Hell Bound (1957) User Reviews

Quite good--though it has its slow moments

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 18 November 2013]

John Russell was a very large, handsome and often scary looking man. Mostly he made westerns, though here in "Hell Bound" he's in a low-budget film noir picture.

The film begins with Jordan (Russell) coming up with a perfect plan to hijack a shipment of surplus narcotics left over from World War II. The military plans on destroying them--Jordan plans on relieving them of that responsibility and selling them for a fortune. However, to make the plan work several partners need to be gathered--a nurse, a derelict man in a raft, a crew member who will go into a diabetic coma and a government agent to look the other way. It's such a perfect plan he even made a movie and showed it to a mob boss--a man who is duly impressed--so impressed that he offers his girlfriend to play the part of the nurse. With all these things in place, what's to go wrong?!

While the film has a few slow moments, the execution of the robbery is exciting and a bit shocking in its brutality. I appreciated this, as these ARE criminal scum and they sure act like it!

As far as the nurse plot goes, it reminded me of the amazingly good but mostly forgotten Rory Calhoun picture, "The Big Caper". All in all, very well worth your time.

Sometimes Things Work Out And Sometimes You Get Buried In Scrap Metal

[boblipton · 6/10 · 26 September 2021]

There's a complicated drug smuggling operation operating in the Port of Los Angeles, involving diabetic health inspectors.

It's a trashy movie, with an ending on Terminal Island, with the corpses of the Red Car piled up, waiting scrapping. At times it seems that everyone in the movie is involved in the dope trade, from fat Stanley Adams, to manic John Russell, to straight-arrow intern Stuart Whitman. DP Carl Guthrie's cluttered compositions and flat lighting add to the confusion.

Whether these are intended, forced by the short budgets that the Koch-Schenck producing team operated on, or the "it's just a paycheck movie" mentality, I can't really say. You've got June Blair, fresh from her Playboy centerfold, shot with foot fetishists in mind, and an ending that emphasizes the tawdry nature of the entire thing. Sometimes things work because they're planned well, and sometimes the stars align.

"Ounces Of Big, White, Fluffy, Happy Clouds!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 6 August 2021]

In HELL BOUND, John Russell stars as Jordan, the brains behind a big cargo heist, in which a fortune in drugs is at stake.

Much of the film's running time involves the logistics and preparation for the crime, including the gathering of the crooks to pull it off.

All seems well, until the weakness, addictions, and folly of the team threaten to ruin the whole operation.

Russell is very convincing in his driven, downright wicked role. He's the black heart of the story, and delivers an unflinchingly ruthless performance. June Blair is also good as Paula, the woman that Jordan needs for his plot, as is Stuart Whitman as the man who falls in love with Paula, causing a moral dilemma.

This is a tense crime thriller with a wonderful chase-through-a-scrapyard finale...

The padding added to fill out the length makes it sag

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 4 January 2022]

This would have been very good as a 50 minute episode of an hour long TV crime drama series. The extra 20 minutes could easily be cut from the padding I mention, and a harder hitting more focused tale would be the result.

The film opens with a narration about the perfect crime - How to steal war surplus contraband worth 250 thousand dollars from a cargo freighter with no confrontation, nobody the wiser. Then the narration ends and we see that this has been a short film presentation by Jordan (John Russell) who is pitching this to a crime boss whose financial backing he needs. I can imagine that is true, because in 1957 making such a film that involves a freighter and a cast of hundreds would not be easy or cheap. It's not like you could just shoot it on your IPhone Pro.

Jordan gets the backing he wants, but then he makes a series of bad moves, all involving the cast of accomplices he picks. He needs a nurse, an actual maritime health inspector, and somebody to pretend he is lost at sea that is rescued by the freighter. The problems are in the nurse - she is actually the crime boss' girlfriend who is not a nurse, and the "lost at sea" guy - he is a junkie, unknown to Jordan. Junkies are characteristically undependable, a slave to their habit, and the fake nurse will have to ride around in an ambulance for a few days as an actual nurse before the heist. What if the ambulance driver starts tossing medical jargon at her like "banana bag" and tarchy?? What if she is asked to start an IV? The results could be grisly or at least malpractice.

I found a couple of more questions that were never answered. For one, how does Jordan know that a particular freighter has war surplus drugs onboard? Also, definitely a plot faux pas if you are diabetic. It is never a good thing for your blood sugar to "shoot straight up", and that means more insulin if it does happen, not less. But I digress.

On the positive side what this film lacks in logic and meaningful dialogue it definitely has in noir imagery. In particular, there are some great shots of a mass grave of the LA trolley cars towards the end. If you watched and remember "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", you'll remember that the trolley cars being abandoned in the late 40s weighed heavily into the plot of that film. Also, John Russell is great as ruthless villain Jordan, with his severe features and always dressed like a 50s insurance salesman. In fact he winds up being a little too ruthless for his own good.

two heads

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 26 September 2021]

In post-war L. A., Jordan makes a film about using a fake quarantine to steal surplus government drugs from a freighter. Wealthy investor Harry Quantro suggests doing it for real. Femme fatale Paula joins the caper.

I think that I missed half the hidden meaning and double entendre. Somebody needs to explain the two heads comments. One is for thinking but I don't know the other. Are they suggesting that she gives good head? What does putting her shoes on mean? What does half of this dialogue mean? It certainly keeps one on one's toes. This is a low budget B-movie. As such, they try to build atmosphere with a lot of empty industrial parks and dock locations. It fully uses the stacks of trolley cars. It's a lot of noir style, acting hard, and no money work-arounds. Why is the blind guy drinking milk? There are so many weird under-the-radar choices being made. I'm not saying that this is a classic but they are throwing everything at this and it's fun to see.

Razor-Edged "B" Heist-Noir...Desperate Characters..Lurid...Smashing...Violent Hidden-Gem

[LeonLouisRicci · 7/10 · 10 June 2023]

Taut and Tight Little "Heist" Movie with Heavy Film-Noir Influences, some Dire and Desperate Characters, Fine Acting, a Quick Violence-Prone Plot, and an Ending that is Visually and Viscerally Stunning.

Stone-Faced John Russell is in Full Sadistic "Bully" Mode as, He Recruits Men and Women with Varying Degrees of Desperation and Greed.

Russell Uses Physical Persecution Beating and Slapping People Around Non-Stop Preys on Drug-Addicts to "Mastermind" a Heist of Contraband (Drugs) Most always Referred to in the "Code-Enforcement" Days as "Stuff".

It's Sleazy, both in Personnel and Locations, The Docks, Burlesque, and Minimalist Rooming-Boards. Also Featuring a Pre-Tarantino "Foot-Fetish" Running Throughout.

June Blair (Playmate 1957), Shows a Bit More than Her Feet Here in the Form of Cleavage and Lingerie.

A Good Supporting Cast of...Stuart Whitman, Margo Woode, and Frank Fenton, among Others,

Make for a Solid, Disturbing, Cutting-Edge, Mid-50's Crime Noir that has High-Lights Galore for those that Like Their High-Lights Among the Low-Light Digs and Brutal Crime-Gang Domination Displays.

About as Violent and Nasty as it Gets in the Mid-50's.

The Ending Scene in the Rail-Yard is Unforgettable and Brings this Little Hidden-Gem to a Crashing and Crushing Conclusion.

A Must-See for Noir and Crime Buffs...For Others it's...

Worth a Watch.

Like "The Killing" But with Foot Fetishism and Trains

[CatherineYronwode · 6/10 · 5 July 2020]

This is an odd movie. The plot resembles of that of "The Killing" from 1956 (no spoilers from me, folks!), but with a train yard instead of and airport and an inexplicable amount of random foot fetishism scenes.

The location shots of the seedy, ugly industrial underbelly of the Port of Los Angeles, filled with clanging freighters, trains, cranes, derricks, busted lamps, bridges, weedy open areas, parking lots, and seedy neon streets are spectacular -- beautifully filmed in high-noir style, and almost documentary in their precision. The trolley graveyard, Southern Pacific freight yard, and piles of scrap metal are literally priceless as settings. For anyone seeking great, sharp-focus, high-contrast footage of the industrial junk piles in Los Angeles in 1957, this is valuable footage.

