everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Better Late Then Never

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Ron Foster (who ??) is Detective Harper, gunning for a promotion (get it?) Harper is put on a jewel heist in Los Angeles, and the case kind of starts out like an episode of Dragnet. Keep an eye out for Ted Knight... as one of the cops! Harper tries to cozy up to the suspect's girlfriend (Pat Blair). the girlfriend cozies back, and has some dark, heavy-handed suggestions of her own. Now Harper is in deeper than ever, and he's not sure what to do. All hell breaks loose, and everyone is figuring out their own next step. It's pretty good. rated pretty low, as of today. i liked it more than some of the others. Directed by Ed Cahn.

CAGE OF EVIL – 1960A somewhat predicable low budget crime thriller, that suffers from a lack of thrill. Police Detective Ron Foster is assigned a case involving the robbery of a wholesale diamond seller. One man is in hospital suffering from a blow to the head. The Police soon discover that the alarm system has been sabotaged. Foster suspects one of the employees of being an inside man for the heist. Foster roughs up the man who turns out to have nothing to do with the robbery. Foster could not have picked a worse time to lay hands on a civilian. He is up for a promotion and the incident has a negative impression on the higher ups. Foster is most annoyed with being skipped over. The diamond case soon has a possible lead. Patricia Blair, a girl popular with certain underworld types is looked into. Foster goes undercover and is soon swapping spit with the pretty blonde. Foster falls for the bimbo and is soon in cahoots with Blair. Blair is in fact a middleman between underworld types and high end fences, who buy the stolen jewels etc. Foster and Blair plan on setting up a meeting between the diamond thief and a big fence. They intend to take out both and keep the cash and the stones. They plan on then heading south of border time for sunshine and good times. This idea needless to say hits a few speed bumps. The bodies soon start to pile up, including Foster's Police partner, Harp McGuire. It is only because Foster is a cop that he can stay one step ahead of everything. This of course cannot last for long. The Police soon tumble to Foster's bit in the killings. Foster and Blair snag a flight to Mexico and hopefully safety. No such luck, as the Federale's have been alerted by the US side. Foster draws his piece but comes out on the losing end of the exchange. Blair and the stones are grabbed up for return to the States.Prolific b-film helmsman Edward L. Cahn loses the pace with this one. Cahn cranked out over 125 features during his 30 years in the business. He pumped out several above average b-features, including, DESTINATION MURDER, GIRLS IN PRISON, INSIDE THE MAFIA, THREE CAME TO KILL and the 50's sci-fi classic, IT, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE. Patricia Blair was known to a generation of TV viewers from her roles on, THE RIFLEMAN and the long running DANIEL BOONE series.

Cage of Evil (1960)This totally defines the B-movie, or the average B-movie. We sometimes think of great B-movies (like "Detour" or "Naked Kiss") and see how a small budget only encouraged breaking rules, or ignoring them, and finding a new kind of intensity that worked on its own terms. Well, in "Cage of Evil" the acting, writing, directing and filming are firmly compromised without finding that special territory of audaciousness, or raw violence, or innuendo, or simple believability that makes these things special.That said, this isn't half bad. I mean, it's like seeing an episode of Law and Order or some show you already like, and it's interesting and often captivating, and there are little moments of surprise and sympathy, and you finish it thinking it was pretty decent. The lead is a cop, a detective named Scott Harper, and it turns out he's corrupt, and at risk are a cache of rough diamonds. The interactions between the cop and his boss, and his colleagues, is believable if slightly stiff, but in particular, as Harper (played by Ron Foster) goes from one side to the other, we come to see his duplicity from the inside. He's really good.There are so many well worn clichés here you might flinch, but they're good ones (convertibles at night, night club dames, suspicious mobsters, cops on the prowl) and it's edited fast enough to survive its glitches. Of course, for the diamond heist to succeed it helps to have a cop on the inside, casual and confident, and a dame to fall in love with him. Foster is a regular in films directed by Edward L. Cahn, who is a standard for B-movies (made for small time Robert E. Kent Productions under a variety of names). In a way this is the equivalent of a television series with less frequency--meaning they were made to formula, and fairly cheaply. By 1960 old Hollywood was thoroughly dead, and television thoroughly alive, and this was one of the ways it kept going. There's enough going on in movies like this to keep a second feature audience, and to play on television itself shortly after.But I enjoyed it partly because it takes itself very seriously. There isn't that corny or airy edge to some television, even crime dramas, at the same time. This is a late comer to the crime/noir cycle of the previous 20 years. Never mind the canned overdub narration. Sit through some scenes that talk too much. You might find the rest of it pretty decent.

Disgruntled cop Ron Foster, passed over for promotion one time too many, is seduced by B-girl Patricia Blair into a diamond theft scheme. And then things go downhill! Considering the general run of director Cahn's many B-pix of the 1950s and early 1960s, this one is rather above average. The look is more standard b/w TV of the late 50s than film noir, but the two leads are very good and put some life into it. There is more outdoor shooting than usual, and the ending adheres to the Production Code of the day.