'The Devil's Party' is okay but not much more

The Devil's Party (1938)
Starring: Victor McLaglen, William Gargan, Paul Kelly, Beatrice Roberts, Frank Jenks and John Gallaudet
Director: Ray McCarey
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Five childhood friends, now grown up and successful each in their own different walks of life, hold their annual reunion. It's disrupted this year when the professional life of one (McLaglen)--a nightclub owner who also runs an illegal gambling operation--of the friends collide with the professional life of two others--now police officcers (Gargen and Gallaudet)--with deadly consequences for some, and tragic consequences for all.

Well-acted and decently filmed--this is one of those movies that takes full advantage of the black-and-white medium, with deep shadows and creative camera-work to heighten mood--the film is nonetheless boring and predictable at every turn. It's only 65 minutes long, yet it starts dragging at about the 30-minute mark, and it feels like it's far longer than it really is.

Given the overall decent quality of the film, I think it's just that this story has been told so many times (and told better) in the 70 or so years since this film was made, I think this is one movie that history has left behind, and a film that the modern viewer can safely skip.

'The Capture' fails because it is well done

The Capture (1950)
Starring: Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright, Victor Jory, Jimmy Hunt, and Barry Kelley
Director: John Sturges
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Oil-man Lin Vanner (Ayres), haunted by guilt after killing a suspected murderer and payroll thief, seeks out the dead man's family (Hunt and Wright) to make amends. He soon discovers that he may have killed an innocent and sets his mind to finding the real thief.

In concept, "The Capture" is interesting enough. It is a modern-day (well... 1930s, which is more modern than the 1870s) Western that deals with the emotional impact killing another human being has on an Everyday Joe who isn't a trained soldier or police officer, as well as the void that person's death leaves for those who love him. The tale is spiced up with some romance, intrigue, drama, and true crime-style action, but it ultimately comes off as less than interesting.

The biggest problem with the film is that its central character, Lin, is just a little too much of an Everyday Joe. Lew Ayres does a fine job of portraying this character... a hard working, honest man who is concerned with all the usual things--earning a living, impressing his boss, looking good to his girlfriend--when his life is thrown into turmoil because of a single snap decision. But Lin is such an Everyday Joe, both because of the way the script is written and Ayers performance, that he is boring. There's a reason they don't make movies and write adventure stories about people like you and me, Dear Reader, it's because we're boring. And Lin is like us, just an Everyday Working Stiff. Lin's ordinariness also makes it very hard to suspend disbelief during the film's third act when he turns hardcore amateur investigator/tough guy in his search for the real thief and peace of mind. In other words, the filmmakers and Ayres do such a good job of portraying Lin as just a normal guy that it ends up working against the entertainment value of the film.

Another problem rests with Teresa Wright's character. Wright struggles mightily to give texture to her, but she can't overcome the fact that the character is written to be a dishrag who can't even pull of a revenge scheme properly when she discovers Lin killed her husband. Then, to make her character even lamer, she becomes the subject of another movie Insta-Romance when she marries Lin is what seems like an overnight conversion from resentment to true love.

Despite the good acting on the part of both Ayres and Wright, the film becomes almost unbearably boring in the middle when it's mostly about them--two characters that are written to be uninteresting. However, viewers who stick with the film are rewarded when things pick up toward the end, even if Lin's transformation into a sort-of tough guy is unbelievable.

"The Capture" isn't a film that's worth seeking out on a stand-alone DVD, but it's harmless filler if you see it in one of those big 20 or more movie multi-packs.

Be careful not to wake 'The Sleeping Tiger'

The Sleeping Tiger (1954)
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Alexis Smith, Alexander Knox, Hugh Griffith, and Patricia McCarron
Diretor: Victor Hanbury (aka Joseph Losey)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A psychotherapist (Knox) invites a wanted criminal (Bogarde) to stay in his home in the hopes of finding a solid treatment for criminal behavior. The experiment starts to go awry when the doctor's sociopathic, bored wife (Smith) starts an affair with the criminal in the hopes that she will run away with her.


"The Sleeping Tiger" is an overblown melodrama with just enough character development and film noir elements to make it interesting. A decent cast also helps the movie along quite nicely.

