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| TEXAS, BROOKLYN &
HEAVEN (director: William
Castle; screenwriter: Saturday Evening
Post story by Barry Benefield/Lewis
Meltzer; cinematographer: William Mellor; editor: James
Newcom; music: Arthur Lange; cast: Guy Madison
(Eddie Tayloe), Diana Lynn (Perry
Dunkin), Florence Bates (Mandy),
James Dunn (Mike), William Frawley
(The Agent), Michael Chekhov (Gaboolian),Irene
Ryan (Opal Cheever), Margaret Hamilton
(Ruby Cheever), Moyna McGill (Pearl
Cheever), Roscoe Karns
(Carmody, the cop), Lionel Stander
(Bellhop), Audie Murphy (Copy Boy);
Runtime: 76; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Robert
S. Golden; United Artists; 1948) "A bomb." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz A
bomb. Future horror film gimmicky director William
Castle ("The Tingler"/"The Old Dark
House"/"Strait-Jacket"), in his only foray into a
western comedy, seems lost in trying to make this limp
comedy be even somewhat entertaining. It's based on
the Saturday Evening Post story
by Barry Benefield and is written by Lewis
Meltzer. The stars, Guy Madison and Diana
Lynn, are dreadful. Lionel Stander
and Audie Murphy are given insignificant minor
parts, in a film that could have used a lot more of
Stander. Eddie Tayloe (Guy
Madison)
leaves his Dallas hometown and his low-level
newspaper reporter job after inheriting $6,000 from
his grandfather and plans to become a playwright and
reside in NYC. On the trip to NYC, Eddie meets on
the road the runaway Perry Dunkin
(Diana Lynn). She quit partnering with her
married brother in a gas station and after she fixes
Eddie's broken car goes with him to NY. Only Perry
ends up living in Brooklyn with the puritanical
Cheever spinsters, while the struggling nice-guy
playwright lives in a cheap Manhattan hotel. Though
the play never gets published Eddie still becomes rich
as he meets bartender Mike (James Dunn), who invented
a drink that's good enough for Eddie to use as his
feature drink in the Texas bar he opens upon returning
home. Settling down in Texas, Eddie lives happily ever
after with the horse-loving Perry, who buys a horse
ranch. If the
film wasn't bad enough, it's further butchered in the
editing room as some scenes are cut so poorly they
can't be understood. REVIEWED ON 7/25/2012 GRADE: C- Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |