The villains use what appears to be a Hiller UH12A to purloin wagonloads of gold without a trace, little knowing that on one such run the intrepid Rex (in reality one of Republic’s gang of crazed stuntmen, no doubt) has grabbed hold of the aircraft’s wheelgear and hitched a ride to their hideout.
Homer, meanwhile, unravels the mystery to the authorities in this burst of Shakespearean exposition: “It explains the vanishing footprints…How they stole the gold without leavin’ a trace…With those things you don’t even have to touch the ground, so no wheelprints!” During the climactic scenes, the villains use the craft to pursue our hero, and when Rex at last gets the upper hand, the final baddie standing makes a desperate dash for the craft before Rex flattens him.
This all-but-forgotten little horse opera was released in 1950, barely four years after the Bell 47 first hit the civilian market. It may be one of the first feature films in which a helicopter is a crucial plot point.
Several RIPs: To poor Amy Winehouse, passed on at just 27, to Broadway & TV character actor Tom Aldredge, at 83, to the luscious original “Bond Girl” Linda Christian, at 87, & to veteran producer & production designer Polly Platt, at 72.
Early in his career Raja Gosnell, director of The Smurfs, which opens tomorrow, was editor of…
Monster-of-the-Week: …1986's Monster in the Closet, an amusingly literal piece of schlock spoof from Troma. So the title character, who surprisingly does not resemble Marcus Bachmann, is this week’s honoree…
My fondest memory of this film is a scene near the beginning, in which John Carradine plays a blind man whose service dog likes to hide his white cane from him. As I recall, the furious Carradine assures the dog that he will have his revenge, because though he can’t see, he can “hear an ant piss on a sponge.”
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