Dirk Bogarde--as the young career criminal who finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place, but who might find his way to a new life if he can go straight--and Alexis Smith--as a gorgeous and deeply twisted woman who has everything except a soul) give outstanding performances, with Alexander Knox providing a fine backdrop for them to play off, as he plays a bland but unshakably confident man of science who only has thoughts of his experiment.

There's nothing really outstanding about this British excursion into the film noir/crime drama genre, but there's also nothing particularly awful. It's one of those films that's worth checking out if you notice it included in a DVD multipack, or if it shows up on some cable channel, but it's not worth going out of your way for.

Perhaps the butler actually did it this time!

Sinister Hands (1932)
Starring: Jack Mulhall, Crauford Kent, Mischa Auer, Phyllis Barrington, Louis Nathaeux, Gertie Messinger, Fletcher Norton, Phillips Smalley, Lillian West, and James P. Burtis
Director: Armand Shaefer
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A millionaire is murdered at a seance where EVERYONE (including the bulter) could have done it, and had reason to do it. It's up to homicide detective Herbert Devlin (Muhall) to sort through the suspicious characters and find the killer.


"Sinister Hands" is a decent little mystery that plays like an outline of an Agatha Christie novel. The first half sets up the future victim and all the people with reasons to kill him, and the second half is devoted mostly the detective interrogating the suspects as he tries to discover who did it, or trick the killer into revealing him- or herself.

There will be no great surprises in this film if you pay attention as it unfolds and if you've read/seen at least two or three other detective movies. (In fact, one of the things I found most interesting is completely trivial and not even related directly to the movie. It appeared that the characters were wearing unisex bathing suits at the pool party scene. I'd never noticed that men and women's swimwear was that close in style and appearance during the late 1920s and early 1930s. I also found it noteworthy that one of the suspects is a fake spiritualist named Yomurda. With a name like that, he can't possibly be the killer, can he? :D )

This is an entertaining little mystery film that is probably only of interest to big fans of the genre (like me) or those with a deep love of low-budget films from this era (which I also qualify as). It might also be a suitable second feature for a Bad Movie Night, because, while not exactly a bad movie, it is a film that time has passed by and which can give rise to much levity in the right company.

Evil by Gaslight

Gaslight (aka "Angel Street") (1940)
Starrng: Anton Wallbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, and Cathleen Cordell
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Abusive husband Paul Mallen (Wallbrook) sets about driving his mentally frail (but wealthy) wife insane after she unknowingly discovers a dark secret he is harboring. Will retired police detective B.G. Rough (Pettingell) uncover enough evidence about Paul's intent and true identity before it is too late to save Mrs. Mallen (Wynyard)?


"Gaslight" is a fabulous thriller set in Victorian London. If the modern day equavilients could have scripts this taught, victims this helpless and undeserving of torment, villains so absolutely sininster and intelligently evil, and camerawork and lighting as elegant and creative as is on display here, I wouldn't constantly be lamenting that the thriller is a dead genre.

The two lead actors in this film give astonishing performances. Paul Mallen has got to be among the most dispicable, evil villains to ever appear on film, and Anton Wallbrook plays him with perfect coldness. Diana Wynyard as the pitiable object of his twisted scheming plays Bella Mallen with just enough confusion and gentleness to make the viewer feel sorry for her but never feel irritated because she is too much of a victim. Instead, Paul Mallen's evil simply becomes that much more evident.

According to the IMDB entry for "Gaslight", when MGM acquired the rights to the film and did a remake in 1944, they attemted to destroy all copies of this original film. Fortunately, they did not succeed, and this very stylish, well-done thriller survives to this day in very good condition. It's one of the many forgotten and obscure cinematic gems included in Mill Creek's 100-movie boxed set, Mystery Classics, and it's one of the reasons many a reasons that set will appeal to lovers of thrillers, crime dramas, and film noir.

Beware the secretary too good to be true....

The Inner Circle (1946)
Starring: Warren Douglas, Adele Mara, William Frawley and Virginia Christine
Director: Phil Ford
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When a mysterious veiled woman frames private detective Johnny Strange (Douglas) for the murder of a much-loathed radio reporter, his equally mysterious secretary (Mara) is ready with just the right lie to clear him. But Lt. Webb of the homicide department (Frawley) isn't buying it, and Johnny has to race against time to find the real killer.


