The Houston Story and New Orleans Uncensored

A double bill from William "The Tingler" Castle, starting with THE HOUSTON STORY.



Ambitious Gene Barry masterminds a scheme that involves secretly siphoning off other people's oil and hijacking their equipment. He gets financing from the mob and finds himself in a love triangle with a sexy nightclub singer and an earnest, good-girl waitress. And, because crime doesn't pay, we get another unhappy ending.

What this movie really needed was a gimmick. Electrified seats. A floating skeleton. A sexy nurse. Because it wasn't an outright bad movie, just kind of forgettable and it slid right off my brain without a trace. The only details that stuck with me were Barbara Hale's leopard print bathing suit and the glowing fake city backdrop behind a rooftop confrontation and murder. I've decided that I need a window in my office that overlooks that kind of fake night time cityscape, complete with little blinking neon signs that say generic things like "Theater" and "Shoes."

My big problem with this film is the fact that it was allegedly set in Houston, yet there wasn't a single person with a southern accent. Not one. It should have been called "THE BURBANK STORY."

NEW ORLEANS UNCENSORED on the other hand, was a lot more like it. And not just because it featured my time travel boyfriend Mike Mazurki as a thug named "Big Mike." (!!!)



It stars Arthur Franz (loved him in THE SNIPER) as a straight-shooting ex Navy boxer who gets a job on the docks and finds himself hip-deep in corruption and mixed up with a ruthless gangster and his bombshell girlfriend.

Unlike THE HOUSTON STORY, which could have been anywhere, this one is all about the setting. Castle used real New Orleans longshoremen as extras and cast locals in many of the smaller roles. He shot tons of great street scenes, and not just the usual French Quarter locations either. There's a scene at Pontchartrain Beach, plus plenty of seedy back alleys and rough industrial areas that you don't normally see in the Hollywood fantasy version of the Big Easy.

This isn't a good movie either, but I loved every minute of it. I loved the "expert" who comes on screen at the beginning to explain that in real life, the New Orleans docks are squeaky clean and there is absolutely no corruption like the kind in the movie. I loved the "oscillator" that the hero uses to track the stolen shipment and the huge round antenna on top of the police prowler to pick up the signal. I loved the boxing gym and "Scrappy" the ex-pug with the bum heart. I loved Beverly Garland. I loved the wild fist-fights on the docks. I loved the two guys wrestling on the beach. All this and Big Mike? I'm sold.

Tonight it's a Glenn Ford double bill with FRAMED and MR. SOFT TOUCH.