The plot is ... a plot (see "the Killing") and the actors are competent, but the script is thin, so there are lots of unvoiced action scenes and facial dead-pan reaction shots that last too long. The repetitious, silent fetish scenes of women's feet, both in and out of shoes, also lack charm. And, inexplicably, several minutes are wasted on a pointless strip tease act right out of a Sack Entertainment exploitation film. The director was probably getting off on the high sleaze-quotient, but i found it awkward and childish.

I'm glad i saw this film, but i didn't really like it all that much.

Since Mr. Reficul would sound too goofy

[volama · 7/10 · 26 September 2021]

When Jordan (John Russell) comes to a health dept office as a phony pharmaceutical rep, he is announced as Mr. Natas. A reverse-spelled Satan works well for "Hell Bound".

Drug heist

[nickenchuggets · 7/10 · 9 December 2021]

Because I've never heard of this movie, I didn't really expect it to be very good. My prediction was partially right, as the film's storyline somehow manages to be both very sparse on details and hard to follow at the same time, ultimately leading to a confusing and mediocre plot. I thought the acting was good enough for such a little known movie, and there's even a respectable amount of unexpected moments that caught me off guard (especially the ending). The movie's premise is very simple, which is why I didn't think the story was particularly strong: a criminal based in california named Jordan (John Russell) is trying to rob a cargo ship containing millions of dollars worth of narcotics from the second world war. He enlists the help of various people in order to accomplish this. His scheme is foiled later because his girlfriend falls in love with someone named Eddie (Stuart Whitman), one of Jordan's associates. Jordan doesn't find out about his girlfriend's secret relationship until later. Once he does, he goes to her apartment and slaps her around several times before fatally stabbing her. Jordan leaves and tries to cover his tracks, but inevitably, the cops are right behind him. He flees to a junkyard where trolley cars are stacked on top of each other, waiting to be scrapped. As he attempts to hide in an open topped train car, a magnetic crane picks up a large amount of metal beams and drops them inside, crushing him to death. While this movie isn't really anything amazing, I have to admit it has one of the darkest and most brutal endings to a noir I've seen in a while. John Russell plays the typical noir "protagonist": a man whose life is irrevocably changed all because of some woman he gets involved with. He wants to see his drug heist plan be successful so he can end up a millionaire, but bad luck (also known as Paula) intervenes. June Blair was a good pick for Paula in this movie, as she appears to be a good person due to her career as a nurse. As she's pleading with Jordan not to kill her, it makes you actually feel sad that he's about to murder a valuable member of society in cold blood. There's also many sexual scenes involving her, which are about as intimate as post Hayes Code movies could allow. There's even a scene where a heroin dealer is watching a barely-dressed woman dance in a nightclub, which demonstrates the fact that films back in the 50s were often just as edgy as ones now. Even in the 30s, once Hayes Code started to be enforced, the use of the word "narcotics" in film was prohibited. The final scene, which takes place at the junkyard, was filmed on Terminal Island near LA. The trolley cars shown stacked on top of each other were in the process of being scrapped in order to have their metal recycled. Before closing in the 80s, the site also scrapped ships from the US navy that were retired. Overall, Hell Bound is not a very impressive movie, but with such good acting from its main characters, (as well as its disturbing ending), it shows how even mediocre movies can be made a lot better by competent performers.

Should have stuck with the actors

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 12 February 2017]

As a previous reviewer remarked elements of The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing are present in Hell Bound. I would my favorite noir film Kansas City Confidential to that list. It's the story of a perfect caper at least on paper and on film it is. John Russell in selling the idea to smuggle a fortune in narcotics actually films a dry run of it with actors and sells it to his money guy Dehl Berti.

Unfortunately he should have stuck with the actors for the real deal. Russell is a brutal man and he browbeats a pair to assist in the heist. Their roles don't quite go according to script.

Also unplanned is the money man's moll who plays the part of a nurse falls for the ambulance driver who was to be their patsy. June Blair later to join the Nelson household marrying David is the moll and Stuart Whitman is the ambulance driver. That's Russell's doing as well.

However Russell himself is a fascinating portrait in evil. Even with big plot holes he makes you want to watch this film. The end he comes to is also quite original.

Watch this one for John Russell.

Top small budget Noir

[gordonl56 · 9/10 · 27 July 2014]

HELLBOUND – 1957

This is a surprisingly good low budget programmer from the end of classic film noir cycle.