"The Inner Circle" is a light-weight, slightly goofy mystery film that's the cinematic equavelent of an apple--it's a quick, inoffensive snack. Average acting, simple script, and an okay mystery plot (that keeps it together to the end, but then falls apart), it's not a bad way to spend an hour, but it's not an experience you'll remember. The most interesting thing about it is William Frawley as a sort-of proto-Columbo whose main investigative technique seems to be to annoy suspects into confessing.

'Sucker Money' shows dark side of psychics

Sucker Money (1933)
Starring: Earl McCarthy, Mischa Auer, Phyllis Barrington and Mae Busch
Directors: Dorothy Davenport and Melville Shyer
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Jimmy (McCarthy), an actor-turned-newspaper reporter, infiltrates a group of confidence artists who are running an elaborate phony psychic operation, he gets more than just the material for a great expose: He finds romance in the form of beautiful Ms. Walton (Barrington), one of the targets of the bad guys, and he finds danger at the hands of the murderous leader of the gang, Swami Yomurda (Auer) when his cover is blown.

"Sucker Money" is a fine, fast-paced little reporter-saves-the-day-and-the-girl and self-declared "expose" film of the phony psychic racket (which, given the number of movies that were made with this theme during the 1930s and 1940s, I can only assume was quite widespread). The set-up is a bit weak--a criminal enterprise as elaborate and organized as the one presented in this film wouldn't turn to the want ads when it came to hiring new help--but that bit of nonsense aside, the film is engaging, well-acted, and well-filmed... even if it feels and looks a bit too much like a silent movie at times. (There's also the minor issue with the reporter wearing more lipstick and eyeliner than any of the women characters in the film when he's in his "acting mode". Perhaps that's to remind the audience that he's a ACTOR? Or maybe that was part of his disguise--"if they think I'm one of THOSE actors, the women won't come onto handsome ole me, and I'll get my story quicker"?

The weaknesses of the film are more than made up for by the evil Swami Yomurda (whose name is never said in the film, thank God.) Auer portrays a truly sinister and evil character, with strongly scripted actions to support him. He may be a fake psychic, but he has Svengali-like hypnotic powers, and he has no compulsion about ordering those under them to dispatch themselves by drinking poison. He does just this in the film's most startling scene. The scene alone makes the film worth watching, although the strong climax also makes it well worth your time, if you're a lover of old-fashioned crime dramas.




(Trivia: This is the second movie in which Mischa Auer played a crooked spiritualist named "Sawmi Yomurda." The first was 1932's "Sinister Hands," in which is also co-starred with Phyllis Barrington (her character in that film was a different one, however).

A killer enters the 'Inner Sanctum'

Inner Sanctum (1949)
Starring: Charles Russell, Dale Belding, Mary Beth Hughes and Fritz Leiber
Director; Lew Landers
Rating: Five of Ten Rating

The generous (but quirky) operators and residents of a small-town boarding house invite a traveler stranded by washed-out roads to stay with them (Russell). However, as fate would have it, the man is a murderer, and the young son of the boarding house's owner (Belding) is the only person who can identify him to the police... if he realizes what he saw before the murderer kills him, too.


"Inner Sanctum" has a few truly tense moments, but overall it's pretty bland, predictable, and perfectly mediocre. The story is decent but unremarkable, and the characters populating it are one-dimensional stereotypes that are portrayed by average actors. Nothing's particularly bad in the film, but nothing's particularly laudible either.

The blandness of the story is heightened by the fact that the near-pointless framing sequence that establishes the tale as being told by a psychic (Leiber) in order to warn a young woman of impending doom is the most intriguing part of the film.

'The Hoodlum' gets what he deserves

The Hoodlum (1951)
Starring: Lawrence Tierney, Edward Tierney, Marjorie Riordan, Allene Roberts, Lisa Golm and Stuard Randall
Director: Max Nosseck
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After gaining an early parole from prison, career criminal Vincent Lubeck (Tierney) goes to work for his brother's gas station. But instead of reforming, he returns to his life of crime in ways even worse than before... starting with the rape of his brother's girlfriend and culminating in an armored car heist.


"The Hoodlum" is a fairly decent "crime doesn't pay" movie where the utterly contemptable main character gets exactly what's coming to him by the end. It also features a nicely staged heist bit with a tense get-away sequence.

