Word: kulik
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Even in these bloody times, the violence in Riot is rather extravagant: when cons are shot in the chest, gore gushes from their mouths, and throats are slit with slashing abandon. Director Buzz Kulik shot the film entirely in the Arizona State Prison, more for the sake of novelty than authenticity. He never once manages to capture the claustrophobic frustration of prison life. Although Riot aspires to be reformist social criticism, it is about as effective-and moving-as a convict chorus of Don't Fence...
Trying too hard to be brittle, the dialogue often simply crumbles. Director Buzz Kulik nonetheless manages to give Warning Shot velocity by getting polished performances from his cast and by catching the spirit of stucco swank that passes for class in some down-at-heels sections of Los Angeles. As a faithful copy of Hollywood's old hard-boiled style of detective fiction, the film is not likely to engender any emotion except nostalgia. But if it has the look and the sound of an antique, it also has some of its value...
...London were ranged in a circle around a cluster of cameras, microphone booms and cables. Overhead glared a battery of lights. In and around the sets moved actors, cameramen, soundmen, stagehands, assistant directors and a stage manager in a reasonable facsimile of confusion. From the control booth, Director Seymour Kulik barked commands to his headset-wearing assistants as the actors, electricians and cameramen annoyingly muffed their cues. The play was To Each His Own, adapted from the 1946 movie that won an Oscar for Olivia de Havilland. Now, cut from two hours to 46 minutes, it starred Dorothy McGuire...
...ranging freedom of movie cameras, had to cut the film script down to a sentimental skeleton. The original film had been aimed at the handkerchief trade; on TV the tear jerking scenes came as fast as in any soap opera. To compensate for his lack of mobility, Director Kulik borrowed heavily from Hollywood's sob expert, Ralph Edwards (This Is Your Life). Just like Edwards, the Lux show employed a tremulous, offstage voice to say such things as, "Yes, you came to New York, Jodie, to lose yourself in hard work . . . And then you ran away to England...
Doubles: Kulik and Camarda (U.S.) defeated Brady and McGovern (H) 6-2, 8-6; Munn and Bell (U.S.) defeated Wightman and Swartzman, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3; Slauer and Fuller (U.S.) defeated Grasham and Muldoon (H) 6-4, 6-0, and Johnson and McGinnis (U.S.) defeated Mayleas and Melvin...