They Made Me a Killer

 (1946)
Directed by William C. Thomas
Written by Daniel Mainwaring, Winston Miller, Kae Salkow
Starring Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Lola Lane, Elisabeth Risdon
IMDB Entry

The title of They Made Me a Killer is clearly influenced by They Made me a Criminal of a few years earlier. While it certainly doesn't rise to the level of that classic, it is a pretty good programmer with a Hitchcockian theme of a man on the run because he's unjustly accused of a crime.

Tom Durling (Robert Lowrey) quits his job as an auto mechanic after his brother is killed in an accident. Driving west, he ends up in a small town and meets Betty Ford (Lola Lane), who asks for a ride in his car. They stop at a bank, and Durling realizes he's been forced into being the getaway driver for a bank robbery. One man, Steve Reynolds, is killed, but Durling is caught. Reynold's sister June (Barbara Britton) wants revenge on the criminals, so they join forces to track them down. A matchbook in Ford's belongings leads them to a diner. June gets a job, while Durling infiltrates the gang with an eye to bringing them to justice.

The movie creates as lot of suspense as we see the gang become suspicious of Durling and June and may discover they're both out to turn them in and clear their names. Also of interest is Ma Conley (Elisabeth Risdon), the diner owner who is the mastermind of the gang. 

The movie was produced by Pine-Thomas, which did B movies for Paramount. Most of the actors did little of note. Barbara Britton had a successful career in the 50s and missed out on being a TV icon when she was replaced in Head of the Family by Mary Tyler Moore when the show was revamped into The Dick Van Dyke Show. Robert Lowery was a success and worked regularly; his most famous role was the lead in the 1949 Batman and Robin serial. He also was a regular on the Circus Boy TV show.

Read The Cadaver Princess!

The Man Who Cheated Himself

 

(1950)
Directed by Felix E. Feist
Written by Seton Miller, Philip MacDonald.
Starring Lee J. Cobb, John Dall, Jane Wyatt, Lisa Howard. HarlanWade
IMDB Entry

A major defining factor of film noir is the femme fatale -- the woman who draws a man into crime with him having to suffer the consequences.  The Man Who Cheated Himself is an example of that genre, with a different twist throughout.

Lois Frazier (Jane Wyatt) is divorcing her husband Howard (Harlan Wade) to be with Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb). Howard leaves her to fly to Seattle, but he confronts her.  Lois shoots her husband.  Luckily for her, Ed is in another room at the time and is a homicide detective.  He goes to work to clean things up, moving the body and tossing the gun off the Golden Gate Bridge. Afterwards, he returns to headquarters to help mentor his younger brother Andy (John Dall), who is just starting out as a detective.  

The body is found near the airport, with witnesses seeing Ed's car.  It seems he was shot at the airport, where he was booked for a flight to Seattle.  But Andy finds a problem with the timeline.

To Ed's surprise, the gun is involved in another murder.  It had landed on the deck of a fishing boat passing underneath the bridge.  Ed and Andy find the culprit and Ed says the murders are connected.  But Andy is not sure.

The tension in the movie is between the two brothers. Ed dismisses Andy's observations, saying that he is too new to the job and jumps to conclusions.  It's a nice little game of cat and mouse because Andy won't be put off the track. 

Jane Wyatt is a surprising choice for a femme fatale. She was known to play wholesome roles, and this was a bit out of her range, though it helps that she is not in most of the scenes until the finale.

Felix E. Feist was a busy director in the 40s and is father of fantasy author Raymond E. Feist.

Phantom Lady

 

(1944)
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld
Starring Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Thomas Gomez, Elisha Cook, Jr.
IMDB Entry

Phantom Lady was squarely in the middle of Hitchcock territory: a man is wrongly accused of a crime. But Hitchcock had the accused the center of the story and this makes the mistake of removing him from the picture. Still, it manages to be suspenseful with an intriguing situation.

It starts with a woman's hat. The hat is garish and too big, but gets the attention of Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), who has just had a fight with his wife and is drinking at a bar.  He and the woman go to a stage show, on the condition that neither tells the other their name. After the show, Scott returns home, only to find the police there. His wife has been murdered, strangled with one of his neckties, and he is the main suspect. He tries to use the woman as an alibi, but doesn't know her name. The cops, leed by Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez), retrace his steps, but no one remembers seeing the woman with him.  He is tried and sentenced to death.

Carol Richman (Ella Raines),  his secretary, is secretly in love with him* and tries to prove his innocence. Inspector Burgess agrees he's not guilty and they begin to investigate. They interview various witnesses. She cleverly gets a bartender to admit he saw the woman and was bribed to lie about it.  He is killed in an accident running away from her after the admission.

Aurora (Aurora Miranda), a nightclub singer, says she doesn't remember the woman or the hat.  But we had already seen that she spotted it in the audience -- it was identical to hers -- so we know something is up. Same for a drummer Cliff Milburn (Elisha Cook, Jr.), who, drunk and trying to impress Carol, admits he was paid to lie. When he realizes she's gathering information, he kicks her out. But a mysterious man shows up to kill Milburn.