Unfortunately, the fimmakers blow the ending by slathering on an excessive amount of melodrama and by offering up a deus ex machina development to keep the Good Brother from making a life-altering choice. By shying away from the ending they were on track for, the writers passed up a perfect opportunity to make up for the gooey melodrama and to lift this movie to a higher level than run-of-the-mill.

'The Great Flamarion' is a tale of lust and tragedy

The Great Flamarion (1946)
Starring: Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea and Stephen Barclay
Director; Anthony Mann
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Reclusive marksman and vaudeville entertainer (von Stroheim) comes out of his shell when he believes the beautiful assistant in his act (Hughes) loves him and wants to be with him instead of her husband (Duryea). However, the coldhearted, manipulative woman simply wants the Great Flamarion to "accidentally" shoot her husband during the act, so she can run off with yet another man.


"The Great Flamarion" is an utterly predictable film, although it might not have been so in 1946 when it was made. The story never misses a chance to go exactly where you'd expect it to go, and the characters never move beyond complete and total cliches.

However, there is still a degree of enjoyment to be derived from this film if you just sit back and go with it. Hughes' performance as the black widow who should make black widows feel uneasy is so over-the-top that it fits perfectly with the nature of the script, while Von Stroheim takes an interesting term as a man who moves from an obsession with lethal guns to a lethal obsession with the woman who took his self-respect and his honor.

Can dreams of death happen when awake?

Fear in the Night (1947)
Starring: DeForest Kelley, Paul Kelly, and Robert Emmett Keane
Director: Maxwell Shane
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Mild-mannered banker Vincent (Kelley) awakens from a horrible nightmare... only to find that elements of his dream seem to have followed him into the waking world. As evidence mounts that Vincent may indeed have murdered not one but two people, his brother-in-law (Kelly), a homicide detective, becomes involved. What is the answer to the mystery of a nightmare that has taken shape in the real world?


"Fear in the Night" is a quirky little mystery film that merges film noir and hardboiled detective elements with a horror film sensibility. There is very little action in the film--and what there is actually the weakest part of it--but Vincent's mounting horror as he realizes that the murder he dreamed about did happen, and the twists and turns the plot takes as the police detective gradually pieces together a theory about what happened. (His initial conclusion that Vincent is trying to play him a fool is one the viewer never really buys, but within the context of the film, it helps heighten the tension greatly.)

The ultimate solution to the mystery may seem a bit hokey to the modern viewer, but the deadly danger that the very sympathetic Vincent is placed in when the police make a couple of missteps more than makes up for that; I can't go into more detail without spoiling the film, alas. As mentioned above, the action sequence that takes place as part of the film's climax is probably the weakest and most unbelievable part of the film, and it robs it of some potential punch. However, the denouement pulls the film back from the edge and ends it on a high note.

A strong cast and a creative script make this a film that lovers of classic mystery movies need to see.

What secret hides in 'The Red House'?

The Red House (aka "No Trespassing") (1947)
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Allene Roberts, Lon McCallister, Rory Calhoun, Judith Anderson, and Julie London
Director: Delmer Daves
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The summer teenaged Meg (Roberts) and her friends stand on the verge of adulthood, is the summer they decide to explore the woods on the lands owned by her adopted father (Robinson), over his objections. Soon, secrets that have been buried deep in the forest since Meg was a baby are dragged back into the light, with tragic and deadly consequences.


"The Red House" is a well-paced, expertly acted thriller where country-folk are neither simple nor neighborly.

The cast are all perfect in their roles, with Edward G. Robinson (who transforms from an eccentric, crabby farmer into a menacing, murderous pervert, as his vener is gradually stripped away) and Allene Roberts (who changes from a shy, romantic girl into a young woman willing to risk everything to learn the secrets of her past) give particularly noteworthy performances.

The camera-work and the staging are also very impressive. The way the woods change between day and night are very impressively done, with the menace present when Meg's friend and object of her puppy-love (McCallister) tries to take a shortcut them during a storm, but completely absent during the light of day. The musical score is also extremely well-done and probably somewhat ahead of its time. (My biggest complaint about movies from the 1930s, 1940s, and into the 1950s is that oftentimes the music soundtrack almost seems random in its emotional quality and often not even close to being in sync with what's happening on screen. That can't be said for the music here--it enhances and moves the story along with as much force as the actors and the dialogue they deliver.)

