After being kidnapped by an Apache in THE SEARCHERS, Natalie Wood found herself, later that year in her first adult role, kidnapped again, now by a mentally & emotionally stunted Raymond Burr. A slightly ridiculous, but rather entertaining (below) B-budgeted derangement from Alan Ladd’s Jaguar Productions (he narrates), at 75" it looks designed for quickie double-bills, but with an exceptional line-up of character actors on hand: hard-driving cop Edmond O’Brien, Wood’s overprotective father; chief-detective Brian Donlevy; Richard Anderson as the fiancé who gets conked on the head; and Raymond Burr as the creepy perv at ‘Lover’s Loop’ who carts her off after an altercation. (Even more ‘familiars’ in bit parts.) As producer, Ladd surely stuck his neck out offering this to ‘gray-listed’ helmer Frank Tuttle, director of Ladd’s breakout THIS GUN FOR HIRE/’42; and Tuttle does what he can. But a very uneven, often laughable, script is overloaded with ‘Pop’ Freudian psychology: Daddy-issues for O’Brien & Wood; Mommy-issues for Burr’s psycho. (Burr also gets a big dose of Lenny from OF MICE AND MEN, with dead puppy in for dead rabbit.) Makes for a lot of scenery chewing; no one more so than O’Brien, determined to make Father-issues paramount. (Astute observation or actor’s jealousy?) John Seitz, Ladd’s regular lenser at the time, can do little on the cheap soundstage sets (an L.A. nighttime cyclorama is a particular horror), but also manages some impressive noir stylings when given the chance.* Same could be said for the pic as a whole.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Two years later, again with Ladd as ‘silent’ producer, Tuttle & Seitz all but ended their careers with one of the all-time goofball Sci-Fi guilty-pleasures, ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN, loaded with quotable dialogue & business that can make you shake with laughter merely recalling it decades later.
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