After a brief history lesson regarding Seward's Purchase of Alaska, this thoroughly average Fox second feature introduces us to Al and Pete (Bill Williams and Nick Dennis), two truckers whose deliveries have been interrupted by a bridge washout. Forced to turn around and return home, they happen upon leggy hitchhiker Tina Boyd (Nora Hayden), who's trying to get to Fairbanks but ends up working at the local truck stop instead. Al and Tina start making goo-goo eyes at each other, boss Mason (Leslie Bradley) is more interested in loot than love, and a plane runs out of fuel and is forced to crash land. Nothing terribly interesting happens, but overall this is not a bad little film, and the Alaska location footage helps considerably. Shame Fox Movie Channel is airing this Regalscope feature in pan and scan, though.
8 Reviews
Above-average programmer about Alaska truckers
fredcdobbs527 June 2014
Bill Williams plays the part-owner of a trucking company in Alaska who runs into trouble due to landslides closing down roads, a business partner who doesn't think Williams is running the company properly and wants to squeeze him out, and his partner's hot blonde wife, with whom Williams had a fling before she was married--and she still wants him. To further complicate matters, a pretty and leggy hitchhiker shows up, takes a job as a waitress in the local diner and sets her sights on Williams, much to the annoyance of Williams' former paramour. This is one of Fox's lower-budget programmers, but it's not all that bad. Williams is earnest, Nora Hayden--the waitress--is a real looker, and the location footage in Alaska helps a lot. The film is hurt by pedestrian writing--courtesy of the film's director, Edward Bernds--and flat performances by a weak supporting cast, but overall it's worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do.
"Fasten your seat belt buddy, this will be a bumpy trip".
classicsoncall12 July 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Say, wasn't that slick the way Mason (Leslie Bradley) tricked his wife (Lyn Thomas) into revealing she had the hots for business partner Al Graham (Bill Williams). I mean, he wasn't really even trying except for a hunch he might have had. You could tell she felt like a dope.
By that point in the story, Janet Mason was firing on all cylinders while playing the angles in her relationship with Al and marriage to Jerry Mason. The scheming two-timer tried to convince hubby that she was only trying to score a few shares of the business away from Al to gain a greater percentage of the trucking operation. When Al didn't buy it, she shot him in the back!! Wow!! - how would you like to be hitched to someone like that? As in more than a few Westerns of the day, and this never ceases to amaze me, Jerry gets shot from behind and clutches his chest like that's where he got hit by the bullet. I just never understood that.
Here's another head scratcher - in any scene in which Al and driving buddy Pete (Nick Dennis) are shown in the cab of their truck talking, they're sitting right next to each other. However in the long shots of the truck riding down the road, they're right where they would be on opposite ends of the bench seat next to their respective windows. It just looked goofy because the back and forth views occurred more than once and it was more than obvious.
Hey, and how about Tina Boyd (Nora Hayden) astounded by the price of a hamburger at the café diner - it was a buck! I'd normally mention something like this in my old time movie reviews to contrast the price of things back in the day compared to now, but here it was mentioned because commodities were genuinely expensive in Alaska compared to the lower forty eight states in which one could probably get a burger and fries for about half that amount. Younger viewers I'm sure wouldn't even be able to relate to that.
Well I mention all these observations because that's what makes some of these old time flicks entertaining for me when the story itself is only so-so. None of the players here were familiar to me, and let's face it, how interesting can a story be about guys who drive trucks for a living. The intrigue between the principals and that business about Al's good will against Mason's capital was about as creative as things got, except of course that wild finish when Janet turned into a crazy woman and lost all comprehension of the laws of physics by forcing poor Barnie to ram down the winding highway at breakneck speed. Don't you just hate to lose a sixteen wheeler that way?
By that point in the story, Janet Mason was firing on all cylinders while playing the angles in her relationship with Al and marriage to Jerry Mason. The scheming two-timer tried to convince hubby that she was only trying to score a few shares of the business away from Al to gain a greater percentage of the trucking operation. When Al didn't buy it, she shot him in the back!! Wow!! - how would you like to be hitched to someone like that? As in more than a few Westerns of the day, and this never ceases to amaze me, Jerry gets shot from behind and clutches his chest like that's where he got hit by the bullet. I just never understood that.
