Search - Ring of Fear on DVD

Amateur Night at the Movies

Bennet Pomerantz | Seabrook, Maryland | 09/20/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I enjoy Mickey Spillane the author..However, Spillane the actor is another animal. In Ring of Fear, Spillane attacks a role he can handle Mickey Spillane. However in Ring of Fire, Spillane should have stuck to writing

This Greatest Show on Earth wantabee takes place at the Clyde Beatty Circus. So if it takes place at the Beatty's circus, who else should play Clyde Beatty but Beatty him.

Character actor Pat O'Brien and Sean McClory eat up the action and keep Beatty and Spillane from acting too much (thank Gawd). McClory shines thru in this part mof the Ring master with past. Beatty and Spillane know the orginal careers, howevere they seem wooden here in this Whodunit

This classic B was done by John Wayne Batjac company and presented in Widescreen format. There are NO EXTRAS oin this package

So if want Amateur Night at the Movies, this is worth it

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD"

Another Cinemascope Dud

Alamo_guy | 10/05/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I always said that cinemascope was responsible for some of the strangest movies to come out of the 1950s. This movie is a prime example. It is unclear what this movie is really supposed to be about. The plot, which centers around a psychopathic killer on the loose, continually veers off course like an airplane without radar. Pat O'Brien looked as board as the rest of us watching this movie."

Well, it certainly has curiosity value...

Trevor Willsmer | London, England | 07/07/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Ring of Fear wins the curio crown in the recent collection of non-John Wayne Batjac films from Paramount hands down, with Sean McClory's escaped homicidal maniac Dublin O'Malley (they knew how to give characters names in those days!) heading to Clyde Beatty's circus to wreak revenge on the distinctly odd lion tamer (playing himself with an interesting array of grimaces) and win back the trapeze artiste (Marian Carr) who spurned him by causing ever more dangerous accidents. Naturally, Beatty and circus manager Pat O'Brien choose the obvious course of action - no, not going to the cops, stupid, but bringing in Mickey Spillane (playing himself) and Jack Stang (the cop who was the model for Mike Hammer, playing himself) to find the guilty party.

Aside from McClory, coming over like a garrulous young Benny Hill, no-one has much of a part, which isn't a bad thing considering Spillane is the only one who is even remotely convincing playing himself - Stang looks like he's taken a few punches too many and Beatty literally has to shake his head to change his expression: the two men's reaction shot to an offscreen death-by-tiger is almost worth the price of admission on its own. The script is pretty mundane - no input from Spillane, but instead credited to Paul Fix, Philip MacDonald and John Wayne regular James Edward Grant, who also directs - but it's not without a certain sideshow appeal. And where else could you get to see Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez lose a fight with a kangaroo? Annoyingly, although an extract from the Spillane-hosted trailer appears on other Batjac DVDs, the full trailer hasn't been included: in fact, aside from a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer and a stereo remix, every effort has been spared on this no-extras disc.
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