Interesting little quickie from RKO pictures, especially now that Alcatraz has been shut down. A group of convicts from Alcatraz volunteer to be part of a medical experiment that might help find a cure for some disease, involving radiation treatment. Eddie, one of the convicts, (Sam Scar) stabs another during the treatment, leaving the doctors looking for the cause. Made during the post-WW II radiation scare, this one deals with possible medical cures from that same radiation. The search leads to Tahoe, where someone had a hideout. The only actor I recognized was Frank Cady, (Mr. Drucker, from Green Acres!) Directed by Ed Cahn, master of schlock. Written by George George, the son of Rube Goldberg! It's not bad. Worth the watching, if you can catch it.

Odd Little B-Movie (clocks in at less than an hour) from Low-Budget Wunderkind Edward Cahn. There are Enough Bizarre Scenes and the Combination of Post Nuclear Radiation Experiments on Convicts & Gangsters is a Guilty Treat.Not Enough Time or Money to Make the Thing Much More than it is, and that is an Entertaining, Good Looking Programmer that was Actually Quite Early on the Wave of Paranoia About the Bomb's After Effects. It Tries to Spin the Concern Into a Helper of Mankind and that Radiation and the Nuclear Age Could Be a Good Thing. In Reality the Jury was Out and Truth be Told They didn't have a Clue.The Scene that is at the Nucleus, a Murder, Post Radiation Treatment, Makes Robert Shayne Look Like a Bug-Eyed Maniacal Monster and is an Artistic Touch that is Quite Scary. There are Some (Mad) Lab Sets with Goggled Patients, and Some Gangster Activity with a Twist or Two.Overall, Definitely Worth a Watch for its Quirky Plot and the Director's Command of Low-Budgets with an Eye for Sets and Set-Ups.

**SPOILERS** Complicated crime drama involving an experimental drug, or radioactive isotope, that if successful will end up curing a number of fatal blood diseases including the most lethal of them all leukemia.On its final test run the drug is given to a number of convicts at Alcatraz prison who by volunteering to be injected with it will win their freedom. As things turned out convict Barry Morgan, Robert Shayne, who seemed to be normal after being injected with the drug went totally nuts and grabbed a pair of scissors left unknowingly at his bedside by nurse Joan MacKenna, Joan Dixon, and stabbed to death his bedmate and friend, who's almost joined to the hip with him, Eddie Ganz, Sam Scar. With a court of inquiry coming up with the reason for Morgan's momentarily bout of insanity being the result of the drug tested on him it's decided by the head of the project Col. Harris, Kenneth MacDonald, to destroy the isotope and cancel the entire project. This brings the person who founded the project Dr. Ross Williams, John Howard, to rush over to Alcatraz and see what exactly caused Morgon to go off the deep end and murder his best friend Eddie Ganz who was like a brother to him.Working together with the fired for leaving her scissors unguarded, Nurse MacKenna Dr. Williams uncovers a well thought out plan concocted by Morgan back in Leavenworth to murder his "best friend" Eddie Ganz that's even more complex then the experiment he had conducted on him! ***SPOILERS*** This had to do with Ganz stashing away $250,000.00 in his at the time summer house at Lake Tahoe before he was arrested and sentenced to prison. Now with Ganz free Morgan and a person unknown, who told Morgan's about Ganz's plan, had him murdered to keep him from getting to the stolen money before they did! Realizing that the experimental drug had nothing to do with Morgan becoming homicidal Dr. Williams puts his life on the line by becoming a punching bag, for Morgan's thugs, throughout the remainder of the film until he finally proves his point by going so far in getting himself murdered in proving it! Morgan who got away with murder once in, with a crazed look in his eyes, stabbing to death his "best friend" Eddie Ganz tried to pull off the same thing later in the film by trying to murder Dr. Finley, Walter Kingsford, under the same circumstance when, at Dr. Williams insistence, he was re-tested with the drug. This time around Morgan was caught red-handed, with his hands around Dr. Finley's throat, in a police sting or trap set up for him! The so-called drug that he was injected with that supposedly made him crazy was nothing more then good old bottled water! In the end Dr. Williams experimental drug became available to tens of thousands of people suffering from illness like leukemia including Nurse MacKenny bed ridden brother Dick, Harry Lauther, who without the drug would have never have lived to see his 25th birthday.

With a leading duo of John Howard, fresh from "Radar Secret Service", and Joan Dixon, about to appear in "Bunco Squad", "Hot Lead" and "Pistol Harvest", how can this picture be anything but the comic, laughing piece of wasted celluloid that it is.John Howard, as Dr Ross Williams, exposes convicts to the healing rays of radioactive minerals, expecting to 'cure' them of some disease that I missed learning about. One of the exposed convicts kills another and the efficacy of the treatment is questioned.More silly non-sequitors occur and the entire thing devolves - hard as it may be to believe.Here comes the spoiler - 10 minutes from the end - the hero is killed. Good, but still the movie goes on.