Here's another head scratcher - in any scene in which Al and driving buddy Pete (Nick Dennis) are shown in the cab of their truck talking, they're sitting right next to each other. However in the long shots of the truck riding down the road, they're right where they would be on opposite ends of the bench seat next to their respective windows. It just looked goofy because the back and forth views occurred more than once and it was more than obvious.
Hey, and how about Tina Boyd (Nora Hayden) astounded by the price of a hamburger at the café diner - it was a buck! I'd normally mention something like this in my old time movie reviews to contrast the price of things back in the day compared to now, but here it was mentioned because commodities were genuinely expensive in Alaska compared to the lower forty eight states in which one could probably get a burger and fries for about half that amount. Younger viewers I'm sure wouldn't even be able to relate to that.
Well I mention all these observations because that's what makes some of these old time flicks entertaining for me when the story itself is only so-so. None of the players here were familiar to me, and let's face it, how interesting can a story be about guys who drive trucks for a living. The intrigue between the principals and that business about Al's good will against Mason's capital was about as creative as things got, except of course that wild finish when Janet turned into a crazy woman and lost all comprehension of the laws of physics by forcing poor Barnie to ram down the winding highway at breakneck speed. Don't you just hate to lose a sixteen wheeler that way?
Avoid it!
JohnHowardReid11 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
An Associated Producers Production for 20th Century-Fox. Photographed in RegalScope (black-and-white). Location scenes filmed in Alaska. Copyright 1959 by Associated Producers, Inc. U.S. release: February 1959. U.K. release: 15 March 1959. Australian release: 9 April 1959. 6,436 feet. 72 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Al Graham is operator and co-owner of an Alaskan trucking firm which transports goods from the small town of Tanana Crossing to the large city of Fairbanks. Because of high operating costs and hazardous roads which are often blocked by landslides, the business is in the red and silent-partner Gerard Mason journeys up from Seattle to discuss matters with Al. Trouble begins when Gerard's wife, Janet, arrives on the scene.
NOTES: First production from Robert L. Lippert's Associated Producers, Inc.
COMMENT: Miss Hayden and Miss Thomas are attractive lasses, but anyone who can stand a jot of Bill Williams and Nick Dennis without frequent trips to the bar is superhuman. There is some mild (if unexpected and completely phony in terms of script development) excitement at the climax, but overall this movie is weighed down by a sluggish, boring story, tediously told, with all the zip and pace of an octogenarian tortoise.
SYNOPSIS: Al Graham is operator and co-owner of an Alaskan trucking firm which transports goods from the small town of Tanana Crossing to the large city of Fairbanks. Because of high operating costs and hazardous roads which are often blocked by landslides, the business is in the red and silent-partner Gerard Mason journeys up from Seattle to discuss matters with Al. Trouble begins when Gerard's wife, Janet, arrives on the scene.
NOTES: First production from Robert L. Lippert's Associated Producers, Inc.
COMMENT: Miss Hayden and Miss Thomas are attractive lasses, but anyone who can stand a jot of Bill Williams and Nick Dennis without frequent trips to the bar is superhuman. There is some mild (if unexpected and completely phony in terms of script development) excitement at the climax, but overall this movie is weighed down by a sluggish, boring story, tediously told, with all the zip and pace of an octogenarian tortoise.
Why not adventure melodrama programmer
searchanddestroy-121 July 2022
Edward Bernds was more known for his westerns and science fictions movies than the rest. It is cheap, fast done, forgettable but pleasant to watch. This one is the perfect example, there were dozens of them in the thirties, forties and fifties, less in the sixties though, replaced by counter culture, hippies, drug addicts and Wild Angels topics. This story seems to be a copycat of many forties movies; remember Andy Devine's features directed by the likes of Christie Cabanne or William Witney. But those ones were more comedy, less serious than this one. This very movie seems to be a tribute to this lost genre: adventure B movies, but with a bit touch of Fritz' Lang's HUMAN DESIRE. Do not confound it with ALASKA SEAS though, a Jerry Hopper's film far better than this one.
Two timing northern vixen
bkoganbing24 July 2017
Edward Bernds who as a producer/director is mostly identified with the Bowery Boys produced this northern frontier melodrama about a pair of men who share a partnership in trucking company. Bill Williams is the hands-on management type while Leslie Bradley is the front office guy. What brought these two together as business partners God only knows, but the affair Williams is having with Bradley's wife Lyn Thomas will definitely drive them apart.