I have nothing but praise for this film, so I think it a sad fact that it is on the verge of becoming "lost." I've seen two different versions of it on DVD--one that so badly hacked up the final scene of the film is missing, and another where the sound is so bad that it was hard to make out what was being said because of static.

If there's a film that deserves to be restored and preserved it's "The Red House." However, since there's no solid commercial hook here, and the film can't be considered "historical", it'll probably never happen.

Despite the poor quality of the sound, "The Red House" is one of the many movies included in the "Dark Crimes 50 Movie Mega-pack" and the even bigger "100 Mysteries" set that made those sets worth the asking price.

Cinematic Black History Milestone:First Blacksploitation Flick

Febuary is Black History Month in the United States. I'm celebrating it by calling the world's attention to cinematic milestones in Black History across all my various review blogs. Look for the "Black History Month" tag and join in the celebration by checking out the movies reviews!


Ten Minutes to Live (aka "Ten Minutes to Kill") (1932)
Starring: Lawrence Chenault, Mabel Garrett, A.B. Comathiere, and Willor Lee Guilford
Director: Oscar Micheaux
Rating: Three of Ten (but see note at the end)

"Ten Minutes to Live" is a brief anthology film--perhaps the first American-made anthology film--that highlights the sort of B-list movies that were being made as films with sound oblitarated silent movies and the careers most of the actors that performed in them. In both tales in the film, it's clear that one of things director and screenwriter Micheaux is doing is simply showing off the presense of sound. Both tales also very clearly show evidence of silent movie techniques, with the second half being obviously a silent movie that has been hastily and rather badly converted a talkie.


The first tale, "The Faker" is mostly a collection of Harlem nightclub routines (several performances by a troup of dancing girls, a couple of songs--with one being performed by the very sexy and talented Mabel Garrett, and a lame comedy act that shows that even black comedians were made up in something akin to black face when doing stand-up Back in the Day) with a paper-thin and badly acted plot featuring a con-man and abuser of women (Chenault) finally getting what's coming to him as he zeroes in on two new victims, including nightclub performer Ida Morton (Garrett).

The second tale, "The Killer", starts with a woman receiving a note from a pair of thugs as she sits with her date at a table in the night club. The note announces she has ten minutes to live. A flashback then follows, relating to us how she came to be in her present, perilous situation... and what follows is a standard silent movie melodramatic crime drama that's been retooled to show off sound. For example, car sounds have been added to a street sequence, and the sound of crowds in a train station. The sound effects aren't all that well done, the looping is painfully obvious, and the silent movie is still very much a slient movie. (I did appreciate the scene with Willor Lee Guilford changing from her dress into a skimpy nightgown and robe, even if I could have done without the strip-tease music that kicked at that time.)

In 1932, I'm sure the mostly rural black audiences for whom this film was made were awed by the sounds it feeatures. In 2007, however, "Ten Minutes to Live" is of interest only to fillm historians and historians of black nightclub acts the early 1930s.

In "The Faker", the interludes with actors thrown in between nightclub acts are really just an excuse to show us the nightclub acts, The filmmaker was plainly first and foremost interested in bringing music and dancing and singing (and the sounds of all these) to the patrons of movie-houses, some of whom might never make it to the glamorous Harlem nightclubs, but who could now enjoy all the sights and sounds of being there. The best portion of it is Mabel Garrett's song and dance act... but she never should have opened her mouth in an attempt to act. With the sound down, her scene with Chenault as he convinces her he's a famous movie producer is decent enough, but she can't deliver a line if her life depended on it. Chenault isn't much better, and they demonstrate why so many silent movie actors lost their careers with the advent of sound. (I hope Garrett did well as a singer, though. She was beautiful and sexy enough, and she had a great voice.) For movie lovers, "The Faker is a complete bust, but if you want to see what routines would appear at Harlem nightclubs in the 1920s and early 1930s, it;s worth seeing.

With "The Killer", we get a muddled storyline that's decently enough performed and filmed as far as silent movies go, but it's undermined by a hackneyed attempt to add sound to it. The badly acted sequences of Guilford in the nightclub with her date aren't terribly destructive... it's the flatly delivered, badly written lines that are delivered by characters off-screen as a mad stalker lurks atop a staircase, and the obvious looping of traffic sounds and badly staged crowd "chatter" that's going to bug viewers. The upshot is that what could have been the better half of this film is dragged down by a "gee-whiz" factor that has been left behind by history. If you want to see a well-done conversion of a silent movie to a talkie, check out Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail."

