Month: August 2020

“The Man Who Cheated Himself” (1950) starring Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, & John Dall

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Lois: I didn’t know what I was doing! You know the truth!

Ed: The truth can get you twenty years!

In San Francisco, Lois Frazer (Jane Wyatt AKA Spock’s mom in Star Trek), is set to divorce her fortune-hunter husband, Howard. Once he leaves for the airport, she finds out that he bought a gun, and thinks he plans to kill her. Lois frantically calls her lover, who happens to be an experienced homicide detective, Lt. Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb). Ed arrives at her house to calm Lois down. Soon after, Howard unexpectedly returns, and she shoots him dead! Ed (though he knows better) feels compelled to cover up the killing. Soon, he’s assigned to investigate the case. His younger brother/new detective, Andy (John Dall), is also assigned and anxious to prove his merit. Andy is getting married in a few days.

Ed: [to Andy] Better learn one thing: never take a case to bed.

We see locations in and around the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, Telegraph Hill and Fort Point (which was used in Hitchcock’s Vertigo). There are some colorful supporting characters who add to the drama. The action (incl. car chase) scenes are done well. TCM’s Eddie Muller explained that this film was made on a small budget and produced by Jack M. Warner, who was fighting w/ his father, the Jack Warner. The son wanted to make films on his own. The director, Felix Feist, was a freelancer (not tied to any studio); he was married to Lisa Howard (who plays Janet- Andy’s wife).

Unlike Dall, Howard’s performance is natural and easy. Andy needed more characterization; he comes off as too dreamy-eyed for a cop. You also have to ignore the fact that Dall (tall/blonde/slim) and Cobb (short/dark-haired/stocky) look and sound nothing alike! It’s rare to see Cobb as a leading man; he tones down the brooding intensity and growling voice (which we know/love from his character roles). Sadly, Cobb and Wyatt (cast against type as the femme fatale) lack romantic chemistry. I did like their last scene together, which was enigmatic and had some smolder! Cobb got this role after a successful run on Broadway in Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller wrote the role of Willy Loman w/ Cobb in mind -WOW!

[1] …it is relentless and edgy, with no time for polish or emotional depth. Cameraman Russell Harlan (Blackboard Jungle; To Kill a Mockingbird) does a brilliant job with great angles and framing. It isn’t elegant, but it’s visually sharp.

[2] A fast, curious, edgy crime film that depends on a fabulous, simple twist, which you learn right at the start and keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. The clash of two cops who are brothers begins innocently, and turns and builds in a very believable way…

Lee J. Cobb… just perfect in his role, right to the last scene when you see him look down the hall with the same feeling he has at the beginning of the film.

-Excerpts from IMDB movies

“Pitfall” (1948) starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, & Raymond Burr

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Sue Forbes: Oh, your breakfast is on the table, darling.

John Forbes: Where else would it be?

John Forbes (Dick Powell) is a middle-aged man bored w/ his predictable life and job as an insurance adjuster. His lovely wife, Sue (Jane Wyatt- later Spock’s mom), and adoring son, Tommy, make up his family. Forbes meets a young/blonde aspiring model, Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott), whose fiance embezzled from a store insured by Forbes’ company. He finds Mona through J.B. MacDonald (Raymond Burr- later the iconic Perry Mason), a private detective freelancing for the insurance company. Forbes goes to collect the stolen gifts and soon falls for Mona (who says she rarely meets nice men like him). MacDonald (w/ an obsessive personality and violent temper) also has his eyes on Mona, though she wants nothing to do w/ him!

MacDonald: She probably doesn’t appeal to you but for me, she’s just what I told the doctor to order.

This film (see video below) is a combination of domestic drama and film noir set in L.A. and its surrounding suburbs. Powell took this role after reconciling w/ his wife (June Allyson) after he had an affair, TCM’s Eddie Muller noted. To get past the Hayes Code office, that would normally not allow a good guy to be an adulterer (and suffer no consequences), director Andre De Toth (an immigrant from Hungary) met w/ two prominent officials. De Toth let these (married) men know that he knew of their mistresses; the production didn’t have any problems after that meeting- LOL! Muller also explained that though the director was married to Veronica Lake, he had a reputation as a philanderer.

[1] Powell, Wyatt, Scott and Raymond Burr are effective and believable — and the film is paced, photographed, and scripted with intelligence — so that the viewer easily goes along for the ride.

[2] Jay Dratler’s script (from his own novel) shows a progressive streak in dealing with the short and unpredictable fuses of controlling, potentially violent males- stalkers.

