walks in and kisses him. He responds as any red-blooded man would but the girl pulls away, saying "That's no way to kiss your sister!" (or words to that effect). The man realises that he has lost his memory. He soon finds that he has an equally good-looking wife (Carole Matthews) and is the son of a rich man.

Although fifty years later I recall these scenes clearly, they are the only scenes I do remember about this movie, so "The Strange Awakening" is both memorable and forgettable!

(I apologise for the inadequacy of this review. If any other IMDb contributor submits a fuller appreciation, I will of course withdraw mine.)

If anyone wants to understand why the old movie studios could not withstand the competition from television, they should study "Tonight And Every Night", which exemplifies what was wrong with the old Hollywood studio system.

The film stars Rita Hayworth, one of the most charismatic and talented actresses ever to appear in movies. She is dressed by Jean Louis and photographed by Rudolph Mate. Apparently Columbia and Harry Cohn thought that was enough. It most certainly is not!

The screenplay is utter rubbish. There is almost no story; the dialogue in places is embarrassing; and the scenes where Lee Bowman "pitches" Rita Hayworth are so badly written - and make the Bowman character so unappealing - that it is impossible to believe any woman would have found the man attractive. The only interesting aspect to the story is the unrequited love Marc Platt's character has for Rita's showgirl, and the way he reacts when he realises there is no hope for him. Unfortunately the screenplay does not develop this, and instead lumbers towards a cliché-ridden happy resolution between Rita and Lee Bowman.

The songs have very little melody, despite having been written by Jule Styne, one the great tune-smiths of 20th Century popular music. Even worse, the dance numbers do not give Rita a chance to shine. All Jack Coles' routines are energetic, jitterbug affairs with arms and legs all over the place. There is not one elegant routine in the movie, not one moment of grace and poise. Astonishingly, although Rita had already proved in her movies with Fred Astaire that she was one of the great romantic dancers, she is not given a dance with a man - except for a few steps with Marc Platt before the camera pans away to focus on an uninteresting chorus line!

As was often the case in Rita's colour movies in the 1940's, she was impeded by the make-up department who put far too much rouge on her face. Rita was in the early stages of pregnancy when she made this movie, and occasionally it shows. Her breasts are bigger than normal - no man will complain about that! - and in the "Boy I Left Behind" duet with Janet Blair, Rita's lower stomach gives the game away.

"Tonight And Every Night" was not the worst film Rita made for Columbia: "Down To Earth" is far worse. "Tonight And Every Night" does, however, demonstrate how lazy and careless the old Hollywood studios were in the period before television.

It would have been easy for Columbia to have worked out a proper story line, to have pointed out to Jack Cole that Rita Hayworth needed a variety of dance numbers including at least one elegant, romantic routine, and to have given her a leading man who could dance.

"Six Black Horses" is a mild and mediocre western with only one real point of interest. Burt Kennedy's screenplay plagiarises his own screenplay for "Ride Lonesome"! Not only does Kennedy re-use some of the plot points - the redskins offering to trade a horse for the lushly feminine white woman/the sudden race across flat lands to a refuge just over the ridge - but also recycles some of his dialogue: "Some things a man just can't ride around" /"just thinking about it gives me a shiver deep down inside"/"a man needs a reason to ride this country".

Like "Ride Lonesome" and several other westerns written by Kennedy, "Six Black Horses" is a journey movie. A woman (Joan O'Brien) offers two saddle-sore drifters who are adept with guns (Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea) a thousand dollars each to escort her across Indian territory. Predictably, they encounter various dangers and, sadly, everything is resolved predictably.

There is nothing special about "Six Black Horses". Most of the situations and relationships are tired clichés, and none is depicted with any originality or imagination. Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea were old hands at this sort of thing in 1962, and they do not put a foot wrong. Joan O'Brien is more interesting, partly because she was an extremely attractive woman, even by movie star standards, and partly because her role carries some mystery. It is regrettable that her movie career did not prosper for longer.

If the gun fights had been expertly choreographed by a directer who knew how to do it (like John Sturges or Don Siegel), "Six Black Horses" would not be so forgettable.

"Chad Hanna" is truly the kind of film they don't make any more. A pity!

Chad Hanna (Henry Fonda) is a country farm boy who helps a black slave to escape, and then runs away with a circus together with a slave tracker's daughter (Linda Darnell). Originally dazzled by a seemingly glamorous circus performer (Dorothy Lamour), Chad eventually falls in love with the daughter and marries her, and they both make the circus their way of life. Nothing very enthralling happens, and the charm of the film comes from watching famous people early in their careers.

Linda Darnell is particular is a revelation. She was about seventeen years of age when she made "Chad Hanna", yet already her rapport with the camera is evident. So too is the warmth of her personality and the skill of her underplaying. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see why she became a big star, but what is intriguing is that in "Chad Hanna" Dorothy Lamour, who was already a big star, no longer seems attractive or interesting. It is not obvious why she was so popular at that time. Henry Fonda, of course, was already a movie "natural". He never seems to be acting, but somehow he is always both likable and believable. Fonda really holds this movie together.

20th Century Fox was the first major studio to master colour in movies. In the late 'thirties and early 'forties, most colour in films was garish and gaudy, but several Fox films had really beautiful colour, and "Chad Hanna" is one of them.