John Russell headlines as a villain with a plan to lift a large dollar amount of drugs off a ship docking in Los Angeles. He has come up with a rather elaborate plan to get hold of the drugs and get them off the ship with no one the wiser. All he needs is some up-front money to run the play.

Russell takes his plan to mobbed up Frank Fenton. Fenton agrees to finance the play but insists that Russell use one of his people. He sends drop dead pretty, June Blair along to help out. Blair is no damsel in distress type.

Russell's plan involves a ship-board contact, a fake sailor in need of rescue and a port authority health officer as well as a nurse.

With Blair now in the picture, Russell has to pull his new girlfriend, Margo Woode, from the set-up. Woode works as a nurse on the ambulance Russell needs for the score. Woode arranges for Blair to take her place. Russell has bribed a crewman for the plans to the ship and where the drugs are kept. It is the perfect plan, Russell tells money man, Fenton.

Russell has also bribed a port authority health officer, Stanley Adams into joining. Adams is always dreaming of taking a world cruise and intends to use his end for just that. George Mather plays the other member of the group. His job is to get on board the ship just outside the harbour. He will be adrift in a life raft. He will tell the crew of the ship his fishing boat sank. His job is to break into where the drugs are kept. He is then to pass them to Stanley Adams who is to take them off the ship.

Needless to say it does not take long for the flies in the ointment to start to appear. Hardboiled dame Blair softens when she falls for the ambulance doc, Stuart Whitman. She decides to run off with the man. Russell beats the woman and leaves her for dead. He then puts Miss Woode back into play.

Mather turns out to have a rather severe heroin addiction and starts to go into withdrawal just after getting on board the ship. Everything comes unglued and the plan falls completely apart. The ship docks, the ambulance to whisk Adams and the drugs away arrives. What happens instead, is Mather is brought off the ship kicking and screaming from a terrible case of the DT's. Adams has failed in his bit as well, he is dead from a bad ticker.

The Police now arrive and put the grip on Miss Woode. It seems that Blair had survived the beating from Russell and spilled the whole plan to the Police.

Russell, watching from the dock, takes off with the Police in hot pursuit. Russell leads the boys in blue on a merry chase through a metal scrapyard. He ducks in and out of rows of old trolley cars trying to throw off the pursuing Police. He seems to have done just that, when he gets his comeuppance in a most gruesome style.

There are shades of several other perfect plans coming unraveled noir in this one. One cannot help but see bits of THE KILLING, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THE BIG CAPER etc throughout. Having said that, this one more than holds its own, in comparison to the better known film noir productions.

The acting is quite good, with Russell in particular shining. He does what he needs to in order to get his plan into play. He is vicious, friendly or helpful depending on what is needed to make the set-up work. There is no doubt though that the man is a killer at heart. Ex Playboy centerfold, June Blair shows some real acting chops here in her first credited role.

B film director William J. Hole Jr. does some nice work here. It does not hurt that he has film noir regular, Carl Guthrie handling the cinematography duties. Guthrie worked on noir as, DEATH IN SMALL DOSES, FLAXY MARTIN, BACKFIRE, UNDERCOVER GIRL, THIS SIDE OF THE LAW, Hollywood STORY, IRON MAN, STORM WARNING, THE TATTERED DRESS, CAGED and HIGHWAY 301.

The story and screenplay was by another noir veteran, Richard Landau. Landau's work includes story or screenplays for, ROADBLOCK, STOLEN FACE, THE MAN IS ARMED, FBI GIRL, MURDER BY PROXY, HOT CARS, THE GLASS CAGE and THE CROOKED WAY.

For a low budget production, the film is quite entertaining and well worth a watch.

EVEN A WELL LAID PLAN MAY FAIL...!

[masonfisk · 7/10 · 4 October 2021]

A 1957 film noir. Opening on a thieves' ploy to rob a ship of some drugs (the industrious fellow has even made a filmed previz of the caper), he successfully gains backing to pull off the heist but now he has to deploy his pawns in order to actually pull the job off. Talk about hopeful thinking as his players come into focus (a doctor who works on the boat who has health issues, a drug addict & the backer's moll, played by June Blair, who is supposed to be a nurse but ends up falling for her co-worker, played by Stuart Whitman). Our thief, played by John Russell (whose cheeks I remember from him playing the bad guy in Eastwood's Pale Rider), is all business but there's a certain amount of relish the audience gets as we witness his well oiled plan go right off the rails until the final frames of the film as he gets his just desserts when he's crushed to death by falling metal girders. Deus ex Machina indeed.