Thomas is the reason to see this B film, she's one piece of work. This could have been a plot for the Northern Exposure series. Fortunately for Williams he has good girl Nora Hayden.
Shot on location for nickels and dimes Bernds did not splurge for color and that's a pity. Some colorful Alaskan rustic characters are part of the plot as well.
But Lyn Thomas really owns this film
Thomas is the reason to see this B film, she's one piece of work. This could have been a plot for the Northern Exposure series. Fortunately for Williams he has good girl Nora Hayden.
Shot on location for nickels and dimes Bernds did not splurge for color and that's a pity. Some colorful Alaskan rustic characters are part of the plot as well.
But Lyn Thomas really owns this film
Northern Transport
richardchatten6 March 2021
'Peyton Place' meets 'Hell Drivers' in this outdoors seventies exploitation film about truckers which happened to be made in the fifties.
Rugged Bill Williams' path is crossed by two foxy females: high maintenance blonde Lyn Thomas and feisty redhead (at least that's what she looks like photographed in black & white) Nora Hayden (best known for her next film role in 'The Angry Red Planet').
Rugged Bill Williams' path is crossed by two foxy females: high maintenance blonde Lyn Thomas and feisty redhead (at least that's what she looks like photographed in black & white) Nora Hayden (best known for her next film role in 'The Angry Red Planet').
Nothing special about the Alaska setting, especially since this plot has been done before, and better.
mark.waltz23 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Back in the 1930's and 40's, Warner Brothers utilized a similar plotline, first as "Tiger Shark" (an A starring Edward G. Robinson), later as a B ("Slim"), and as an A again featuring Robinson, and co-starring George Raft and Marlene Dietrich, "Manpower". Among their many forgettable B films in the 1940's, several others popped up with similar plots, not indicating that it was yet another remake, but simply based on a story by the original author. Other studios did similar movies based on the same set-up ("The Cruel Tower"), and along comes 20th Century Fox through an independent production company to do their own variation which turns up here as a cheesy B picture.
There's a fabulous narrated introduction that gives us a brief history of Alaska's requirement by the United States and how a main road was able to connect the top of Washington State to Alaska. Interestingly enough, Canada is never mentioned. Two truckers (one of them lead Bill Williams) are heading to Fairbanks, and they pick up hitchhiker Nora Hayden, a sexy Julie Newmar lookalike, statuesque, curvy, and no nonsense. She looks like trouble, but surprisingly she isn't, and her and Williams fall in love. But there's trouble in the form of his ex-flame Lyn Thomas who in spite of having married the boss wants him back and will not accept no as an answer. Of course the boss shows up, misunderstands what he sees, and murder follows.
This could have been a much better B picture had it utilized Alaska's outdoorsy setting outside of a few shots of trees, cabins in the woods and quiet highways. The dialog is melodramatic and silly, and Thomas's character is far too one dimensional and demanding to even be remotely alluring. She does have a terrific final moment though, with the expression on her face a delightful twist. Not much really happens, making this old fashioned melodrama feel really dated by late 50's standards.
There's a fabulous narrated introduction that gives us a brief history of Alaska's requirement by the United States and how a main road was able to connect the top of Washington State to Alaska. Interestingly enough, Canada is never mentioned. Two truckers (one of them lead Bill Williams) are heading to Fairbanks, and they pick up hitchhiker Nora Hayden, a sexy Julie Newmar lookalike, statuesque, curvy, and no nonsense. She looks like trouble, but surprisingly she isn't, and her and Williams fall in love. But there's trouble in the form of his ex-flame Lyn Thomas who in spite of having married the boss wants him back and will not accept no as an answer. Of course the boss shows up, misunderstands what he sees, and murder follows.
This could have been a much better B picture had it utilized Alaska's outdoorsy setting outside of a few shots of trees, cabins in the woods and quiet highways. The dialog is melodramatic and silly, and Thomas's character is far too one dimensional and demanding to even be remotely alluring. She does have a terrific final moment though, with the expression on her face a delightful twist. Not much really happens, making this old fashioned melodrama feel really dated by late 50's standards.
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