Scene of the Crime

 

(1949)
Directed by Roy Roland
Written by Charles Schnee (screenplay), John Bartlow Martin (short story)
Starring Van Johnson, Gloria DeHaven, Arleen Dahl, John McIntire, Tom Drake, Norman Lloyd, Jerome Cowan
IMDB Entry

Back in the 30s and 40s, movie studios had personalities. Paramount concentrated on lives of the upper class, while Warner Brothers concentrated on the poor and desperate.  MGM was somewhere in between, usually with classy dramas and musicals. But in the 40s, film noir was selling and MGM decided to try working on that. The result was Scene of the Crime.

Mike Conover (Van Johnson) is a cop and when another cop is murdered, he takes over the case, and when it's found he has $1000 in cash on him, the question arises that the dead cop was dirty. Conover doesn't believe it and with two other detectives, the veteran Fred Piper (John McIntire) and the rookie C.C. Gordon (Tom Drake), he goes into the dark underside of crime.

Conover's investigation leads to Lili (Gloria DeHaven), a lounge singer who is the girlfriend of one of the suspects. His bulldog determination to solve the case does not sit well with his wife Gloria (Arlene Dahl), who gets frustrated at the way the investigation cuts into their time together.

For Van Johnson, this was a deliberate casting against type. He was usually the star of comedies and musicals and this was a more dramatic role. It doesn't work well. He just doesn't have the gravitas to make the role work. It also doesn't help that the dialog tries too hard to be Chandleresque. Only Chandler knew how to do that without sounding silly.

Gloria DeHaven also was playing a different type of role as previously. She had also played in comedies and musicals, but that is good in developing the character who seems sweet -- at first.  I also liked the subplot of Gloria's frustration with her husband always being called away, and that she understands when he tells her he's been meeting with Lili.

Several familiar faces appear among the cast.  Norman Lloyd was a busy actor, producer, and director, still doing roles after he turned 100. He's best known as Dr. Auschlander in St. Elsewhere, but was is a couple of Hitchcock classics.*  Leon Ames is best known as the father in Meet Me In St. Louis. The name Jerome Cowan probably doesn't ring a bell, but played the District Attorney in Miracle on 34th Street.

Chuck Rothman's novel, The Cadaver Princess, is available from chuckrothman.com/the-cadaver-princess

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*Hanging from the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur.