Posted by Rand
on 11/3/2009, 10:46 pm
209.193.98.48
From The 20th Century Fox Hour, this early made-for-TV movie starred William Bendix, Gene Barry, and Horace McMahon as Rick Vega. Vega is a crook that cop Bendix put away years before. Now he's out and threatening Bendix and the upcoming nuptials of Bendix's daughter. Barry is Bendix's partner and both try to track down Vega while hiding their worry from the family. There's a lot of schmalzy wedding preparation scenes but these are juxtaposed nicely by several scenes where Bendix drops the sputtering father-of-the-bride act and gets hardcore on finding Vega by any means, including slapping a few snitches around, getting one badly beaten in the process. Bendix finally traces Vega to a Turkish Bath (were there really that many Turkish Baths in the 50s? That should be another element on Don's noir metrics) where he forces the issue, clubbing down Vega and shooting his two hoods. All's well that ends well. Pretty simplistic, but Bendix definitely creates some tension as a cop who takes the low road to end the "threat to a happy ending".
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