Powell gets to tap deeply into his key emotion, snappish discontent… Scott… an actress with limits, finds a comfortable part as a bewildered and vulnerable victim of the men who come into her life, bidden and unbidden. Burr …lets a bit of yearning, of desperation, show under all his intimidating bulk…

De Toth… made, in Pitfall, one of the more distinctive titles of the noir cycle. …it has the effrontery to situate deceit and duplicity and betrayal where it surely ought not to belong- not in road houses or tenement flats- but right at the heart of a storybook American family (it’s one of the more subversive films of the era).

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA-29T4Sc_k

“Brute Force” (1947) starring Burt Lancaster & Hume Cronyn

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Gallagher [after learning that parole board hearings have been cancelled]: Those gates only open three times. When you come in, when you’ve served your time, or when you’re dead!

Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is a serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison (Westgate Penitentiary). After being held in solitary, then hearing of a friend’s sudden death, he has had enough! Collins and Gallagher (Charles Bickford), the prison’s newspaper editor, plan an elaborate escape. The men in his cell say they’ll follow along. The head guard, Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn in his only villainous role), suspects something is up; he has informants all over. Warden Barnes (Roman Bohnen) holds authority on paper only; Dr. Walters (Art Smith) is a decent man who has been driven to alcoholism. These veteran actors came from NYC’s Group Theater (1931-1940) which followed the principles of Stanislavski. The film ends in a huge fight between guards and inmates, w/ gunfire, explosions, and many deaths!

Dr. Walters: Yes, Capt. Munsey. I’m just a very ordinary man. I get drunk on whiskey but you sir – you get drunk on power.

The acting is top notch; this is Lancaster’s 2nd movie after his debut opposite Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946). He had height, looks (traffic-stopping), and screen presence; he was discovered by producer Mark Hallinger (who died at just 44 y.o. from a heart attack). Cronyn (who hailed from the theater, like his wife Jessica Tandy) chews up the scenery as a sadistic wanna-be dictator. In one standout scene, he interrogates and beats the prison reporter, Louie (Sam Levene), while the music of Wagner (Hitler’s favorite composer) plays in the background. The musical score (composed by Miklos Rozsa) is considered to be even more compelling than the one he wrote for The Killers.

Spencer: Driving along with such a dream doll beside me, I figured myself a pretty lucky guy. Flossie had looks, brains, and all the accessories. She was better than a deck with six aces.

Yes, there are women here (unlike most jail-related movies); they appear in flashbacks. Spencer (John Hoyt- best known as Dr. Boyce in the series pilot of Star Trek: TOS) recounts a story of picking up a beautiful gambler, Flossie (Anita Colby). A mild-mannered bookeeper is in jail b/c he stole to please his wife (Ella Raines- who appeared in several noir films). Becker (Howard Duff) is former soldier dreaming of going back to Italy, where he left his lady love (Yvonne De Carlo). She co-starred w/ Lancaster in Criss Cross, which is a can’t miss noir. The woman in Collins’ life, Ruth (Ann Blyth), is as far from a femme fatale as you can get! This movie is on Amazon and YouTube (can see for free).

[1] Director Jules Dassin is brilliant with light, and sets the example for the French “new wave” of cinema. Lighting Burt Lancaster from the side, or from underneath, makes him and the other actors look almost surreal.

[2] The violence is not explicitly disclosed like in the present days, but the cruelty of Captain Munsey can be understood even by the most naive viewer.

[3] This powerful drama is totally uncompromising and provides a convincing account of what life is like in a prison which is being run in a particularly brutal and autocratic manner. The consequence for the inmates is that they live in an oppressive and overcrowded environment where hard labour, poor quality food and harsh treatment are the norm. Furthermore, they are also subjected to a cruel system which leads to many of them being abused, tortured or even killed…

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

“Kansas City Confidential” (1952) starring John Payne & Coleen Gray

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Detective: … left school to enlist with the engineers. Pretty good soldier too! Bronze Star, Purple Heart!

Joe: Try and buy a cup of coffee with them!

A WWII vet working as a flower deliveryman, Joe Rolfe (John Payne- best known as the lawyer/neighbor in Miracle on 34th Street), becomes the fall guy for an armored car robbery worth $1.2M. Payne is very tall (6’4″), w/ an athletic body, and large/expressive brown eyes. When Joe is released for lack of evidence, after being roughly interrogated by the cops, he’s determined to discover who set him up and why. After 6 mos, he gets info which leads down to Tijuana, Mexico. There he meets a nervous ex-con, Pete Harris (Jack Elam), at a gambling house. Pete doesn’t have his share of the robbery money, but is flying to Barrados (a fishing village) to pick it up. He doesn’t know who planned it, or the other criminals (character actors Neville Brand and Lee Van Cleef). They all had to wear full face masks during the robbery!