"Chad Hanna" is certainly a throw-back to the past, and quite possibly people who judge movies only in terms of their kinetic imagery will find it slow. For those who are not stimulated by violence and synthetic excitement, "Chad Hanna" is well worth watching.

The different contributions by the screenplay and the director to a movie's quality have always been misunderstood. Critics, amateur and professional, give all the credit to the director when a film is good, and all the blame when a film is not.

"The Hell With Heroes" has a brilliant cast and a really good screenplay that, with one final polish, could have been a masterpiece. However, Universal entrusted this project to a TV director and a second string crew, and the movie did not fulfill its potential. Nevertheless, "The Hell With Heroes" is interesting and enjoyable, and in places quite moving. Better than almost any other film, it demonstrates that if the screenplay is good, a fine movie will probably result, even if the director is sub-standard.

Set in 1946 in North Africa and Europe, where the ravages of the Second World War have caused shortages of everything, "The Hell With Heroes" tells how two American ex-servicemen are lured into working with black-marketeers. One of the ex-war heroes falls in love with the mistress of the head of the racket, and all the main characters face dilemmas and have to make difficult choices. With that narrative material and that cast, a classic film could have resulted.

Unfortunately the director did not know where to place his camera: frequently the camera is too close, when a medium shot would have been better. Even worse, the director is in too much of a hurry and does not allow scenes to play naturally, with characters pausing to think, and with emotions rising gradually. There are several key scenes that fall well short of the screenplay's potential. This is not the cast's fault. They do the best they can, and Rod Taylor in particular provides some high quality emotional acting.

Another area where the movie should have been better is in the make-up and lighting of Claudia Cardinale. Cardinale in the 1960s was a magnificent woman, but her beauty is given no help in "The Hell With Heroes". If only someone like Jack Cardiff or John Alton had been behind the camera! (If only someone like John Frankenheimer or Robert Wise had been directing!)

"The Hell With Heroes" seems to have disappeared in recent years, and is now almost unknown. Not long ago a bootleg DVD was touted on Ebay, and the vendor stated that the copyright was in the public domain. I hope this is incorrect, because I want Universal to issue a proper wide-screen DVD.

"Never Love A Stranger" is a badly directed movie with very poor dialogue, and an off-screen narrator pompously intoning meaningless platitudes.. The basic story is borrowed from several better films, and consequently has few surprises for the audience. However the film is of interest for other reasons.

The first major turning point in the story is based on an extraordinarily racist idea. A mother had died giving birth to a baby who is brought up in a Catholic orphanage. When the child is in his teens, it is discovered that his mother was Jewish. Although the boy has been raised from birth as a Christian, it is decided that he should be removed from the orphanage because it is felt that his parentage prevents him from being a Christian! Can any student of the Catholic Church in America confirm or deny that this kind of racist nonsense ever occurred?

Steve McQueen gives an early career performance, and already it is strikingly obvious that he has a rapport with the movie camera. Interestingly, so too has John Drew Barrymore, which raises the question of why did his movie career not prosper. Lita Milan has a strong and interesting face that is not conventionally beautiful. Thanks to Lee Garmes' lighting and to her heavy eye shadow, she seems better looking than she really is. R. G. Armstong comes in late in the movie, playing a hired assassin. Wearing glasses and city clothes, he is almost unrecognisable from the westerners he played in Sam Peckinpah's movies. Only his eyes remind the audience that they have seen him somewhere before.

The IMDb states incorrectly that Dorothy Collins is not given a screen credit, Yes she is, and so too is lyricist Lawrence Elow.

It is regrettable that "Never Love A Stranger" is such a weak movie. Buried beneath the shoddy dialogue and implausible characterisation is a workable story, struggling to emerge.

'Never Steal Anything Small' is a curiosity, a collector's item, and a seldom screened rarity.

Based on Maxwell Anderson's rejected play 'The Devil's Hornpipe', with new songs by Allie Wrubel, 'Never Steal Anything Small' tells of Jake MacIllaney, an irrepressible rogue who climbs to the top in the Trade Union racket. No trick is too dirty, no strategy too low for this scoundrel, and it fortunate for the movie that he is played by James Cagney whose effervescent screen presence makes the character bearable. It is also fortunate that the married woman for whom Jake develops an uncontrollable yen is played by Shirley Jones. 'Oklahoma!' may have been her break-through movie, but this is her break-out movie. For the first time Shirley was allowed to play a full-grown woman on screen, and she presents a new Shirley Jones, full-bodied and sexy, strong-willed and argumentative. Those who were startled by Shirley's performance in 'Elmer Gantry' cannot have seen 'Never Steal Anything Small'.

The movie is a puzzle. Allie Wrubel wrote several other songs which were not used, and Hermes Pan is the choreographer. Yet there is almost no dancing in the film and hardly any songs. This raises the question of whether Universal-International lost their nerve, and tried to make it a non-musical. Certainly Universal is not a studio associated with musicals, least of all in Cinemascope.

The film provides a chance to see Robert Wilke and Royal Dano, two regulars in Universal westerns, in a modern setting, plus another view of Cara Williams, Cyd Charisse's unsuccessful rival in 'Meet Me In Las Vegas'.

'Never Steal Anything Small' is such an uneven movie, and the leading character so unprincipled, that many people will dislike the film. However those with a cynical sense of humour or an appetite for Shirley Jones will find much to enjoy.