Tag Archives: old west

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Half Way to Hell (1960)

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Promo Materials for Half Way to Hell (1960)Half Way to Hell (1960) by #VictorAdamson & #AlAdamson

“THEY WENT “HALF WAY TO HELL” TO GET WHAT THEY WANTED!”

“SEX-MAD KILLERS LOOSE ON THE DESERT!”

“A RUTHLESS RENEGADE PLUNDERS FOR POWER and WOMEN!”

#Action #Western
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

In keeping with my recent streak of Al Adamson movies – or, more specifically, my recent exploration of three different versions of the same Al Adamson movie, which in fact started out as his very first feature film as a director,  Psycho a Go Go (1965), which then became The Fiend with the Electronic Brain (1967), and then finished as Blood of Ghastly Horror (1971) – I thought I’d look at another very early Al Adamson movie. In fact, the truth is that Al Adamson made this one (uncredited) before his official debut. It was a co-directing job with his father, Victor Adamson, and as you may have guessed by now, it’s called Half Way to Hell (1960). I decided that I had to take a look at this movie which may well have inspired Al Adamson to become a film director. 

It’s not the kind of movie that I usually feature at the Home Drive-in. It’s a Western. Don’t get me wrong. I love Westerns. I watch them all the time. I used to watch one a week, minimum. And there was a time, when I was working on writing my own epic Western story, that I immersed myself in Westerns and watched one pretty much every day – except for Fridays.

I’m not sure why, exactly. Westerns certainly were common drive-in movie fare back in the day. I guess I’m still stuck on the fact that it was horror and monster movies that really got me into the drive-in appreciation society. Having said that, I enjoy many other types of drive-in movies, as you may have noticed if you’ve ever read this blog before. I have, in fact, featured at least a couple of Western crossover films in past posts. One was Jack the Ripper Goes West aka A Knife for the Ladies (1974). So, it’s not unheard of for the Wild West to make an appearance on these blog pages. It just isn’t… usual, I guess.

In any case, I am still experiencing the technical difficulties and inconveniences of modern life that made me have to cut last week’s blog post short. So, alas, I will have be brief.

Half Way to Hell (1960) is a low budget B Western that probably came and went without much fanfare back in the day. Having seen quite a few B Westerns in the past, I wasn’t really looking forward to it, because I find a lot of them to be kind of tedious.  I was pleasantly surprised, however. It’s by no means a masterpiece, but it’s far more entertaining than I ever expected it to be. It held my interest, and I kind of liked it. I found the ending to be a bit of head-scratcher, but what can you do? If this is the movie that made Al Adamson decide to be a filmmaker, then it deserves to be celebrated for launching a true master of #NotQuiteClassicCinema on his epic journey. 

I probably won’t watch it a lot of times in the future, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day Half Way to Hell (1960) gets another chance to entertain me on a dusty #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.