Never short of galley work in the decades before Clint Eastwood/DIRTY HARRY made him a late-blooming A-lister, Don Siegel had three standouts in just the second half of the ‘50s. Two generally known (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS; THE LINEUP*), and this expert thriller off the radar far too long. Something of a Modern Day Western, Siegel opens in the middle of an action scene as two unknown men struggle for survival on a rocky Grand Canyon cliff. (Burnett Guffey’s CinemaScope EastmanColor lensing spectacular throughout, with wonderfully suggestive AZ locations & period buildings, moody interiors, and an awesome yellow Thunderbird convertible.) We later discover those two adversaries were involved in a deadly plot to secretly reopen a closed gold mine. But at first we’re just as misdirected as Deputy Sheriff Cornel Wilde is; chasing Victoria Shaw around dangerous curves in her speeding sports car. Add in flavorsome turns from Edgar Buchanan as Wilde’s boss and Mickey Shaughnessy as a suspiciously gregarious barkeep, while Siegel balances impeccably staged action thrills against a slightly skimpy, if well-structured mystery plot and character reveals. And if honest plotting & detective work gets shortchanged toward the end, Siegel makes up for it with a nail-biting/hang-by-your-thumbs cliffhanger climax. Where has this crafty work been hiding?
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Everyone’s up on Siegel original BODY SNATCHERS/’56, but don’t take THE LINEUP/’58 for granted. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/01/invasion-of-body-snatchers-1956.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-lineup-1958.html
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