No Place to Land

The tragedy of the beautiful Gail Russell is only compounded when one sees this celluloid disaster, because the only thing that makes it almost tolerable is the natural, easy, relaxed and totally believable Gail Russell. In this pic, her next to last one, she indicates that she had continued to mature as a skilled actress -- she is even able to utter these incredible moments of dialog with a lovely voice and convincing demeanor. Too bad that her superb work in 'The Tattered Dress' didn't get her an Oscar nomination as a Supporting character. If that film had been a little better and a little better received then Ms. Russell might have had a shot at a formidable and hopefully self-assured return. This enormously awful film about crop dusters is really about the ridiculous character portrayed by a swaggering, hip-swinging, silent movie vamping of Mari Blanchard, who was a pale imitation of Mamie Van Doren who was a pale imitation of Jayne Mansfield who was a pale imitation of MM. Veterans Jackie Coogan and John Ireland cannot do much with the asinine plot, although Coogan has a moment or two of something akin to professionalism. Robert Middleton is amazingly bad in his villainous role. The screenplay is one long horror, and the direction, to be kind, is so inept that the film would have been turned down by the Creeping Crud Film Festival!! But,despite Blanchard's incompetence and the lousy work of all the others, there is still the radiance of Gail Russell, turning in a performance where none would have seemed possible.

This was the title in the UK and it was double-billed with ' Serious Charge ' that flirted with homosexuality. This programme was shown in main cinemas and the public flocked to see the ' daring ' subject matter. The British Board of Film Censors ' had given both films an ' X ' certificate for adults only and over 16 year olds must have appreciated the supposed taboo issue of ( faked ) male sexual assault in ' Serious Charge ' plus the sight of Mari Blanchard, one of B movies most sexually provocative women. I find her almost equal to Dietrich in ' Destry ' a remake of one of of Dietrich's films set in the West. Dietrich never looked comfortable in Westerns but Mari Blanchard did. Just to see her hopping from man to man and proudly showing off her body she was more blatant about sex than either Jayne Mansfied or Mamie Van Doren both queens of torrid second feature cinema. Why was she so good ? In ' Man Mad ' she is a mocking vision of men's lust, not only on screen but in the audience. She was not beautiful, but a drag queen version of a woman and delightfully primitive in her appeal. I enjoyed her presence a lot and at the trash end of film she was perhaps its main star. She also probably knew what men expected of her and hit back at them on screen, laughing all the way at their single minded desires. But bad girls as we know must die and I will not give away the demented plot, and as men dominated Hollywood ( as they do even now ) she was given her just punishment for arousing them. And John Ireland, a rough sexual image in himself tries to keep up with her, and as for Gail Russell she gave her best in a pitiful role. Unique in its sexual madness this film is well worth watching.

Other than the wiggly presence of sexy Mari Blanchard in one her typical bad girl roles, this Republic programmer is distinguished by the inventive camera work of Jack Nickholas, Jr, who began his career as a camera operator on some of the best MGM musicals. For a low budgeter this film has any number of unusual crane shots and interesting camera compositions, the sort usually not found in such grind them out factory made fare. Some talented actors are totally wasted here, among them Gail Russell in one of her last roles. The great stuntman Whitey Hughes can be seen opening a door, and may have staged the flight action. An absurd plot, of course, but no worse that many.

Art work for cast cards was usually prepared and set before editing had been completed. This often resulted in the scenes for cast-credit players (as seen on the film) ending up on the cutting-room floor.

This film ( if anything with the name of Albert C. Gannaway attached to it can be called a film)is a prime example of missing faces/characters. Whitey Hughes, Bill Blatty, John Carpenter and Bill Coontz are all-credited on the film credits, but do not show up in the finished film. Or, at least, do not show up in the film as the characters credited. Hughes, Coontz and Carpenter are visible in the film, but only as uncredited stunt men, and not as the characters billed on the cast list.

The film itself is just a swipe from Paramount's "Wild Harvest" with crop-dusters and airplanes subbed for men-and-machine wheat harvesters.

Gannaway often made directors Robert Horner, Denver Dixon (Victor Adamson) and Ed Wood look like masters of the directing craft.

It's been a while since I've seen this film but I believe that you have to judge it for what it is (or was). First, it is very 1950's. Low budget 'B' movie probably shot and filmed in a matter of days and on a shoe sting budget, in an era when the big studios cranked these things off the assembly line. But what I remember most about the movie is how seductive was Mari Blanchard. You have to see the opening scene of her dancing and flirting around a little diner to music on a juke box. Albeit her character was cheap and bawdy, something comes across on the celluloid that moved me, and I think that had it not been for her untimely death, her career may have really opened up. The movie itself is a love triangle trapped in a stupid little plot, but amidst the backdrop and supposed romance of the crop dusters of the day, which were common in the 1950's, when America was a little more rural and agricultural, and with all the fly-boys returning from WWII and pursuing said nomadic lifestyle. Also, possibly one of the first films to deal with a female stalking a male, maybe not quite in the vain of Fatal Attraction but at least helping blaze the trail a bit. The movie could be described as terrible, but it's so bad that it almost compels you to watch it, like some Ed Wood films were famous for.