We are shown soon after that Henderson's best friend Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) is that mysterious man.  He has just returned from a trip to South America,** where he was when Henderson's wife was murdered. He offers to help Burgess and Carol to find the mysterious woman.

This fits right in with Hitchcock's definition of suspense: where the audience knows of danger when the characters don't. 

The situation is eventually revealed. Marlow's plot is too convoluted and depends on people reacting in ways that could not be anticipated. But the suspense is pretty well handled.

Franchot Tone was a successful leading man, and wanted to stretch out and play a villian. Despite being top billed, he doesn't appear until well into the movie, but he makes a great impression as the psychopathic Marlow.

Ella Raines is good as the secretary turned detective, though Alan Curtis doesn't make a bit impression as Henderson.  I always like to see Elisha Cook, Jr. and I remember Thomas Gomez from Force of Evil.

Chuck Rothman's is the author of The Cadaver Princess, a horror fantasy about body snatchers set in 1831 England.

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*A common trope of the 30s and 40s, often used in song, where a man leaves his wife for his secretary.

**I notice that movies and TV shows of this era always have people in South America or Mexico, when the plot requires they be away.

The Mask of Dimetrios

 

(1948)
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Frank Gruber from a novel by Eric Ambler
Starring Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Kurt Katch, Steven Geray
IMDB Entry

Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre are the 1940s great teaming. From The Maltese Falcon onward, they could be depended upon to play ne'er-do-wells and criminals.  The Mask of Demetrios is another excellent pairing.

Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is a mystery writer visiting Istanbul when a local police officer, Colonel Haki (Kurt Katch) tells him about a body recently retrieved from the sea. The body is identified as Dimitrios Makropoulos and Haki talks about the man's criminal exploits and invites Leyden to see the corpse. Intrigued, Leyden goes to track down Demetrios's history, talking to Irana Preveze (Faye Emerson), who recounts her affair with him, where he manipulated her for his own ends as an assassin.

Leyden travels to Sofia to find out more, and finds himself sharing a compartment with Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), a genial traveling companion. But later, Leyden discovers Peters ransacking his hotel room. Leyden wants something from Dimitrios and, at first thinks Leyden knows him. Eventually, the two join forces, Leyden for the story, Peters for money Dimitrios owes him.

They learn about another of Demetrios's schemes to steal secret plans, which leads to the suicide of the man who Demetrios ropes into the scheme. Eventually, they discover Demetrios faked his death* and that he's just as dangerous as ever.

This is Greenstreet at his best -- jovial, cheerful, and with a touch of the sinister. Lorre is also great as the meek but curious author. Steven Geray is memorable as the man caught in Demetrios's machinations. Zachary Scott, in his first film role, is great playing the charming snake.

The movie reminded me a bit of The Usual Suspects. Demetrios is no Keyser Soze, but is a tamer version of the same type of amoral character.

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*Viewers might expect this. 

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.

I Was a Shoplifter

 (1950)
Directed by Charles Lamont
Written by Irwin Gielgud
Starring Scott Brady, Mona Freeman, Andrea King, Tony Curtis
IMDB Entry

The title I Was a Shoplifter is an odd one. The structure portends some sort of big event, but when you get to the final word, it disappoints.* Shoplifting is usually a pretty minor crime.** Still, the movie ends up being quite good despite it.

It starts with a narrator talking about the crime of shoplifting, then we see Faye Burton (Mona Freeman) moving suspiciously through a department stores, gaining the attention of store security and Jeff Andrews (Scott Brady), who warns her she's being watched. When she leaves, she is picked up, and Andrews is, too.  Faye is daughter of a judge and doesn't want the incident known. She signs a confession, which the store will keep on file and use against her if she's caught again, and she is let go. 

Once she leaves,  Jeff comes out. He's an undercover cop pretending to shoplift. There has been a ring working the city, recruiting young shoplifters -- usually woman -- who get caught, and then manipulate them into shoplifting for them, promising to steal the confession.  Jeff wants to break of the ring.

Ina Purdue (Andrea King) approaches Faye and brings her into the gang and Jeff, who has been keeping an eye on her, volunteers to also join the gang. 

The movie becomes a tutorial for shoplifting tricks, and soon Faye is set up to do her first job.  But things go wrong. There's a chase scene that doesn't go the way you would predict, and a search to find the real mastermind of the ring. And, of course, Jeff and Faye fall in love.

The most notable performance is that of Andrea King. Ina is a very smart woman -- probably smarter than Jeff. You can't put much over on her, and there is a particularly good scene where she explains that they have no way of escaping the police, so their smart move is to just surrender.

Tony Curtis has a small role as Pepe, one of the gang's thugs. It was his fifth credited role.  Larry Keating, who plays the store owner, later became familiar as Wilbur Post's neighbor in Mister Ed.

The movie is surprisingly good and Andrea King probably should have become a bigger star than she was.

