FEMALE JUNGLE

working title: THE HANGOVER

cast: Lawrence Tierney, Burt Kaiser, Kathleen Crowley, John Carradine, Jayne Mansfield
year: 1955 rating: ***1/2

Anvil-faced tough guy Lawrence Tierney is a cop who, drunk in a bar, escorts a lovely lady to her cab. She's killed and left on the street, and now he has to wander around, with a bad headache, town retracing his steps. Meanwhile we're introduced to more bar-folk, in an urban Agatha Christie style, including a lovely waitress played by Kathleen Crowley and her husband, unassuming Burt Kaiser (who also wrote and produced), a frustrated artist who draws caricatures for little pay. Then enter John Carradine. When our ingenue's alone in his house, a foreboding, accusational score pounces forth. Of course you know he's but a red-herring... And so the question remains: who done it and who'll get it next? This is sort of a mystery, sort of a Film Noir, with a totally misleading title, but a lot of fun with the poster's starlet, Jayne Mansfield, providing a glorified but scene-stealing cameo.

MIDNIGHT

year: 1982
cast: Melanie Verlin, Lawrence Tierney, John Amplas, David Marchick
rating: ***1/2

A teenage girl runs away from home, and with good reason. Her overweight, alcoholic policeman step dad tried to rape her, and he’s played by Noir legend Lawrence Tierney, ten years shy from his revamp in Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS. The girl hitches a ride with two dudes in a van that eventually veers off on a back road – and like any low-budget horror film, this is a very bad mistake for the characters, but heaven to the viewer. Eventually our heroine faces a psychotic hillbilly clan ala TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Plenty of violent, gory murders served up by makeup guru Tom Savini creates an eerily hellish daytime nightmare – ultimately peaking with a satanic ritual at, you got it, midnight. Despite the anemic budget, and with the exception of Tierney and horror icon John Amplas (along with his psycho siblings), there are a few meager performances, but no matter: Here’s an exploitation that entertains from the bloody beginning to the bloody end.

DILLINGER (1945)

title: DILLINGER

year: 1945

cast: Lawrence Tierney, Anne Jeffries, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook, Edmund Lowe, Ralph Lewis, Eduardo Ciannelli, Constance Worth

rating: ****

This was obviously a way to cash in on a big name. At that time John Dillinger was a slain folk hero as much as a villain. It'd been ten years since his death and perhaps many people didn't remember the particularities of his story - or the producers didn't care. But this film noir starring Lawrence Tierney in the title role is a lot of fun anyway. After the stage is set - a young JD goes to jail for robbing a store for beer money - he and a group of crooks chat in prison about busting out and robbing banks. Eventually this happens, and the heists are terrific, one including smoke bombs on a rainy street. Tierney plays the stone-faced-thug so well that he never really got out of it. Even his "comeback" many decades later in "Reservoir Dogs" has his tough-as-nails character muttering the line "Dead as Dillinger", a nod to this classic that, although historically inaccurate, is a terrific ride where every scene has something going for it: almost like a bunch of really neat skits pieced together.

KILL OR BE KILLED

title: KILL OR BE KILLED

year: 1950

cast: Lawrence Tierney, George Coulouris, Marissa O'Brien, Rudolph Anders, Veloso Pires, Mira Lobo

rating: ***1/2

Simplicity at its finest. A low-budget adventure-based film noir about a building constructor played by badass-heavy Lawrence Tierney as a good guy this time around (actually singing and dancing in one scene), returning from the jungle to a South American nightclub to collect a debt for installing air conditioning units. The boss doesn't wanna pay and Tierney tells an employee "If he doesn't pay I'll kill him". Well guess who dies and who gets blamed for it? Tierney escapes and stowsaway on a river boat with a rich woman who's husband lives in a plush mansion within the jungle squalor. He joins a crew and, realizing the haves are screwing the have-nots, lets the husband/bossman - responsible for the initial murder which Tierney is blamed - know he's not happy. The cold-classy villain tries to get the handsome, peskily idealistic intruder - who's also in love with his wife (and vice versa) - to bathe with a riverful of piranhas c/o henchman George Coulouris (Thatcher from CITIZEN KANE). And that's about it. The scant plot and short run-time work in its favor: everything that happens completely matters.

BAD (ANDY WARHOL)

year: 1977

cast: Carroll Baker, Perry King, Susan Tyrrell, Lawrence Tierney, Joe Lambie

producer: Andy Warhol

rating: ***

A tough middle-aged woman, Carroll Baker, does electrolysis out of her home and runs a female-assassin service on the side. Enter a studly male lodger, Perry King, who joins the band of cold-blooded vixens and... this intoxicating indie follows the nightlife of the sick and twisted throughout New York city as they: drop a car on a mechanic, beat up an old man and his dog, toss a crying infant out a window, plan the murder of an autistic child, and hang around talking about nothing. This isn't a great so-bad-it's-good flick, but then again it's not a terrible b-movie (or rather, d-movie) either. Produced by Andy Warhol, the real actors deliver lines professionally, making you forget the anemic budget.

