Double Deal (1950)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Abby Berlin

Writers:

Charles Belden (screenplay)
Lee Berman (screenplay)

Release Date:

December 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young woman inherits an oil field, and hires an engineer to help her drill a well. The sister of the...

Plot Keywords:

Oil

Cast

Marie Windsor	...	Terry Miller
Richard Denning	...	Buzz Doyle
Taylor Holmes	...	C.D. 'Corpus' Mills
Fay Baker	...	Lilly Sebastian
James Griffith	...	Walter Karnes
Carleton Young	...	Reno Sebastian
Thomas Browne Henry	...	Sheriff L.G. Morelli (as Tom Browne Henry)

Runtime:

64 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Approved (PCA #14728) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Company:

Bel-Air Productions

Tough, watchable second feature

How many B-films start with a stranger hopping off a bus in a lonely town, sidling into the local bar, sliding up to the femme fatale, and getting up to his neck in trouble? In this version, the hero (Richard Denning) google-eyes Marie Windsor's frame, breaks up a crooked dice game, and finds himself embroiled in an internecine oil-wildcatting war. It's a potboiler, but very watchable thanks to a decent plot, sharp dialog, and especially the offbeat characters and tried-and-true B-list performers who play them. Unfortunately, like most low-rent films of the time, the visual quality is only a couple of notches above TV, and most scenes are pretty static until the breakneck climax.

Miss Windsor gets a softer role than usual here; it's Fay Baker who scores the man-eating ice-queen role. Best of all are Jim Hayward as a world-weary bartender (talking like a Ben Hecht creation), and Tom B. Henry (of the formidable proboscis) as a hardboiled but fair sheriff. Oh, and a pet monkey plays deus ex machina.