Anything for a Thrill

The Alpha Video print is pretty bad and is missing 4 minutes. However, I have no idea how else to see this film, so I guess you're stuck with the film and all its shortcomings.

Frankie Darro was an odd sort of movie star. While he never became a top star, he managed to star in a long series of B-movies as well as a few big films for Warner Brothers (such as "Wild Boys of the Road")--yet he was a very, very small guy at only 5'3". This wasn't the traditional sort of hero, yet, like Mickey Rooney he had a very successful career in films.

Cliff Mallory (Kane Richmond) is a newsreel cinematographer. His younger brother, Dan (Darro) has plans to become one also but Cliff wants his brother to go to college. However, throughout the film, Dan proves he has what it takes and manages to get some amazing footage. First, he gets film of an heiress who has never been filmed. Second, he gets great footage of an armed robbery in which a policeman was killed. In fact, the footage clearly shows the heiress' fiancé as the gunman! What's next? See for yourself.

The photographers and newsreel folks really were annoying in this film. Sneaking onto the heiress' estate was not beyond many of them and it just goes to show you that times haven't really changed much after all these years! What has changed is that in this film, these annoying jerks are the heroes--something you'd never see today! So is the film any good? Well, yes and no. While it's a fast-moving and generally enjoyable B-movie, it also features a couple terrible actresses. Part of this can be the blame of the director and writer but June Johnson and Ann Evers deserve a HUGE amount of blame for absolutely horrid performances. Johnson's voice could curdle milk and Evers' temper tantrum at 49 minutes is just embarrassing. Plus the ending really made no sense at all. It's a shame, as Darro and Richmond (particularly Darro) were very good. In fact, Darro did his own stunts and displayed some amazing athleticism. I see this as a time-passer if you aren't particularly picky and nothing more.