HILLBILLIES IN A HAUNTED HOUSE

Joi Lansing and Ferlin Husky

HILLBILLIES IN A HAUNTED HOUSE (1967). Director: Jean Yarbrough.

Singer Woody Wetherby (country star Ferlin Husky), his girl singer, Boots Malone (Joi Lansing), and his manager, Jeepers (Don Bowman), are traveling to Nashville for a concert when bad weather and automobile trouble forces them to seek shelter in a creepy old mansion. They don't realize that the new owner, Madame Wong (Linda Ho), is running an espionage outfit that employs Max (Lon Chaney Jr.), Gregor (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Himmil (John Carradine of Female Jungle), not to mention a bad-tempered gorilla named Anatole (George Barrows). Will Jim Meadows (Richard Webb of The Invisible Monster), secret agent for MOTHER, be able to save Boots from the Iron Maiden and make the world safe for democracy? 

Slumming: Rathbone and Carradine

Hillbillies is actually the second of two films starring Husky as Wetherby, following Las Vegas Hillbillies, in which Boots Malone was played by Mamie Van Doren and Jayne Mansfield also had a part. The first one couldn't possibly have been worse than this awful concoction, which wastes the talents of virtually everyone, especially Carradine and poor Basil Rathbone. The last ten minutes are a concert with songs being performed by Molly Bee, Merle Haggard  and Marcella Wright ("Strangers"). Husky himself does a nice job with "One Bridge I Have Never Crossed." In his heyday and for many years Husky was a very, very popular entertainer. As for Joi Lansing, who always seemed to play the perennial dumb blonde, it's ironic that in this picture she plays it straight! Jean Yarbrough also directed Inside Job and a great many other movies. 

Verdict: Aside from some of the songs there's little point in sitting through this. *1/2. 

LURE OF THE ISLANDS

Robert Lowery and Margie Hart

LURE OF THE ISLANDS (1942). Director: Jean Yarbrough.  

During WW2 two American agents -- Wally (Robert Lowery of Sensation Hunters) and Jinx (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) -- are told by the skipper (Tristram Coffin) to swim to a Tropical island paradise that may be a nest of Axis agents. There the boys encounter two women: Brooklyn-born Tana (Margie Hart), who hopes Wally will marry her and take her back to the U.S.; and Maui (Gale Storm of Nearly Eighteen), who is only interested in Jinx when Tana fibs that he's a pig millionaire. In this not terribly serious "war" film with song numbers, the foursome have to deal with a Nazi commandant (Ivan Lebedeff) and some Japanese who hope to turn the island into their base. 

Williams and Storm

Margie Hart was a burlesque stripper -- a competitor of Gypsy Rose Lee's -- who tried to kickstart a movie career by starring in this Monogram cheapie, which throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Unfortunately, Hart proved to be barely adequate as an actress. Although she later took acting lessons and did some theater, Lure of the Islands was her first and last movie. However, this is the kind of schlock that Lowery, Williams and Storm could probably do in their sleep, and they make a better impression. Hart warbles the pretty title tune (although she may have been dubbed) and Gale does a very cute number entitled "My Tahiti Sweetie" that boasts some clever and amusing lyrics. Kahala and Odetta Bray are the pretty native dancers and singers. 

Verdict: Another weird low-budget melange from Monogram. **1/2. 

INSIDE JOB (1946)

Alan Curtis and Ann Rutherford

INSIDE JOB (1946). Director: Jean Yarbrough. 

Eddie Norton (Alan Curtis) works as a kind of mechanical man in a department store window, and hides the fact that he is an ex-con because of a youthful indiscretion. His old "friend" Bart Madden (Preston Foster) threatens to tell his employers about his past if he doesn't help him rob the department store. You'd think Eddie would want no part of this scheme no matter what -- especially since Eddie took the fall for Bart --  but the dope not only eventually decides to go along with it but enlists his wife, Claire (Ann Rutherford), in his plans, which include ultimately cutting Madden out of the profit. But loose lips and a cute little boy with a cop father may prevent Eddie from realizing his larcenous ambitions.

Alan Curtis hatches plan

Inside Job features perhaps two of the dumbest protagonists in any movie. They seem to have no real skill at robbery or much of anything else. The three leads give solid performances, although Rutherford is not really the "gorgeous model" type that she is supposed to be (although she was cute enough to excite the interest of Andy Hardy when she played Polly Benedict). The movie glosses over details about the heist so that a lot of the plot doesn't make much sense. Midway through the movie it decides to drag in some sentiment with a cute neighbor kid (Jimmy Moss) next door as Eddie and Claire hide out after the heist. There's also a borderline cloying simple-minded nanny named "Ivory" (Ruby Dandridge, mother of Dorothy) and the kid's father, a cop named Thomas (Joe Sawyer). Marc Lawrence and Milburn Stone are also in the cast. The script for Inside Job is just too weak to make this a contender, but the uncompromising ending makes it clear that crime, in this case, really doesn't pay despite the fact that the couple are pretty much redeemed by their actions at the end. 

Verdict: Minor film noir with sentimental interludes. **.