What a beautiful movie!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

So-so film noir, notable for Los Angeles locations and period cars. Vince Edwards made a great impression as the lead in the previous year's "Murder by Contract" (1958), another low budget film noir. This was his less memorable followup. Shot in seven days and released by Columbia Pictures, this is for fans of the actor, who later became a star on TV's "Ben Casey". This film would be best on a double bill at a drive-in theatre paired with another film noir cheapie.

A completely awful film, from the wooden acting of the square-jawed, no-nonsense fat boys who are in search if the escapee, to the usual Hollywood plot device of not informing the public because "there will be mad panic!" (boy, has that one been milked over the years), to radioactivity that somehow leaves a contamination footprint behind even when the container was not opened. A lot of shots of police cars driving in formation, which I guess gives the appearance of men in action. But the low budget of this film meant a lot of actual street scenes of 1950s Hollywood, the cars, the stores, the people -- it is a nice time slip back a few decades, and fun to watch if for nothing else than the background.

Pulpy, wildly overwrought, but entertaining co-feature from Columbia has a pre-"Ben Casey" Vince Edwards starring as a convict who breaks out of San Quentin with a container he thinks is "a pound of 100% snow", but instead of heroin it's actually radioactive Cobalt 60 and any exposure could decimate Los Angeles. Not a compact thriller (even at 75 minutes!), this suspense film is full of behind-the-wheel montages and bits of generic police business. Edwards smolders like a reckless mad-dog stud, yet when he's required to disguise himself as a businessman with glasses, he's adept and convincing at this transition. The other actors in the cast aren't as versatile, and the mechanical writing and directing certainly doesn't liven them up (they're all stock figures, though Vince's girlfriend does get in a few funny wisecracks down at the police station). Photographed by Lucien Ballard, the movie has a great, gritty look full of L.A.'s neighborhoods and back streets, and the tension does manage to build successfully even though just about everything in the picture is second-rate. **1/2 from ****

I once saw City of Fear on the Late,Late Show when I was a kid and I think the experience has influenced my subsequent love of film noir. I have been trying to find this one but it doesn't exist on video. Strangely enough, I remember it vividly, so not seeing it doesn't really matter. Edwards is a nasty piece of work. He and a pal break out of prison after stealing what they think is a canister of pharmaceutical grade cocaine from the prison hospital. What they don't know is it's a canister of Cobalt 60, a highly dangerous radioactive substance. Of course it is harmless in it's lead-lined case, but they stole it so they can sell "the coke" once they get to L.A. Things go bad from the very beginning. Edwards and his partner have a falling out over the "drugs" and Edwards brutally murders him so he can keep the stuff for himself. Once Edwards gets to L.A. he tries to open the case and, of course, all hell breaks loose ... literally. If there was ever a tough-as-nails movie, this is it. Too bad it can't be seen today, it would put some of the so-called classic film noir films to shame.