"Ten Minutes to Live" is not a film for the average viewer anymore. Film students should check it out, because it was the product of a pioneer in the filmmaking biz--Oscar Micheaux was the first black director to make a feature length film, a dedicated fighter for independent filmmakers, and a champion for portraying blacks on film as they really were--and because this is also one of the very earliest anthology films, but the rest of us can safely skip it.

Note: The copy I viewed was severely degraded, and I suspect that there aren't any out there in much better shape. One of the benefits of the DVD and digital storage in general is that films like this one get preserved. It may be a movie that time has left behind, but I think it's a valuable historical artifact, both for its documentation of the nightclub acts, and for its place in the evolution of America's race relations and the art of filmmaking. As a historical artifact, this film gets an Eight of Ten rating, but as a movie to entertain modern audiences, it gets a Three of Ten rating.)


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It's always the little things that trip up a killer....

The Scar (aka "Hollow Triumph" and "The Man Who Murdered Himself") (1948)
Starring: Paul Henreid and Joan Bennett
Director: Steve Sekeley
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

John Muller (Henreid), a career criminal on the run from vengeful gangsters after a botched casino robbery, finds the ultimate hideout: He remakes himself to take the place of a successful psychoanalyst who bears a strong resemblence to him. However, John fails to take into account that when you take over someone's life, you get the good with the bad.


"The Scar" is a somewhat far-fetched film-noir crime drama, but it's well-filmed, well-acted (with a couple of slips into over-the-top melodrama), and tense from beginning to end.

Henreid gives an interesting performance as a sociopathic schemer who finds an apparent path to safety and a new life; while co-star Bennett gives a nuanced performance as John's love interest--a character who starts out seeming like a fairly typical secretary for this kind of movie, but which ends up as one of the deeper and interesting characters in the film. What's more, the romance between the two characters actually feels genuine--something very rare in movies--and this makes the viewer feel true sympathy with Bennett's character at the end of the movie.

Another thing that makes the film interesting is the recurring theme that no one really cares enough about anyone but themselves to truly notice the world around them. This is what lets John Muller steal a man's life in every sense, and in a suitably ironic twist, this tendency toward total self-centeredness also ends up contributing to John's undoing.

After a near-perfect execution of everything leading up to it, the movie falters a bit at the ending. Given that crime hardly ever pays in movies, John clearly will not manage to live happily ever after in his stolen identity. However, the main reason for his Bad End comes about due to what feels more like Script-Dictated Character Stupidity rather than a natural consequence of events; John had the information and means to solve the biggest probem facing his new identity, yet he doesn't even make an attempt to do so before it's too late. (I could justify this lapse with some character psychology and the overall themes of the film--John was too arrogant and greedy to deal with the issue, or he was too self-centered for the full magnitude of the problem--but it still doesn't make the ending feel quite right.)

This is a near-perfect crime drama with an excellent script and decent performances. It's well-worth seeking out, particularly if you're a fan of the film noir subgenre.

Decent mystery ruined by not-as-clever as all that writers

The Limping Man (1953)
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Moria Lister, Alan Wheatley, and Helene Cordet
Director: Cy Endfield
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A WW2 vet, Frank Prior (Bridges), travels to England to reunite with his wartime sweetheart (Lister). As he leaves the plane at the airport, a fellow passenger is gunned down. When the investigating Scotland Yard inspector (Wheatley) discovers a connection between Prior's sweetheart and the dead man, he becomes suspicious of both of them, so Prior sets about to uncover the truth.


I have tried, but I am unable to think of another movie I've seen that is so utterly and completely ruined by an incompetent ending the way "The Limping Man" is destroyed. The ending here is so lame that it spoils whatever enjoyment the viewer may have been deriving from what seemed like an average thriller that was building toward a decent conclusion. The ending is so thoroughly botched--on every conceivable level--that I can't even say "stop the DVD player at THIS point, and you'll preserve what you liked about this film".