STEP BY STEP

year: 1950

cast: Lawrence Tierney, Anne Jeffreys, Lowell George

rating: ***

Lawrence Tierney plays mean and sinister so naturally it's odd seeing him as a friendly guy who travels around with a cute little doggie. Toned and shirtless on the beach, he meets a pretty girl (Anne Jeffries, his DILLINGER moll) who turns out to be a pawn in the murder of a politician and then Larry, the dog, and the girl, falsely accused, drive around to find the real killers... Or are being chased by the real killers... Aided by a helpful old Motel owner who really loves the camera. It's a lean, fluffy, fun ride - the perfect antidote for the usual dark and shady Tierney outing.

BORN TO KILL RELOCATED

title: BORN TO KILL

year: 1947

cast: Lawrence Tierney, Claire Trevor, Walter Slezak, Philip Terry, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook, Esther Howard

director: Robert Wise

rating: ***

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW BORN TO KILL REVIEW AT THE NEW CULT FILM FREAK SITE

JUNIOR

title: JUNIOR

year: 1994

cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny Devito, Emma Thompson, Lawrence Tierney

rating: *

One of the most unnecessary films ever made, this lame and lazy production, a reboot of the Billy Crystal comedy RABBIT TEST in which a man gets pregnant, is plain awful. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a scientist and Danny DeVito a baby doctor, and together, in order to save their serum which will aid in pregnancy, or something, make Arnold pregnant by drinking medicine and then, as he comes to term he gets in touch with his feminine side. The only problem is, his character in this movie is sensitive from the beginning, so there's no character-arc and the joke is completely futile: like the rest of the movie.

EVICTED

year: 2000

cast: Michael Tierney, Lawrence Tierney

rating: *

Two... no, three guys drive around L.A., drink beer, and throw their cans out the window. Wait, it's a convertible - there's no window. Did I mention, two of them live in an apartment and are about to get... what's the name of the movie again? So to go out in a blaze, they throw a party. Here's where we hit a very long snag. The party itself doesn't flow like a party should. And then, during the bash, scenes involving the main character, after dropping acid, dreaming in a bathtub about running for President while rapping in front of an American flag... Wow. Actually, this part drew me back into the so-bad-it's-fun aspect that's lost during the party. This indie-indie was written-directed-produced-scored by Michael Tierney, son of little-known actor Ed Tierney, the brother of iconic film noir legends Lawrence Tierney and Scott Brady (Terence, Scott's son, co-stars). Uncle Larry (DILLINGER, BORN TO KILL, RESERVOIR DOGS) appears as "Bob", an old man who gives Michael advice on life. "Get A Job... Buy New Shoes... Don't Do Drugs". If the film stuck with the three young slackers hanging and drinking cheap (generic) beer, without the party (or a very confusing side-story involving a gangster with a briefcase) to encapsulate a reason or... dare I say, plot... the losers-with-nothing-to-lose theme would've served a better purpose of having no purpose at all (and deeper, more involved dialog with Lawrence Tierney would have been helpful). Scenes involving a Vietnam vet landlord playing with toy soldiers doesn't help things any (although he is a real actor). And the performances of the three young leads, well... let's say they don't try very hard... and they're not good enough for that to be intentional.

SAN QUENTIN

title: SAN QUENTIN

year: 1946

cast: Lawrence Tierney

director: Gordon Douglas

rating: *

"Reservoir Dogs" introduced me to Lawrence Tierney. Like Tim Roth's character says about him (pp): "He looks like The Thing". So true. The old Tierney does in fact look as if he were made of giant stones. But when you go back fifty years, you find another kind of superhero altogether: a thin, good looking one that's still tough as nails. In the forties, Tierney starred in many classic low-budget noirs: including "Dillinger", "Devil Thumbs a Ride", "Kill or Be Killed", "The Bodyguard", and "Born to Kill", and unlike those mentioned, this one stinks. First off, the title is misleading. This has almost nothing to do with "San Quentin". It's not a prison flick. Wouldn't it be great if it centered on Tierney playing a tough convict (which he was in real life)? That's what most would assume with the title and the star. But Larry plays an ex-con who's a really nice guy who's tracking down a couple escaped cons - not nice guys - who are giving other ex-cons a bad name. This film noir entry (or in this case, film snore) is a complete dud. Lock this turkey up and throw away the key.