Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Fulke Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Movie Critic B minus... I watched this only because Julie London was in it...unfortunately the movie revealed that she is not nearly as pretty as her record album covers suggest...she has sort of a wedge shaped head what looks like a bad nose job. It didn't help that she was too old for the part she plays. I now understand why she never became a film star of note.Movie: Joe is a 30s something semi-loafer who lives off his mother and paints pictures...some sort of psychopath has been killing women in the small town he lives in. He is suspected of these murders by circumstantial evidence--his year high school pin is found near one of the victims. Julie London is in a love with him (he didn't know) and supplies him with an alibi. The quack psychiatrist who over reads things into poor Joe's past is the most realistic thing that happens in this plot.A sort of living nightmare murder rap against Joe closes in around him. Believable to a degree to any one with experience in these things.In the modern world with DNA evidence and such none of this would have happened (we hope).--but I would not count it out.I suspected the fat cab driver about mid way through the thing although at this point didn't really care as this script is so lame.There is a subplot about a sleep walker and her incestuous father that leads no where. Why was it even put in--to eat up some film time maybe? = B double minus. However gets a 5 because these kinds of judicial/police malpractice and psychiatric nonsense do happen. Also witnesses lying and distorting things. If not for that it deserves a 1. One reviewer said it was filmed in 5 days; I believe it and written on the fly.OK for a quick 60 minute watch.

MartinHafer Up until the end, I didn't mind this film too much--it seemed like an okay B-film from a small studio. However, by the time the credits began to role, I was irritated--irritated at such a poor payoff and such dopey acting by the real killer. I am sure audiences must have snickered at this! Joe is a war vet and full-time freeloader and binge drinker. On one of his many nights out, he happens to be about when a murder is committed and police assume he's the guilty party. There are people who can exonerate him and in the real world this would have happened, but the writer included a dangling plot element about a seemingly incestuous father and his creeped out daughter is never at all developed properly--and eventually it just dangles and disappears from the film. Later, after tracking down graduation pins from 11 years ago, they are able to get the real killer to appear...and overact horribly.The bottom line is that the film had promise but made nothing of it. Julie London and the rest of the cast are pretty much wasted and the film is disappointing when you put all the pieces together. Only worth your time if, like me, you have relatively low standards.

blanche-2 John Bromfield is Joe in "Crime Aganst Joe" a 1956 B film also featuring Julie London, Patricia Blair, Joyce Jameson, Alika Louis, Rhodes Reason and Henry Calvin. Bromfield plays an artist who lives off of his mother (Frances Morris) and laments not being able to find the perfect woman. When a bar singer (Louis) winds up dead after he's left the bar dead drunk, his high school pin is found next to her body. He then becomes a person of interest to the police. Joe has an alibi - he actually ran into a sleepwalker (Blair) and returned her to her home, but her father lies to the police about it. Joe is then arrested. Joe's waitress friend Slacks (London) lies to the police about seeing the singer with someone else, and Joe is released. He's determined to find out the identity of the killer - someone from his high school class.Supposedly the story was by Decla Dunning and the script was by Robert C. Dennis. I'd love to know which one was responsible for the sleepwalker bit and that whole subplot of the overly possessive father who discourages his daughter's dates - it's a riot. That plot line just sort of died out and wasn't fully resolved. And that business of the high school pin...well, this is a pretty flimsy film, and I figured it out fairly quickly. It's made very cheaply, too - the sound in all the interiors has an echo. Julie London is slightly miscast as the waitress friend - if the singer hadn't gotten killed after just one song and a few lines, London would have been perfect for that role, and it would have given her a chance to be her usual glamorous self. The murdered singer, however, played by Alika Louis, is very attractive and a great type. Blair as the poor repressed sleepwalker is very pretty in full makeup and perfectly coiffed hair as she sleepwalks in her nightgown. Bromfield's acting is loud and not very good or believable, but I liked Frances Morris, who played his mother. Nice of her to support him, but from the looks of those canvasses, he wasn't going to be making much of a living painting.Not very good.

moonspinner55 Amiable and entertaining crime story involving a genial, unemployed painter--still living with Mom, whom he calls by her first name--wrongly accused of attacking girls at night. He's temporarily released from police custody after a smitten car-hop comes to his defense, but her alibi doesn't hold up (she lied because she loves him!); the two amateur sleuths then decide to solve this mystery on their own. From Bel-Air Productions, distributed by United Artists, and strictly a second-biller. Still, if the production was minuscule it doesn't always show: there's some good location shooting and photography, particularly near the climax at the high school's indoor swimming pool. In the lead, John Bromfield keeps a cool head and has a nice, unselfconscious manly swagger that is amusing and natural. Playing his secret sweetheart, Julie London is a bit too mature and refined to be convincing as a drive-in waitress, yet her stoic demeanor also proves to be enjoyable (no girly business with this lady). The denouement is effective and caught me by surprise, and a weird sub-plot about a society girl under the thumb of her wicked, possessive father is a hoot. Not bad! ***1/2 from ****