As Republic Pictures ground to a halt in 1957/58 their production of about 20 films were mostly for the drive in circuits: Naturama was their in house Cinemascope, House Queen Vera Ralston appeared in quite a few, a lot were in Trucolor, their in-house process, and most were 70 minutes. Basically they just made Midwest level films in widescreen. However, given their name, expertise at action and economic releasing, they made money and were good double bill fillers...I have it on record that 1957/8 saw their biggest ever ticket sales for all releases and re releases: a total of $28 million. Film rentals would have been probably $9 million, making it a reasonably good season. But reported production costs for 25 films in '56 '57 were $15million........now without future prospects, the utter lampooning of Vera Ralston and the deposing of 80 year old studio head and founder Herbert J Yates (he was also Vera's husband) a stockholder mutiny about the no-future scenario saw the lot up for sale in 1959. This film, as with LISBON or AFFAIR IN RENO, or a few others might have made up the more prestige and innovative themes and releases, but it was all too late: Allied Artists and American International studios really offered stiff competition and a focused schedule and poor Republic remade the same films over and over: Their widescreen TIMBERJACK of 1955 is almost the same look and feel as SPOILERS and with Vera as well. SPOILERS did play good theaters and even in Oz had a respectable release to a Fox pic ("Blue Jeans") in 2000 seaters, so it was all there for them, but it was the same sort of movie over and over. Then one day in 1959 with PLUNDERS OF PAINTED FLATS, it was all over. All these Repubic films are well made and now quite fascinating, but there is a sense of doom in the air, even seen 55 years later. The other comment on this page for SPOILERS is also very informative and you should read that too.