The first sign of trouble is an illogical plot-twist that relates to the blackmail effort directed at Prior's thrill-seeking sweetheart. It's the sort of twist that makes you wonder if perhaps the filmmakers were in trouble as far as coming up with a good ending. This is confirmed when the second twist presents itself, and pretty much undoes the entire story. (I can't go into details without revealing the ending, but, believe me, it will ruin the film for you.)

If there ever was a movie that could have been saved by a competent writer handling rewrites, "The Limping Man" is it. And if you've seen it, and if you know of another otherwise decent film so completely ruined by its ending, I'd love to hear about it.

'Whistle Stop' is done in by a weak script

Whistle Stop (1946)
Starring: George Raft, Ava Gardner, Victor McLaglan, Tom Conway, and Jorja Curtright
Director: Leonide Moguy
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When Mary (Gardner) returns to her home town after two years away, she rekindles a rivalry between Kenny (Raft), a two-bit loser she's always loved, and Lew (Conway), the local hotel owner--and hood-- who has always been in love with her. This time, the rivalry leads to more than just a few thrown punches... this time, it leads to robbery and murder.


"Whistle Stop" feels more like a summary of a story than the actual story. We learn learn next to nothing about the characters other than their most obvious traits (Why does Mary really come back to town? What was she really doing for those two years in Chicago? Why does Lew go to such extreme measures to get even with Kenny... is he really just a bastard?), we learn very little about the deep relationships that exist between them (Why does Gitlo--a resentment-filled employee of Lew, who is played by Victor McLaglan--have such a soft spot for Mary? Has Mary and her family always been the landlords of Kenny's family and is that how they met?). Perhaps if we knew a little more about the characters in the film, the ending would have felt a little less strange.

This is one of those films that's technically well made and features decent performances by all the actors, but which is ultimately undone by a bad script. The end result is okay but unremarkable.

'Woman on the Run' is worth chasing after

Woman on the Run (1950)
Starring: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith and Ross Elliot
Director: Norman Foster
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When artist Frank Johnson (Elliot) witnesses a gangland slaying and is subsequently target by the killer, he panics and goes on the run. When the police detective (Keith) in charge of the case contacts his wife, Eleanor (Sheridan) he finds an imbittered woman who is strangely uninterested in helping to locate him. But, once the police are gone, Elanor sets about tracking down her husband herself, first alone, then with the help of scoop-seeking reporter Danny Leggett. But, as Elanor draws closer to finding Frank, she unknowing leads the killer to him as well... a killer who is desperate to eliminate anyone who might identify him.


"Woman on the Run" is a well-scripted, perfectly paced film-noir style crime drama. The dialogue is particularly well-crafted, as is Elanor's gradual transformation from a surly film-noir dame to a wife who discovers that she and her husband still have a marriage worth saving. The way the film reveals the identity of the killer--who is much closer throughout the film than anyone suspects--and the casual way it demonstrates exactly how murderous and coldblooded he is, are also stellar examples of quality screen-writing and filmmaking.

With fine performances by all actors featured, an excellent script, great photography that takes full advantage of the black-and-white film medium, and a perfect music score to round out the package, "Woman on the Run" is a film that's undeserving of its obscurity... and it's a film that makes the 50-movie DVD collection "Dark Crimes " (which is where I saw it) worth the purchase price almost all by itself--another reason why it's such a shame its going out of print.

A cop gone bad is 'The Man Who Cheated Himself'

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)
Starring: Lee J. Cobb, John Dall and Jane Wyatt
Director: Felix E. Feist
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Homicide detective Ed Cullen (Cobb) puts his skills to use to cover for a killer when his married girlfriend, Lois (Wyatt), guns down her husband. But will he be able to keep the deceit hdden from his new partner, a bright rookie detective who also happens to be his brother (Dall)?


"The Man Who Cheated Himself" is a very well-done movie. It's got a nice, dramatic script of the film-noir variety that unfolds in a mostly believable fashion and at a perfect pace; it's got well-crafted dialogue being delivered be competent actors giving believable performances; and it's got a detective who actually works a mystery without the aid of plot-aided leaps of logic. It might be worth an 8-rating if the set-up didn't feel a bit forced.

Perhaps it's misplaced gallantry on the part of Cullen, but given the cirucmstances of the killing he witnesses, the smart (and even the only rational) thing for him to have done was to report the shooting Yes, there would have been scandal, but even as soon as immediately after the shooting, Cullen could provide all the evidence a competent lawyer would need to get Lois off scott-free: The husband was planning to kill her and the shooting was a cross between accidental and self-defense... and Cullen should have been smart enough to let things stand as they truly were.

