He Killed a Man in His Dream!

 

Stan Grayson has a nightmare in which he kills a guy and locks the body in a cubbyhole in a room with lots of mirrors. He wakes up to discover blood on his hands, bruises on his neck, as well as the key to the cubbyhole and one of the dead man's buttons both in his room.

Is Stan actually a murderer? He doesn't know!

That's the premise of the 1956 noir film Nightmare. It's based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich ("And So to Death" published in 1941) and its the second time writer/director Maxwell Shane adapted it into a movie. I haven't seen the 1947 version, titled Fear in the Night, but I did just watch Nightmare.

Kevin McCarthy plays Stan and does a great job with the part--a man with a conscience who is terrified at the idea that he killed a man--a situation made worse because he doesn't know who he killed or why. 

So he goes to his brother-in-law, Rene Bressard, who is a detective. Rene is played by Edward G. Robinson, which automatically makes this movie good. Whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, Robinson is always a pleasure to watch. 

Bressard dismisses Stan's concern. A dream is just a dream and he probably had the key and the button before and just forgot about them. Stan tries to investigate himself, but doesn't get anywhere.

Stan, by the way, is a clarinetist with a big band. His girlfriend sings for the band. This gives the movie an excuse to include a few minutes of really good music. Director Maxwell Shane also makes really good use of the New Orleans location.

It's when Stan, Rene and their gals are out on a picnic that things get weird. A rainstorm begins and the wipers on Rene's car won't work. But Stan suddenly "remembers" a nearby house and where the key to that house is hidden. They take shelter there and Stan soon finds the mirror room.

And they soon find out that not one, but two people were recently murdered in that house.

Rene is now convinced Stan is indeed a killer. He gives Stan a chance to make a run for it before turning him in. Stan opts to try to commit suicide instead, but Rene puts a stop to this.

And then Stan says something that clicks with the detective--something that might mean Stan is innocent. But in order to prove this, they are going to have to replicate the events of the night of the murder. This is something that Stan might not live through...

Nightmare is a very good film noir and definitely worth watching. Both the lead actors anchor the movie with great performances; New Orleans looks awesome in black and white; and the plot has a few nice twists in it. I'd like to talk about the ending a little more, but I don't want to spoil anything. You can watch it for yourself here:

Storm Fear (1955)

 

A friend of mine recently pointed out a cool YouTube channel to me called Full Moon Matinee. The guy who runs the channel posts Film Noir movies, adding an introduction and an intermission where he--as "the Detective"--makes intelligent observations about the movie and gives us background on the actors. It's a great channel--great selection of films and intelligent commentary.

It's through this channel that I discovered 1955's Storm Fear. Dan Duryea plays Fred,  a failed author who has brought his wife and kid to a remote mountain cabin because of his health. He has a lung disease and the mountain air is supposedly good for him.

But when his brother Charlie (Cornel Wilde) shows up, things get dangerous. Charlie and his friends--another man and a woman--have just robbed a bank. Charlie's been shot in the leg and they need a place to hide out. Tensions rise, mostly because Charlie's fellow robber Benjie (Stephen Hill) is obviously nuts and Charlie can only barely keep him under control.

The evolving situation involves a lot of melodrama--Charlie once had a thing for Fred's wife. Fred is angsting over his failure as a writer and feels like a failure as a husband & father. Fred's son David starts to think that Charlie is pretty cool and wants to run off with him. Charlie and Fred's wife--it turns out--once had a thing for each other. And there's soon doubt over who David's real father is. The "moll" of the gang (played beautifully by Lee Grant) is a bit of an obnoxious drunk. 

In a weaker movie, this could have descended into cliched Soap Opera territory. But a good script and a strong cast allow the melodrama to add to the overall tension.

When Charlie learns from a radio report that the police will be searching the area, the gang forces David to lead them over the mountain to the highway, though the deep snow makes this a dangerous endeavour.  Also, Benji is working up the courage to back-shoot Charlie and take the bank loot for himself. Pursing them is Hank (Dennis Weaver), a handyman who also has a thing for Fred's wife.

Cornel Wilde was always good in a Noir film and its a treat to see Duryea in a Noir film in which he does not play a bad guy. Stephen Hill goes on to play the lead in Mission: Impossible's first season and later the grumpy DA on Law and Order, so its fun to watch him play a bad guy who is probably a few marbles short of a full bucket. And it really is impressive for a movie to toss in as much melodrama as does this one and still make it work effectively as a crime film. 

I generally provide a clip from movies I review, but in this case, I'll just share the entire movie from the Full Moon Matinee channel. Don't skip past "the Detective's" commentaries--he's worth listening too.

Road House (1948)

 

SPOILER ALERT! if you haven't seen it.

Toss Richard Widmark into a Film Noir and it will be good. Especially if he's the villain.

In Road House (1948), Widmark plays "Jefty" Robbins, the owner of a place called... well, "Road House." It's a bar/bowling alley establishment, which Jefty's friend Pete Morgan (Cornell Wilde) runs efficiently as manager.

Things get complicated when Jefty brings a singer back with him from a trip to Chicago. This is Lily Stevens, played by Ida Lupina. Pete doesn't like this--Jefty often gets crushes on girls like Lily, then gets tired of them. Pete is then stuck with the unpleasant job of paying off the girl.

He tries to get Lily to leave, but she's strong-willed. She's also a good singer and brings in customers. So Lily stays. Jefty's crush on her intensifies, even though she makes it clear she's not romantically interested in him. In the meantime, Pete and Lily gradually fall for each other.

This first act of the movie is just a tad slow-paced, but this allows the movie to take the time to solidly establish character personalities and relationships, making the Pete/Lily stuff believable rather than a contrived plot point. Also, the dialogue is snappy and the cast is strong. This cast includes Celeste Holme as a cashier who also likes Pete, but proves to be a friend to both him and Lily when needed.

