By John M. Whalen
In 1955, Esther Williams, the star of films like “Million Dollar Mermaid,” and “Dangerous
When Wet”, suddenly found herself out of work when MGM ended her contract. The
era of the “aquatic musical,” which she was famous for, was over. So, Esther went
to work at Universal-International and focused on more dramatic roles. It
wasn’t a successful move. She made only two films for them. The first, “The Unguarded Moment,”(1956), was
a noirish tale about a high school teacher sexually harassed by a student. “Raw
Wind in Eden (1958)” was about a fashion model who crash lands on a
Mediterranean island. I’ll be reviewing that one separately.
In “The Unguarded Moment”, Esther plays school teacher
Lois Conway, who starts working in Ogden High School, which is in a typical
1950s “Leave It to Beaver” neighborhood- with the slight caveat that there’s a serial killer in the vicinity. She starts
receiving mash notes from an anonymous student on the first day of school.
Lois, who frankly, seems not very bright in light of the dumb things she does
during the course of the story, first accuses a perfectly innocent boy of
writing the note, which results in embarrassment to both her and the student.
The notes continue until she receives one that asks her to meet the mystery
stalker in stadium locker room that night at nine. Of course, she never
considers calling the cops and decides to show up at the rendezvous in order to
confront him. Things get nutty in the dark of the gymnasium but she manages to
fight him off and her attacker runs out into the headlights of an oncoming car.
We see it is a student named Leonard Bennett (John Saxon in his first major
role)—the school’s most popular student and star athlete. Esther recognizes him
but still fails to identify him to the cops who find her coming out of the
stadium all disheveled and with a torn dress. She doesn’t want to turn Leonard
in. After all he’s just a kid, not a criminal. Maybe she can help him. Naturally,
they’re more suspicious of her than anyone else and she becomes topic number
one at the school.
Now the police are involved and the cop in charge of the
investigation is Mr. Bland of the 1950s himself, George Nader, playing
Lieutenant Harry Graham. He’s frankly annoyed by Lois’s seeming naiveté and
lack of cooperation in regards helping identify the suspect, especially since
there’s already been one murder. But he is also aware that she’s a pretty good-looking
babe, and that body! Also in the cast in a key pivotal role is an actor who
probably appeared in at least 10,000 TV shows and films back in the Fifties and
Sixties. Edward Andrews plays Leonard Bennet’s father, in one of the weirdest
portrayals of a father ever given--even by Universal-International standards.
In one creep-out scene, for instance, he enters his son’s bedroom and tells him
for the 500th time how his mother left them years ago and he has
made sure that every trace of her was scrubbed out of the house. He keeps
Leonard on a tight leash and forbids him to go out with girls. He reminds
Leonard they don’t need women in their lives, and tells him: “We’ve built
something really good here. If you do anything to hurt it I’ll break every bone
in your body.” Not exactly Father of the Year.
“The Unguarded Moment” was directed by Harry Essex (“Tammy
and the Doctor,” and a lot of TV work), and written by Herb Meadow (“Have Gun-Will Travel),” Lawrence B. Marcus (“The Stunt Man,” 1980), and Rosalind Russell
(“Auntie Mame”). Yes, Auntie Mame herself dreamed up this weird tale and got Marcus
and Meadow to write the script, which is surprising because Marcus had written
some dynamite scripts for the “Route 66” and “Naked City” TV series back in the
day. And Meadows’ “Have Gun-Will Travel” scripts were well-written as well.
Their involvement in “The Unguarded Moment” should have resulted in something
better.
Kino Lorber says the
transfer to Blu-ray was made from a brand new 2K Master. The Technicolor comes
through very effectively, but honestly, I thought the picture looked a little
worn and grainy. I shouldn’t complain, though. This is the first availability
of this feature on home video ever. It’s never even been on video cassette
before. So overall I’d have to say this is a Blu-ray that will not only speak
to the surviving fans of Esther Williams, but also those who appreciate being
able to see movies that have almost been lost forever.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)