[1] …Payne started off as a crooner and hoofer, a light leading man… he ended up one of the most convincing ordinary-guy protagonists in the noir cycle. He’s tough, all right, but still shows the flop-sweat of fear; and he’s smart, too, but because he’s forced to be what he’s trying to hang onto is all he’s got.

[2] The suspense in Kansas City Confidential is not about who did it. The three robbers are… three of the nastiest dudes in film history. The suspense lies whether Payne can put it all together. As he says to one of them, he’s flying blind in this one.

John Payne gives a riveting performance of a desperate man and one you don’t leave holding the bag without consequences. This is one of the best noir films ever done, not to be missed.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

Quentin Tarantino said that Reservoir Dogs (1992) was inspired by this film noir. Kansas City Confidential was directed by Phil Karson (who also made Scandal Sheet); he worked steadily in small budget pictures. This film doesn’t shy away from violence (punching, kicking, and gunplay). The fights happen fast and don’t look slick; they’re a fact of life for shady men. Joe spent a year in jail, too; he can handle himself in rough situations. His love interest is pretty, but also smart (a law student); Helen (Coleen Gray) surprises her father (Preston Foster) by arriving at the resort for a vacation. Gray is perhaps best known as Fay, the loyal girlfriend to Sterling Hayden (another handsome tall drink of water) in Kubrick’s The Killing (1956). The romantic scenes were few, but played well; Payne and Gray became a real-life couple for some time. I noticed (on second viewing) that the editing is tight and well-done. Check out this film for free (since it’s in the public domain) on Amazon or YouTube!

“Boomerang!” (1947) starring Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy, Jane Wyatt, & Ed Begley

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[1] This is a pretty good, taut, realistic, gritty film-noirish film…

[2] Most of the film’s dramatic moments take place in the courtroom, but there is a backstory involving municipal corruption…

[3] Boomerang is the story of how the man who eventually became U.S. Attorney General, Homer Cummings, used the prosecutor’s office to prove the INNOCENCE of an arrested murder suspect. How often do you see that happen?

[4] …Lee J. Cobb, as the cop who changes his mind, is excellent, and so is Karl Malden, who has less to do. I’ve always loved Sam Levene… the cynical wisecracking reporter was made for him. Playwright Arthur Miller lived near where the film was shot; in the police line-up, he’s the tall man in the dark coat on the far left.

-Excerpts from IMDB reviews

The film was directed by Elia Kazan who got the New York Film Critic’s Award for this and Gentleman’s Agreement. Boomerang! got an Oscar nom for Best Screenplay (adapted by Richard Murphy). The story starts off w/ narration re: life in a seemingly idyllic community, which could be any town in America. The peace is shattered when an elderly Episcopal priest is shot on a street corner. When the investigation stalls, pressure is put on the cops to come up w/ a suspect. A reporter, Dave Woods (Sam Levene), writes a series of articles criticizing the city government for inaction. Many men are picked up for questioning, just b/c they wear a dark coat and light hat (as the killer is alleged to have worn). In a police line-up, seven witnesses identify John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy), a former WWII vet w/ no job, as the murderer. Waldron (who was carrying a gun) denies the crime. After being questioned by Chief Robinson (Lee J. Cobb), Det. White (Karl Malden in an uncredited role), and a psychiatrist, the suspect confesses. District Attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) is put on the case. His friends urge him to win the case and run for governor, while facts lead him to believe the suspect may be innocent.

Kazan aims for realism, making it seem like we’re watching events as they unfold. This film was shot on location and features many locals (non-actors) in the crowd scenes. Fans of Star Trek will recognize Jane Wyatt (AKA Spock’s mom); she plays Madge Harvey, the wife to the D.A. She’s the loving/supportive wife, but also on top of things. This is the film debut of Ed Begley; he’ll later appear in 12 Angry Men (w/ Cobb). Begley is a small-time bureaucrat; he sweats and acts nervous. Kennedy plays an ambiguous character, the police interrogate him for two days, depriving him of sleep until he breaks down. Cobb carries Kennedy over to a cot, as you’d do w/ a sleeping child. The second act of the film is the courtroom drama. You can rent this movie on YouTube.