Simply A Masterpiece

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

You can tell that "Double Deal" is a B-movie. At a little over one hour and a cast of mostly B-list actors, it's clearly meant as a second feature. However, it's a pretty good film regardless.When the story begins, Buzz Doyle (Richard Denning) arrives in town and soon ends up working for a guy who is trying to strike oil. But, oddly, the man's biggest rival is his very own sister and she seems willing to do just about anything to ensure that the well comes up dry. First, she tries to hire away Buzz and when he won't throw in his lot with her, she has him beaten. Is this the end of it? Nope...soon folks start dying.The film offers an excellent and unexpected twist ending. My only complaint is one of logistics...why would the killer bother to take Terry (Marie Windsor) to his place to kill her? Why not just kill her where he abducted her and be done with it? Oh, well...it ain't perfect...but it is still pretty good.By the way, if you don't recognize Denning, he played the Governor of Hawaii during the entire run of the original "Hawaii Five-O". He also starred as Lucille Ball's husband in the very successful radio show "My Favorite Husband"...the show that was later re-tooled into "I Love Lucy"...minus Denning, of course.

****SPOILERS*** it's when unemployed oil engineer Buzz Doyle, Richard Denning, buzzes into Richfield City on a Greyhound bus he expects to find some work in that oil town only to get himself involved in a family squabble between Lilly and her brother Reno Sabastian, Fay Baker & Carleton Young, over what else oil! It's Lilly and her lover boy boyfriend the oily Walter Karnes James Griffith, who want to grab Reno's oil well in that if it doesn't start pumping out the black gold within 45 days she can buy him out. As for Buzz he gets involved with bar-girl Terry Miller, Marie Windsor, who's moonlights as Reno's personal secretary at the oil well as well as having an affair with him. It doesn't take long for Terry to fall for the handsome Buzz whom she convinces to stay at Richfield City and work for Reano as his new oil engineer. This has Lilly and Karnes get a number of local goons to make trouble at Reno's well to keep his oil well from going into operation in time before the fore-closer order from the bank kicks in. It also has Lilly drop the oil drenched looking Kerans in order to hit on to the tall blond and handsome Buzz who in fact wants to have nothing to do with her. It's when Buzz finds Reno murdered in his hotel room that he realizes that the fix or frame is in to get him out of the way and have Lilly have a free hand in his oil well and the land that it's on! Which in fact she's been illegally pumping the oil from her wells under her late brother Reno's property.****SPOILERS*** It's late in the movie that the real man behind all this killing and oil manipulating make his appearance and that's when the monkey, Pipi, the real hero in the movie goes into action. With Buzz already framed, and later exonerated, for one murder that of Reno Sabastian he's now framed for a second one, that of Walter Karnes, and soon to be in line for a third frame-up that of his lover and partner in the oil well Terry Miller! But it's the cute little monkey Pipi's the pet of old oil prospector C.D Corpus Mills, Taylor Holmes, who saved both Buzz and Terry's lives and most of all,after those of us watching were about to fall asleep, the movie as well!

How many B-films start with a stranger hopping off a bus in a lonely town, sidling into the local bar, sliding up to the femme fatale, and getting up to his neck in trouble? In this version, the hero (Richard Denning) google-eyes Marie Windsor's frame, breaks up a crooked dice game, and finds himself embroiled in an internecine oil-wildcatting war. It's a potboiler, but very watchable thanks to a decent plot, sharp dialog, and especially the offbeat characters and tried-and-true B-list performers who play them. Unfortunately, like most low-rent films of the time, the visual quality is only a couple of notches above TV, and most scenes are pretty static until the breakneck climax.Miss Windsor gets a softer role than usual here; it's Fay Baker who scores the man-eating ice-queen role. Best of all are Jim Hayward as a world-weary bartender (talking like a Ben Hecht creation), and Tom B. Henry (of the formidable proboscis) as a hardboiled but fair sheriff. Oh, and a pet monkey plays deus ex machina.

Marie Windsor and Richard Denning as "Buzz" pair up to bring in her oil well against the forces at be.Great quickie with actors who have all been in heavier fare.Cheesy dialogue,fist fights,gunplay,sexual tension and plot twists keep this trash-daddy moving at a clip pace in glorious black & white.At times the actors seemed amused as they delivered their lines.Dark and serious oil field trash film see Stark Fear with Beverly Garland.