PORTLAND EXPOSE

Edward Binns, unidentified player, Frank Gorshin

PORTLAND EXPOSE (1957). Director: Harold D. Schuster.  Colorized. 

Tavern owner George Madison (Edward Binns) lives with his wife (Virginia Gregg) and two children, including daughter Ruth (Carolyn Craig), in Portland, Oregon. Sleazy criminal elements have moved into the city, and Madison is threatened if he doesn't agree to put in a certain party's juke boxes and slot machines. Fearing for his family's safety, Madison goes along with this, but when one of the creeps (Frank Gorshin of Invasion of the Saucer Men) tries to rape his daughter, he agrees to help the authorities take the whole group down. But what happens if they find out what he's doing? 

Binns with Russ Conway

Portland Expose is an absorbing enough B movie with some good performances. The showiest role goes to Gorshin, who delivers as a psychopathic creep who comes to a bad end on the railway tracks when even his buddies are disgusted by him. Jeanne Carmen (of The Monster of Piedras Blancas) plays a sexy gal who makes a play for George, and is the one who figures out that he's on the side of the angels and isn't really playing ball with them. Russ Conway (of Trapped) is the head bad guy, Phil Jackman, and never chews the scenery, instead exuding quiet menace. Joe Flynn of McHale's Navy and The Big Chase has a small role as one of the good guys working on the case. Carolyn Craig is best-known for her role in House on Haunted Hill. The climax where George and Ruth nearly get acid thrown in their faces is tense and suspenseful. 

Verdict: For something set in Oregon, this isn't too bad. **3/4. 

THE MASKS: TWILIGHT ZONE

Robert Keith

THE TWILIGHT ZONE Season Five, Episode twenty-five. The Masks (1964). Written by Rod Serling. Directed by Ida Lupino. 

Although "The Masks," written by Rod Serling, is hardly one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, it does have several points of interest. The plot has to do with a wealthy and grumpy man named Jason Foster (Robert Keith) who is on his death bed. His greedy, unloving relatives -- daughter Emily (Virginia Gregg), her husband Wilfred (Milton Selzer) and their adult children Paula (Brooke Hayward) and Wilfred Jr. (Alan Sues) -- arrive in Jason's New Orleans mansion during Mardi Gras, and he insists that all four of them put on and wear these grotesque masks until midnight -- or they will be cut out of the will. 

Brooke Hayward as the vain Paula

Okay, let's assume that this will and Jason's edict is enforceable, which is extremely unlikely, or that a dying man would even have time to change his will in the first place, I have always had other problems with this episode. Even an eight-year-old will realize that when the relatives take off their masks at midnight, their faces will be as hideous as the masks. But do these people, as greedy and frivolous as they may be, really deserve permanent disfigurement? They aren't child murderers, for heaven's sake. And one has to wonder exactly what kind of father Jason was in the first place, as he seems distinctly unpleasant from the beginning (admittedly, people on their death beds will probably not be happy campers, but still ... ) One can't imagine any kind of loving father wanting to impose such a cruel fate on his own daughter and grandchildren; disinheriting them would have been more than enough. Serling's teleplay lacks any kind of final twist that would give the nasty old fart his due. 

The masks come off at midnight

Still, whatever its obvious flaws, The Masks features excellent ensemble acting from the entire cast. Keith was a fine actor who never quite became famous but graced many productions with his talent, as did Virginia Gregg and Milton Selzer. Although I was never a particular fan of Alan Sues of Laugh-In, in this he is nearly unrecognizable and gives a very good account of himself. Brooke Hayward was the daughter of the great Margaret Sullavan and proves that she inherited a lot of her mother's ability. There are people who think this is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, but with its stereotypes and lopsided morality I would have to rank it as a well-acted failure. As she does with this episode, Ida Lupino generally proved a better director of TV episodes than she did of feature films. 

Verdict: Stay away from awful old men with money. **1/4.