HELL BOUND - Les Baxter - "Va Va Voom!" (1957)

HELL BOUND!! 

I say HELL YEAH!!

Welcome to the Hell Bound Wednesday version of The Dungeon and tonight's feature from the year 1957! "Hell Bound" is a pretty nifty little movie that clocks in right under and hour and fifteen minutes, so there's not a lot of time to goof around! It's gritty as Hell, and I enjoyed it a lot!

John "The Lawman" Russell is a shifty crook named Jordan! Now Jordan's got a plan, and in order to sell his act, he made a movie about how he can rob this cargo ship to show to investors!

 

It's a complicated plan that includes one guy acting as a sailor lost at sea that needs rescuing, and another fellow, the Health Inspector who happens to be diabetic! When the Health Inspector comes on board, he feigns illness, so instead of disembarking, he gives himself a shot of insulin! Meanwhile the rescued sailor lifts some two million dollars worth of WWII surplus narcotics from a locked room, and puts it in the Health Inspector's Jacket, and then when an ambulance comes and gets him, another plant, the nurse in the ambulance, takes the jacket, and everybody gets rich, so they think anyway!

So Jordan sells his plan to this dude, and it gets OK'd by his girlfriend Paula, who suddenly is too tired to put her own shoes on! Paula tells her man that in order to keep Jordan honest, that she should be the one to play the nurse instead of Jordan's girlfriend! That way she'll be the one picking up the drugs! Paula is played by June Blair who was in "The Fiend Who Walked The West," and "Island Of Lost Women." She stopped acting in 1966 after being in 26 episodes of "Ozzie And Harriett" as David Nelson's wife June! She was also his real wife at the same time!

In the same year "Hell Bound" was made, June was the Miss January Playmate Of The Month!

The ambulance driver named Eddie Mason is played by the always entertaining Stuart Whitman! Now Eddie isn't privy to what's happening, all he knows is that the regular nurse has a substitute for a couple of days! Here's a cool fact, Stuart Whitman's first two roles were bit (uncredited) parts in two of the best Science Fiction movies of all time, "When Worlds Collide," and "The Day The Earth Stood Still!" Both Stuart Whitman and June Blair were born in San Francisco, California, and they are both alive and well today! Must have something to do with growing up in all that fresh air!!

I thought it was important in case you ever go there, that you should know that the Hi-Ho Motel is Air Conditioned!

Cut to my favourite part of the movie down at the old El Rancho Burlesque club!

Introducing Virginia De Lee as the strip tease artiste at the club! This might have been her only movie appearance, but Virginia was a cover girl on many of the men's magazines of the time like Stag and Caper! I'll give her some credit, she's got some moves, and right here's a good spot to insert a little bit of the superbly greasy music she's dancing to composed by another Dungeon hero, Mr. Les Baxter! Type Mr. Baxter's name into the search engine on the side bar to see a small sampling of his massive body of work! Phenomenal!

 Enjoying the strip show and a glass of milk, on the right is American Indian actor Dehl (WOLFEN) Berti as the drug dealer Daddy! On the left is George E. (GALAXINA, RING OF TERROR) Mather as loser junkie Stanley Thomas, the guy who is going to be the lost at sea sailor!

So what do you think? A blind man in a strip club! This has got to be one of the best moments in cinematic history since the Throne Room in "Fireball Jungle!"

So everything is literally not only Hell bound, but going to Hell in a handbag real fast! After having to play real nurse to a dying boy, and a couple of nights on the job, Paula is falling for Eddie! Now that's gonna put a hitch in the diddly-widget real fast!

Jordan catches wind of what's happening, and in his own gentlemanly way, shanks poor Paula in the gut! Previous to this event, as a thank-you, he snuffed the guy who lifted the key for the boat's safe room for him! Jordan is what you might say, "HELL BOUND!"

Absolutely every part of this fail proof plan falls apart! Junkie Stanley gets on the ship all right, but then he goes into withdrawals, and totally freaks out basically blowing the whole scene right then and there!

If that's not bad enough, Stanley (THE GRASSHOPPER, THE CLONES) Adams as the Health Inspector, has been told by his Doctor that he doesn't need insulin any more and that if he uses any, he very well might die, but he needs the money real bad so...........You can guess what happens!

After the Health Inspector dies, the junkie gets arrested, and Paula didn't die, Jordan decides it time to run! What a cool junkyard they found to wrap the whole thing up in!

After cutting in and out of old buses and stacks of old motors, Jordan finally climbs into and hides in an empty rail car!

It just so happens that same car was just being loaded with tons of scrap metal! 

Jordan is bound for Hell, no doubt!

I found "Hell Bound" streaming on Amazon Prime! They seem to be the only ones willing to invest in old movies like this, so thumbs up to them in my book!