That noted action hero Ben Gazzara is on the trail of that noted terrorist E.G. Marshall, who wants to dose the Republican National Convention with nerve gas (hey, who doesn’t?), in the made-for-TV curiosity Pursuit.

I say “curiosity” because it’s directed by Michael Crichton, who manages to make every book he writes a megahit, but whose directorial career peaked with Westworld. Gazzara’s chase — a pursuit, if you will — of Marshall isn’t all that compelling, even if the 24-ish onscreen countdown clock suggests otherwise. Its themes still resonate today, even if the fashions don’t. The final scene is laughable in its inert cheapness. —Rod Lott

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In a hotel, a woman witnesses a matrimonial murder that sends her into a state of shock, so she’s sent to a sanitarium, where she’s treated by … the doctor who committed the crime she saw! Dun-dun-DUNNNNN!

That’s the setup of Shock, an acceptable, brief little noir thriller of psychosis, infidelity and insulin overdoses.

Before he hit it big at horror, Vincent Price acts impressively as the crooked doc, while his bedridden charge is played by Anabel Shaw. As long as he keeps her loony, she can’t finger him as the killer. Shock grows a little melodramatic as it reaches its end, but is worth seeing for an overlooked Price performance. —Rod Lott

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The less you know about Timecrimes, the better, because spoiling the film would … well, spoil it. I can tell you that it’s Spanish, but don’t let the fact you have to read subtitles keep you away. If you’re the type who digs mind-bending thrillers, prepare to have your medulla oblongata raped.

So this middle-aged guy named Hector (Karra Elejalde) sees something through his binoculars from his middle-of-nowhere home: a naked lady and a guy with a creepily bandaged face. Going to investigate, he finds the girl dead and chased by the guy. He runs to a nearby house for safety, is instructed to enter a silo and then …

I ain’t telling. But part of the title spills the beans. And writer/director Nacho Vigalondo does a masterful job in making the story click as it goes through its many precise machinations. Just thinking how he got the idea and actually made it work makes my head hurt, but in a good way.

Pop some Advil and pop this one in the player. Tick-tock, you don’t stop. —Rod Lott

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This is producer/director William Castle’s second-best movie with the number 13 in its title. Its premise is that Candy (Kathy Dunn), an American diplomat’s daughter who attends an exclusive boarding school, becomes a spy. She’s 16 years old.

I point that out because not once, but twice, does Candy throw herself at older men, in an unsubtle sexual manner that would never pass muster today.

Like Nancy Drew with a multicultural cast, the bright, boisterous Girls pits Candy mostly against the ne’er-do-wells of “Red China.” The film has her scurrying up and down a dumbwaiter, tossing a guy off a balcony to his death, and saved from a booby-trapped car from that hunk known as Murray Hamilton. But nothing is as awesome as the prologue, which finds her driving her fellow students in a bus, and practically killing them all because of a spider dangling in front of her. She swerves all over the damn road; has she ever heard of brakes?

At a party sequence about 38 minutes in, a couple pops up who may remind you of our First Family in their late teens. It was during this scene, with all the boarding school girls being catty to one another (“Ooh, you man thief!”) that prompted my wife to comment, “Man, spies are bitches.” —Rod Lott

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James Cagney plays Ralph Cotter, a convict with a heart of mold. During an escape from a prison farm, his co-escapee (Neville Brand) falls behind, so Cotter shoots him in the head. Cotter than forces his way into the apartment — and arms — of the guy’s sister, Holiday (Barbara Payton). He’s a real dime-store Richard III. 



While he’s talking his way into Holiday’s life, a moment of violence erupts that is nothing like any scene I can remember. Holiday, furious, throws a knife at Cotter, which just knicks his ear. He storms into the bathroom, wets a towel, wrings it out, then dabs it at the cut. Suddenly, he whirls toward her, draws back his arm, and begins savagely thrashing her with the wet towel. Back to the wall, she screams for him to stop, then throws herself into his arms and weeps that with her brother dead, she has no one. He suggests that she has him, and the moment ends with a kiss. 



What keeps us reeling is the way the film portrays the standard noir characters of the evil femme fatale and the hapless sucker who knows she’s using him, but still can’t break away. In Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Cagney’s character is the dangerous dame, and Payton’s is the entangled schmuck.

Payton is gorgeous, but her career didn’t last very long. Her own worst enemy, she died at age 39, abetted by drugs and drink. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (a great noir title, by the way) was directed by Gordon Douglas and the screenplay was by Harry Brown, from a novel by Horace McCoy. —Doug Bentin

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