Tonight's Movie: Make Haste to Live (1954) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

MAKE HASTE TO LIVE (1954) is a new-to-me Republic Pictures film from the Kino Lorber Dark Side of Cinema XX Blu-ray collection.

It's boxed with a pair of strong Alan Ladd films, APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER (1950) and CAPTAIN CAREY, U.S.A. (1950).

MAKE HASTE TO LIVE has overtones of NO MAN OF HER OWN (1950), as a young woman with a baby starts a new life in a new town; later a very bad man from her past shows up intending to cause trouble.

In this case the woman is Crystal (Dorothy McGuire), who spends two decades in a quiet New Mexico town raising her now-grown daughter Randy (Mary Murphy).

In flashback we learn that Crystal's husband was Steve (Stephen McNally), a mobster who was a murderer who also smacked around his wife. Steve has spent the last couple decades in prison for supposedly murdering Crystal. Now he's out and looking for revenge and has managed to track down his runaway wife.

MAKE HASTE TO LIVE has a number of positive attributes, including a good cast, interesting set designs (take a good look at Crystal's patio kitchen), and evocative location filming in Taos, New Mexico.

The reliable Edgar Buchanan is on hand as the town sheriff, with John Howard as Crystal's archeologist boyfriend, Josh. Carolyn Jones has a small but striking role as Crystal's friend in flashback scenes.

I enjoyed spending time with this cast in this particular setting, but the film suffers from a rather weak script.

The screenplay was by Warren Duff, based on a novel by Mildred and Gordon Gordon ("The Gordons"). The Gordons were behind several good suspense films including as EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (1962) and THAT DARN CAT! (1965).

As Crystal expects to be imminently killed by her ex, while those who care for her are baffled by her behavior, one can't help thinking that most of her issues would be solved if she simply told everyone the complete truth at the outset.

Then, of course, there wouldn't be much of a story left, but surely there could have been a better way to navigate an otherwise interesting premise, a woman in danger from a vengeful mobster who also happens to have fathered her child.

I liked some aspects of the story, such as the sheriff and Josh working together to figure out what the real story was regarding Crystal's "brother" showing up in town and why Crystal is so on edge. The sheriff was smart enough to run a fingerprint check and get some answers.

I also liked that when the chips were down near the story's climax, Randy followed her mother's instructions and fled to the sheriff's office so we didn't have a "young woman in danger" story. Crystal's own experience dealing with Steve near the end was scary enough!

All that said, Crystal's prolonged solo agonizing and Steve's scary behavior got hard to watch towards the end of the film's 90 minutes, and it was long past time for Crystal to admit to Josh that she had a living husband.

In the end, it was a film which had the potential to be much better, but I did find it worthwhile and enjoyed discovering it for the first time. This Dark Side of Cinema collection is definitely worth checking out - though I could honestly say that about all of the volumes in this ever-expanding series.

MAKE HASTE TO LIVE was directed by William A. Seiter and filmed in black and white by John L. Russell. The score was by Elmer Bernstein.

The nice print is from an HD master from a 4K scan. Sound quality is excellent.

Disc extras are a commentary track by Samm Deighan and a gallery of three trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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