Former film editor Harold Schuster started his directorial career with that fine film, Wings of the Morning, in 1937. After scoring a huge success with My Friend Flicka in 1943, Schuster slowly but surely (with time out for Disney's So Dear to My Heart in 1948) worked his way to the bottom. And that's exactly where this mostly indifferently directed little exploitation movie would lie, if it were not for a couple of hard-hitting and somewhat disturbing action sequences involving Frank Gorshin and his acid-wielding confederate, which amazingly sneaked past the usually vigilant 1957 censors.
This is a film in which the support players steal scenes from the nominal leads right, left and center. True, the dialogue given to Mr Binns and Miss Gregg is as dull as they come, and neither actor has sufficient charisma to overcome the lethargy induced by their predictably ho-hum lines. It's left to the heavies and the minor characters like Jeanne Carmen's heartlessly seductive Iris and Lea Penman's boastful high society madame to give the film class, although twenty-two year old Carolyn Craig interprets her under-age teenager also with memorable skill. True, she is given some effective dialogue, but even when handling the most ordinary lines, she is such a most unusual-looking girl, she immediately rivets the attention. Director Schuster had the good sense to give her plenty of potent close-ups, although they are somewhat undermined by the amount of unwanted attention he lavishes on the undeserving Binns and Craig as well.
This is a film in which the support players steal scenes from the nominal leads right, left and center. True, the dialogue given to Mr Binns and Miss Gregg is as dull as they come, and neither actor has sufficient charisma to overcome the lethargy induced by their predictably ho-hum lines. It's left to the heavies and the minor characters like Jeanne Carmen's heartlessly seductive Iris and Lea Penman's boastful high society madame to give the film class, although twenty-two year old Carolyn Craig interprets her under-age teenager also with memorable skill. True, she is given some effective dialogue, but even when handling the most ordinary lines, she is such a most unusual-looking girl, she immediately rivets the attention. Director Schuster had the good sense to give her plenty of potent close-ups, although they are somewhat undermined by the amount of unwanted attention he lavishes on the undeserving Binns and Craig as well.