But, if Cullen didn't try to disconnect Lois from the crime, there wouldn't be a movie (or, at least, there would have been a very different movie). Despite its shaky foundation, "The Man Who Cheated Himself" delivers plenty of entertainment for fans of film-noir and classic crime dramas. (The cat-and-mouse sequence near the Golden Gate Bridge--and the use of San Francisco as a backdrop in general--goes a long way to make up for the main character's odd behavior to get the story going.)

"The Man Who Cheated Himself" is one of a couple dozen classic thrillers and detective films included in the "Dark Crimes Collection," a box of 50 black-and-white movies. It has, sadly, been discontinued by the manufacturer, so if you know someone who's just recently discovered the magic of old films, you might want to give him or her an instant collection of them before it's completely off the market.


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Is there truth behind the 'Strange Illusion'?

Strange Illusion (aka "Out of the Dark") (1945)
Starring: James Lydon, William Warren, Sally Eilers, and Regis Toomey
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A college student (Lydon) is suspicious of the man (Warren) his widowed mother (Eilers) is about to marry. Evidence mounts that the boyfriend may actually be a shadowy serial killer who has been eluding police for years... but is the "evidence" merely coincidences that are being exagerrated in the young man's jealous mind, or is his mother truly in danger?


"Strange Illusion" is a thriller with sinister villians, and an interesting plot that's part Shakespeare and part Hitchcock. It's also got an unsual hero for a crime drama--young college kids weren't typically the protagonists in these sorts of films from the 1930s and 1940s--although that's another similarity to both Shakespeare and Hitchcock's films that this one exhibits. The dialogue is well-done, and the performances by the actors are all decent enough.

Despite all those positive points, this film is far from perfect. It could have benefitted immensely from another script rewrite or two before filming wrapped.

Our hero's suspicion of his mother's new love arises from a recurring dream he has. In fact, most of the increasingly damning clues he finds also originate with the recurring dream. I don't have the feeling the film is implying the young man is psychic, but that instead the clues are somehow being delivered to him by his subconcious mind. However, the dream reveals things to him that he couldn't possibly have known, subconscious or otherwise, and this overuse of the plot device drags the movie down to the point where it almost slips to the lower end of average. Then there's a few bits of sloppy filmmaking--such as when the vantage point upon a scene viewed through binoculars changes dramatically between two uses to look at the same spot from the same location--that don't exactly help to enhance the film's quality.

Nonetheless, this is an unusual entry in the thriller/film-noir genre, and it's worth a look. It's not as good as Ulmer's Lugosi/Karloff vehicle "The Black Cat," but it's still damn good.

(I also think that William Warren plays one of the slimiest characters I've yet to see in a movie. Whether or not he's the serial killer Our Hero believes him to be--and I won't say that he is, because I try not to spoil movies in this space--he is definately a Bad Guy who no-one would want to see their mother marry!)

'Baby Face Morgan' makes crime funny

Baby Face Morgan (1942)
Starring: Richard Cromwell, Robert Armstrong, Mary Carlisle, and Chick Chandler
Director: Arthur Dreifuss
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Edward Morgan (Cromwell) is installed as president of his dead father's insurance company, he decides to offer "racketeer insurance" to the city's truckers. Little does he know that he's been installed as the head of a crime syndicate's legitimate front... and the money he's paying out to truck company's being extorted by the gangsters is the very money that is being extorted from them.

"Baby Face Morgan" is a dippy, far-fetched mob comedy. The humor is mostly derived from the way the mobsters and Edward continue to work at cross-purposes, and it's made all the more funny by the fact that the mastermind of the scheme (Armstrong) would have known Edward was handing the extortion money (and much more!) straight back to the truckers.

I kept expecting the film to go in a direction it didn't--I found myself wondering if Edward could get large policies at the drop of a hat, why didn't the mobsters just go into insurance--but the film never did go there.

It also never quite went as far in the screwball direction as I would have liked it to go. The film is full of great ideas that are not quite used to their fullest potential, due to a weak script and a cast of so-so actors.

Still, the film is short, fast-moving and never boring.