Sordid little tale with unusual denouement

[lotekguy-1 · 5/10 · 26 September 2021]

Rarely is the deus ex machina an actual machine. Points for the novelty.

Just out of curiosity, John Russell's hulking menace here was quite reminiscent of many such villainous roles in the preceding decade by a bulky, glowering actor who became a long-running TV hero. Given the obvious budgetary constraints of this production, I wonder if Russell got the part because Raymond Burr was already too expensive?

Manages a Grabber or Two

[dougdoepke · 12 September 2015]

Some great staging in that final sequence. Now I know what happens to old tram cars, including about every piece of scrap metal in LA. Apparently, port LA is not a good place to rest up, however, so I'll not be looking to vacation there. Anyway, looks like this fairly nifty little heist film was inspired by Kubrick's brilliant robbery feature The Killing (1956). Both focus on elaborate heists and the frailties of the gang involved. Here it's mastermind Russell, along with a corrupt health inspector, a heroin junkie, and an unwitting ambulance driver, plus a load of shipboard narcotics waiting to be stolen. But please, oh please, tell me that phony nurse June Blair will take on a phony patient, namely me. She's really luscious, and now I see why super-wholesome Ozzie & Harriet's number one son David married her, Playboy centerfold or not. I guess when she drops a shoe, it means action time for the lucky guy.

Anyhow, it's more a movie of parts than a suspenseful whole. The narrative does tend to meander some despite the riveting premise. Surprisingly, the focus is more on Russell and what he'll do next, than on the caper itself. But colorful characters and good acting bridge over the narrative. And for sure, gimlet-eyed Russell does get to stare down everybody in sight, and makes one hunky gang leader. And that's just a year or two before he went straight and became sheriff of Laramie (Lawman). Though obscure by any light, the film's still a decent little crime feature that shows off once more the minor glories of the American B-movie.

Outdated but relevant during it's time

[jordondave-28085 · 6/10 · 5 April 2023]

(1957) Hell Bound CRIME THRILLER

Wannabe racketeer, Jordon (John Russell) wanting to make more money by continuing to steal drugs from cargo ship, and he isn't able to do it without his former crew, as he knows someone who drives an ambulance and so forth. So, as a result of unable to get his drugs for the purpose of selling them in the black market, he resorts to obtaining his drug supply by means of using violence and assaulting measures.

A little movie that depicted a time when drugs om a cargo ship used to be a thing during WWII, and is not happening so much anymore as there is more border patrol and so forth .

hell bound

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 17 October 2021]

I appreciate the future daughter in law of Ozzie and Harriet's kinky shoe fetish, and The Lawman makes a good psycho villain (who knew?), and as a lifetime Los Angeles resident who well remembers the city's smog levels going way up once mass transit was cut, I found the finale in the Red Car cemetery heartbreaking, but as for the rest of this standard B picture hesit flic I kept wondering if audiences who saw it in '57 thought the same thing I did, namely,"Why pay to watch stuff I can get for free on 'M Squad' or 'Highway Patrol' and I'm not even talking about the best episodes"? Give it a generous C plus for the above plaisirs.

"CAMPY, AND KIND OF FUN!"

[stephenpaulgarsh · 5/10 · 26 September 2021]

It's a reel Cheeser! "HELL BOUND" from 1957. Starring, TV's "Lawman, John Russell as the Bad Guy; mustacheless, getting his in the final scene. All the bad guys "get it" at the end of most Film Noir Flicks. About 5 tons of scrap metal rein down from an electromagnet on top of old John hiding in a railroad hopper car. Oops. Fini. Not bad for a B- picture. Great Trivia: Stuart Whitman played two different characters in the movie, one a blind guy in a bar. Just putting on sunglasses and mumbling did NOT do the trick. Make that a C+

Most interesting John Russell's role

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 25 September 2022]

He is the lead character here, an evil one for change, so delightful, delicious, a head master of a robbery, complex one involving a shipment of drug taken from a freight ship. It is an underrated film, small budget, totally forgotten now. It was aired on TCM and availabe on You Tube. There were batches like this one, in the more or less small Hollywood companies in the fifties, and even later. You have just to be lucky to find them. I highly prefer John Russell here than in Republic Pictures westerns or war dramas of the early fifties, or even the PALE RIDER crap, where he was the leader of a bunch of vicious killers who terrorized a mine town. A good little heist film to discover, but anyone will certainly prefer ASSAULT ON A QUEEN, in terms of robbery aboard a ship. Jaw dropping ending.

