Blood Alley

Year: 1955

Grade: C-

Country: USA

Director: Wellman

Review

two blood movies in one day, purely coincidence. stars john wayne and lauren bacall. william wellman directs. it’s basically a cross between african queen and great escape, but not as good as either. actually it’s pretty uninteresting and disappointing. wayne isn’t very good and bacall shouldn’t be with anyone except bogey.

two bits of interesting info:
‘Robert Mitchum’ (qv) was originally cast as Capt. Wilder. He was fired from the film after an altercation in which he shoved the film’s transportation manager into San Francisco Bay. ‘Gregory Peck’ (qv) subsequently turned down the role of Capt. Wilder, and ‘Humphrey Bogart’ (qv) wanted a $500,000 salary, which would have put the film over budget. Without a major male star involved, Warner Bros. contacted producer ‘John Wayne (I)’ (qv), threatening to pull out of their distribution deal for the film unless he took the role himself. To keep his new production company, Batjac, afloat, Wayne agreed to play Capt. Wilder.

Average Shot Length = ~6.2 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~5.6 seconds. Both of these figures are fast for an early CinemaScope film, and much faster than William Wellman’s first CinemaScope film, _High and the Mighty, The (1954)_ (qv).