13 West Street

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source: 13 West Street

This is one of Alan Ladd's last films, and his age is showing. But his acting is more than adequate, and it's a pleasure to see him in a role like this (aerospace engineer, husband) rather than "Gun for Hire", "Shane", "Blue Dahlia", "The Iron Mistress". etc. So much of his work was done in costume, he looks strange dressed like a suburban professional.

Alan Ladd plays an aerospace engineer who is assaulted by a group of juvenile delinquents. Ladd ignores police detective Rod Steiger's advice to cool his jets and let the police investigate. Ladd instead buys a gun and hunts down the young punks. Based on a novel by Leigh Brackett, screenwriter of "The Big Sleep," "Rio Bravo," "The Long Goodbye," and "The Empire Strikes Back," the story is essentially a lighter version of Brian Garfield's "Death Wish." The punks are not as vicious and the vigilante is not as violent. Still, it's a solid thriller that does have an edge to it and Ladd is compelling in what would be his final leading man role. FUN FACT! At one point John Wayne was announced as a possible choice for the lead in this film after producer Charles Schnee had bought the film rights to the 1957 novel.

Ladd was 49, but looked closer to 69, and his character joked about having kids in the future. The acting was terrible, except for Steiger, and the story pathetic. The script made it worse, along with the stale direction. Don't waste your time watching this one, except to see young Ted Knight or Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones). Or, if you're a big fan of 25 to 30 year old teenagers behaving (and acting) poorly.

There are a great many films older than this 1962 black and white film that still are relevant today. Unfortunately this is not one of those films. I have always enjoyed Alan Ladd films, but again unfortunately this is not one of them. Maybe the title of 13 West Street brought the film bad luck as did Alan Ladd who is accosted by a gang of young hoodlums and he grows impatient waiting for the police to make an arrest so the victim becomes the hunter. I just found the story line irrelevant for today and as such I rated it with a 4 out of 10 IMDb rating.

This is just cheap exploitation with an A movie cast. It has no redeeming social, dramatic or entertainment value. It isn't even camp. We know why Ladd made this film, but why would Steiger bother? This film is just pointlessly depressing. Ladd looks tired and ill, at least 20 years older than his age. The poor man looks like he is suffering mentally and physically - and it isn't acting.

Almost last lap for the once-heroic Alan Ladd, with whom it is hard not to sympathise in his all-too-visible alcoholic decline. Cast as a rather improbable rocket scientist (a distraction, in fact), Ladd manages to run out of gas in a rough street at night, where some less-usual teen gangsters from genteel homes show their courage by challenging him five-to-one and beating him to pulp. Rod Steiger somewhat underplays the sympathetic but overworked cop, whose slow, deliberate detective work provokes Ladd into a manhunt of his own. Much of the storyline probably looked as implausible then as it does now, especially Ladd's single-handed trouncing of the armed gang-leader before deciding whether to perform a noble act of mercy. But the film is now mainly rewarding as a little black-&-white mirror of a vanished suburban life, just before the 60's became the 60's. Ladd's young wife, played by Dolores Dorn, is the vulnerable blonde in the perfect home that suddenly gets a mafia-style threat through the window. Ladd's investigations show us into other affluent homes too, with the mean features of Jeanne Cooper as one of the parents concealing their sons' guilt, Margaret Hayes cool and elegant as another. And when Dorn is unexpectedly flung to the floor, there is more erotic voltage in two seconds of her part-exposed thigh than in any of the yawn-* that would soon become standard.

You have to remember that all those tough as nails and violent crime dramas of the 70s, beginning with THE FRENCH CONNECTION had to start somewhere, at least with an idea or two. Such is the case with l3 WEST STREET and its association, of sorts, with DEATH WISH, about a decade later. Granted, Alan Ladd (and much later in his career) is not an exact match to Charles Bronson, but the storyline here is fascinating to watch, even for the early 60s! Ladd is an engineer, minding his business, who is attacked by young hoods and its time to settle the score. Rod Steiger actually overshadows Ladd in this little classic as the probing detective who wants to end this case on a more peaceable note, but the similarities are all there. A second important footnote is that Steiger's excellent performance here may have been a bridge to his role (and Oscar winning) as the sheriff in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. What ever the circumstances, this is a well written, well executed crime drama that will keep you watching, and especially super late night viewing, as I originally saw it decades ago and never forgot it. Take a seat and enjoy, this is nifty little thriller, built on a slim budget, but doesn't that only add to spark.

**SPOILERS** Out of gas in the seedy and non residential side of L.A aerospace engineer Walt Sherill, Alan Ladd, looking for a gas station is almost run down by a gang of drunken preppies. After giving them a piece of his mind the car goes in reverse and the well dressed and well spoken hooligans confront the startled Sherill who work him over where he ends up with a concussion and broken left leg. It's when Sherill gets in touch with the police that his young tormentors not only target him but his wife Tracey, Dolores Dorn, as well. The movie "13 West Street" is a lot like the Charles Bronson urban crime thriller "Death Wish" that was released 12 years later. In the film Sherill at first goes to the police and when he does't get the results that he wants goes on his own trying to track down and exact revenge against those who left him a crippled and later tried to both murder and rape his wife Tracey. Ulike in "Death Wish" Sherill goes after only those who did him in not just any street hood who gets in his way, using himself as a decoy, like Charles Bronson did in that movie. Trying at first to let the police track down and arrest his attackers Sherill gets impatient and hired a private detective Finny, Stanley Adams, to do the job. It turns out that Finny despite finding those who brutally beat Sherill tails them in his car losing control by driving some 80 to 90 MPH and ending up dead at the bottom of a ravine. The hoodlums themselves are lead by by this conceded and what seems like stuck up, on those who are law abiding citizens, spoiled brat named Chuck,Michael Callan. Chuck gets so carried away in tormenting both Sherill and his wife Tracey that even his fellow criminals try to distance themselves from him. Bill, Arnold Merritt, one of Chuck's hangers on gets so guilt ridden at what he did to Sherill that he's murdered by Chuck, who made it look like a suicide, in order to keep his fellow hoodlums in line and from talking to the police. Det. Koleski, Rod Steiger, who's on the case has so much trouble in keeping Sherill from going off the handle and ending up not only killing any of his attackers but even innocent persons who get in his way almost has Sherill arrested for his own good. Meanwhile Chuck, who wasn't all there upstairs to begin with, gets this bright idea to break into Sherill's house and show just what a man he really is by raping his wife Tracey which alerts the cops who catch him both red handed and with his pants down. Running back to mommy and daddy, who've been covering up for him all this time, Chuck is caught by surprise by a cane swinging Sherill who after breaking his head almost drowns Chuck in his parents swimming pool. Sherill has to thank Det. Koleski for coming to his rescue not that he really needed him but to stop him from killing Chuck and ending up behind bars himself. P.S With all the comparisons to the movie 'Death Wish" there is a scene in "13 West Street"that left me a bit startled. This happens when Sherill in his hospital room, with a cast and clutches, slips and falls on the ground and is unable to get up by himself. In pops this young man who at first you think is one of those who put him there in the first place. It turns out that the young man, Adam Roarke, is visiting his mom in the room next to Sherill who helps him up and gives him back his clutches. Adam Roarke looks so much like a young Charles Bronson that for a moment I almost thought that he was actually him!