Interesting contrast between pseudo-heist documentary and real life counterpart is not enough to save "B" potboiler

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 5 November 2021]

Hell Bound begins with a criminal by the name of Jordan (John Russell) who pulls off what appears to be a robbery of a ship containing $2 million dollars worth of surplus narcotics left over from World War II. The scheme involves Jordan conscripting a diabetic public health inspector to inject himself with insulin after going on board the ship, putting himself in a diabetic coma. Meanwhile another confederate pretends to be a fisherman forced into a lifeboat and brought on board the ship who then steals the narcotics and places them in the inspector's jacket when he is taken away in an ambulance.

In an unconvincing twist, we discover that Jordan filmed this whole scenario as a pseudo-documentary and presents it to a crime boss so he would bankroll the entire idea in real life. I've heard of fledging filmmakers creating documentary shorts to attempt to get into film school, but never a criminal producing and directing his own film as a reenactment for a proposed robbery. After all doesn't creating a film like that cost a lot of money and could be used as evidence later on against the person who made it?

So the rest of Hell Bound shows how Jordan attempts to pull the scheme off in real life. He receives backing from the gangster Harry Quantro (Frank Fenton) but his idea to use girlfriend Jan (Margo Woode) as the nurse who accompanies the ambulance driver to pick up the health inspector is rebuffed by Quantro's own girlfriend Paula (June Blair) who insists on "protecting" Quantro's investment by playing the role of the nurse.

As the plot develops, Paula falls for straight arrow ambulance driver Eddie Mason (Stuart Whitman). Meanwhile Jordan goes ahead and conscripts his diabetic health inspector Herbert Fay Jr. (Stanley Adams) and blackmails a drug-addicted ex-medical student Stanley Thomas (George Mather Jr.) into participating in the scheme.

Paula goes soft after attending to a young child in the ambulance who dies after being hit by a car. Soon afterward Jordan stabs Paula after it's clear she no longer wants to participate in the robbery (we're made to believe that she's been killed but as it turns out Jordan's knife wounds are not enough to do her in).

The scheme unravels when Fay dies after injecting himself with the insulin and Thomas freaks out before he can pilfer the narcotics aboard the ship. There's an anti-climactic chase scene in which Jordan is cornered by the police. The coup de grace occurs when Jordan is killed after a load of scrap metal is dumped on him while he hides in a junk yard.

While the contrast between the actual robbery and the one depicted in Jordan's film is interesting, it's not enough to save the entire project. The veteran actor Whitman has little to do as Mason the ambulance driver after his girlfriend Paula is stabbed. Russell as Jordan must cope with a one-note role in which he's too violent to be likeable.

June Blair who was a 1957 Playboy Playmate of the Month and later went on to marry David Nelson and star on Ozzie and Harriet is an inviting presence as the sultry moll who turns soft. Filmed on location in the Los Angeles area, the best part of the film contains scenes shot in a scrap metal yard which serves as a graveyard for superannuated street cars.

Anatomy of a perfect heist, meticulously worked out in detail, and how it all goes most horribly wrong

[clanciai · 9/10 · 26 June 2023]

Stuart Whitman is the one who originates the first sand in the machinery, and he isn't even aware of it, but all the other actors are also surprisingly good. There are several very striking scenes when John Russell takes his accomplices under treatment, none of them having the courage to drop out of the hell bound enterprise, while one of them has to suffer badly for his just suspecting her female weakness. It's a great script with very apt music, and the characters are all convincing, especially the cold turkeys under the strain of insulin and that other stuff. Most impressive is the finale in the junk yard among the scrapped trams, the cranes and the trains, which would have provided ideal material for Hitchcock. He is missing here though, and there are no stars, while Stuart Whitman always makes good in any film.