Short, but tiresome. Jack L. Copeland’s solo shot at film (he wrote, directed, produced) is shopworn hostage drama: revenge seeking employee straps on a ‘human bomb’ vest and threatens to detonate it at the jet fuel factory he was fired from, while holding a police detective’s wife. (Pretty stale stuff even then.) Coleen Gray & Stephen McNally keep their self-respect as the married couple under pressure, but inevitably become backdrops to Vic Morrow’s ‘white trash’ bomber who's located the Method Acting sweet spot between James Dean angst & Rod Steiger constipation. (With a blustery score to underline every motivational tic.) At least he’s something to watch! So too fine crepuscular lensing from Ernest Haller, a top Warners cameraman in the ‘30 & ‘40s (Bette Davis’s fave), who turns the nighttime location shooting into compelling abstract compositions: round holding tanks, encircling stairways, geometric shadows & metal pipeworks as obstacles at this complex complex. As to the drama, you’ve seen it before . . . and will again.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Blowing up yourself and a gas plant? Stick with James Cagney in WHITE HEAT/’49.
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