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*Compare it to I was a Teenage Werewolf of I was a Communist for the FBI.

**Yes, I'm aware of the big shoplifting rings that are in operation today, but most shoplifters tend to pick up a couple of items.

The Chase

 
(1946)
Directed by Arthur Ripley
Written by Philip Yordan
Starring Robert Cummings, Michele Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre, Jack Holt
IMDB Entry

Sometimes you can see when a movie goes off the rails. What seems like an excellent film falls apart in just one scene. The Chase is obscure, but could have been much better if it weren't for a cliche that even beginning writers are told not to do.  Which is too bad, because it could have been a great one.

Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) is a down-on-his-luck veteran who stumbles upon a wallet with a considerable amount of money in it. Starving, he buys a meal, and, finding a name inside, he decides to bring it back to its owner, Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran). Roman is impressed by his honesty (Scott admitted he did buy a meal with the money) and hires him on as a chauffeur. We learn that Roman is a ruthless gangster who, aided by his henchman Gino (Peter Lorre), murders a competitor by locking him up with his vicious dog. Scott doesn't know about it, but begins to suspect that Roman is no good. Scott begins to drive Roman's wife Lorna (Michele Morgan), who tells him of her bitterness and her desire to visit Havana. 

They make plans to leave that night, and soon find themselves in Cuba. But Lorna is murdered and Scott is framed to be the killer. Gino is there, and goes all out in the frame.  It's a tense and fascinating situation.  

And then, Scott wakes up. The trip to Havana was all a dream. They hadn't left yet.

This is what I meant by a cliche.  "It was all a dream" was hackneyed years before the movie came out, and is one of the first things they tell beginning writers to avoid. It destroys the first-class tension and sense of paranoia the movie had built up.

They try to rationalize it. Scott calls his psychiatrist (Jack Holt) who's been treating him for PTSD* and the many nightmares he's been having. But Scott realizes there is still time to get Lorna and escape.

I also found the ending too much of a deus ex machina. It doesn't come out of the blue, but it is too convenient.

Robert Cummings is best known as light comedian, but before TV, he played a similar role in Hitchcock's classic Saboteur. He makes Scott an everyman who is caught up in a sinister web. 

Peter Lorre is Peter Lorre, though he plays the role with quiet sinisterism. Steve Cochran was often cast as a gangster, including roles in Danny Kaye vehicles and in White Heat. Writer Philip Yordan was a pretty busy man and acted as a front for several blacklisted writers in the 50s.

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*Not that they called it that back then.,

The Killers

(1946)
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Screenplay by Anthony Veiller, from a story by Ernest Hemingway
Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Virginia Christine, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Charles Mcgraw, William Conrad
IMDB Entry

During his lifetime, Ernest Hemingway was not happy with the way Hollywood treated his work.* But there was one movie that he approved of, saying "It is a good picture and the only good picture ever made of a story of mine."  That movie was The Killers.

The story starts out as a couple of shady characters Max (William Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw) show up in a diner in Brentwood, NJ. They make no bones about the fact that they are killers and looking for Pete Lund (Burt Lancaster), who is working as a gas station attendant. When he doesn't show as usual, they seek him out and kill him. Lund is resigned to the outcome.

Lund had an insurance policy and it intrigues insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) when the money goes to a hotel maid who barely remembers Lund. It turns out the Lund was a former boxer Ole Anderson, who had to quit once he broke his hand.  Reardon interviews a friend of Anderson's, Police lieutenant Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levine), who starts to fill things in. Sam's wife Lilly (Virginia Christine) dated Ole, but she was thrown over when Ole met Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner), an enticing femme fatale.  When Kitty is found with a stolen brooch, Ole claims he was the guilty party and is sent to prison for it. Once out, he joins in with a payroll robbery planned by Big Jim Colfax (Albert Dekker). From there on, things get complicated.

The story is strong and it's easy to get caught up as Reardon slowly uncovers the mystery. This was Lancaster's first role and he makes a strong impression as a man who's impulsive and under the spell of Kitty. This was also the first big role for Ava Gardner, but the part doesn't give her a lot to do other than be beautiful. It's not shown why she has such a power over men and really doesn't get any chance to act until nearly the end of the movie.

Edmond O'Brien is fine as an insurance investigator** and Sam Jaffee also stands out as the policeman and friend of Anderson.

The movie mad stars of Lancaster and Gardner. The director wanted actors who were not well known for the parts, so audiences didn't have any preconceptions.

The movie is well regarded in noir circles and is worth seeking out.

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*One of the best movies made from his novel was To Have and Have Not, but that was the opposite. Director Howard Hawks, a fishing buddy of Hemingway, said he could make a good movie of his worst novel. Hemingway asked what novel Hawks thought was his worst and the answer was To Have an Have Not. Hemingway agreed, but the result was a film classic, mostly because Hawks jettisoned nearly all of the original story.

**He later played an insurance investigator, on the radio show Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar for a few years. I wonder if there was any connection; this movie could have been a Johnny Dollar plot.