The Film Noir stuff kicks in when Jefty learns that Pete and Lily are going to get married. Jefty doesn't take this well. Widmark's performance here is superb, gradually taking Jefty down a slope that starts with "deceitful, selfish jerk" to "full-on pyscho." 

He frames Pete for embezzlement. After Pete is convicted, Jefty puts on a "I wanna help my friend" act for the judge, getting Pete probation on the condition that he comes back to Road House and gradually pays back the stolen funds. But once Pete is back, Jefty makes it clear that Pete is essentially no more than a slave--either do what Jefty says (including "don't marry Lily") or go to jail.

This all leads to an intense climax at an isolated cabin in the woods, with a drunken, gloating Jefty driving both Pete and Lily to consider drastic measures.

It's a strong, well-made Noir with a great cast. You can watch it in its entirety on YouTube:

Beaver Cleaver Goes Catatonic!

 

Pretty much the first thing that happens in the 1957 film noir Shadows on the Window is a small boy (Jerry Mathers) who witnesses a murder while looking through the window of a house.

The murdered man was employing the boy's mom (Linda Atlas, played by Betty Garrett) as a temp stenographer for the day. So when the boy runs off and then is found by two truckers wandering in a daze down the road, no one knows for sure where he came from. In the meantime, the three killers (who had come to the home to rob the man's safe) are now holding Linda hostage and debating whether they need to kill her as well. The bad guys are in over their heads and simply don't know what their next move should be.

It's a great set-up for a legitimately suspenseful movie. The boy's dad (Tony Atlas, played by Phil Carey) is a cop. When the boy ends up at the police station, another cop recognizes him. But the boy is zoned out, unable to answer any questions, even from his dad. It's soon apparent that Linda is in some sort of trouble. Or dead. Tony knows she was taking temp work, but the two are estranged and he doesn't know where she was going that day.

There's a small glitch in the logic of the movie as the cops investigate. The truckers had taken the boy to their dispatch office, from where the police were called. But as Tony and the other cops investigate, they have to start from scratch, with no idea who originally found the kid. Apparently, no one bothered asking the truckers who they were when they turned him over to the cops? That seems unlikely. 

Despite this, the investigation progresses in a logical and suspenseful fashion. The cops follow leads through the night and into the next morning. 

In the meantime, Linda is doing what she can to play up to the one bad guy who seems reluctant to commit another murder. She even manages to vamp another of the guys and create an opportunity to knock him on the head and make a break for it. But she's caught and it seems more and more likely she'll be killed.

She's also, of course, worried sick about her son. From her point-of-view, he's simply disappeared.

The interconnected story threads involving Tony (trying to find Linda) and Linda (trying to stay alive) intertwine nicely and come together at the end for a strong conclusion. Shadows on the Window is worth 73 minutes of your time.

Roadblock (1951)

 

As I've mentioned before (HERE & HERE), if it's an RKO film from the 1950s and drops Charles McGraw into a Film Noir setting, then its gonna be good.

Roadblock (1951) pulls off an unusual twist to the Femme Fatale formula. McGraw is an insurance investigator named Joe Peters. While wrapping up a case in the opening scenes, we find out up front that he's smart and capable. But when he meets Diane (Joan Dixon), his moral downfall begins. 

Diane wants money and isn't (at first) interested in a guy who makes an average middle-class salary. The typical Femme Fatale route here would be for her to vamp him into using his insurance connections (with inside knowledge to large cash shipments) to get enough money to keep her happy.

But she really falls for him and soon decides she's okay with less money as long as her man loves her. But Peters has jumped the gun. On his own initiative, he's sold information about a cash shipment to a known gangster. By the time he learns he doesn't have to do this, it's too late. Once he's in, he can't get out. Besides, how does he know Diane won't begin to miss her lavish lifestyle before long?

So a mail robbery that nets over a million dollars goes off. Peters, ironically, ends up investigating the crime along with his partner (Harry Miller) and a federal agent (Milburn Stone--a few years away from hanging out his medical shingle in Dodge City on Gunsmoke). 

The trouble is that there isn't a lot Peters can do to inhibit the investigation. Both his partner and the fed know what they're doing. One of the robbers is caught. Though this guy doesn't know about Peters' involvment, he's a link that could eventually lead to Peters. 

Desperate measures are needed to cover his tracks more thoroughly. But Peters' partner might already be suspicious.

A weak link in the movie is the lack of real chemistry between McGraw and Joan Dixon--there's no reason to believe they fall in love other than because the story requires them to do so. But the twist of McGraw going bad to get the girl when he doesn't need to adds some dark irony to the solidly told tale. And a final car chase along the semi-dry Los Angeles river bed is pretty nifty. Roadblock doesn't equal McGraw's Narrow Margin in quality, but it's still a film worth watching. 

Gene Kelly vs. the Mob

 

Gene Kelly is largely remembered for his dancing and his musicals. This, of course, is how it should be. 

But he did occasionally take on a purely dramatic role. I think Black Hand (1950) is the first time he did so.

The movie begins in 1900, with an Italian-American husband and father secretly meeting with the New York cops. He's willing to testify against the Black Hand--the local Mafia. He's refusing to buckle under and pay protection money. But events do not play out in his favor and he ends up dead.

His wife and teenage son return to Italy. But the son (now grown into Gene Kelly) returns in 1908. Giovanni Colombo is determined to get justice for his dad.

But justice isn't easy to come by. The Black Hand has everyone too terrified to take action or testify in court. Even Giovanni's childhood friend Isabella urges him to give up his quest. So does police detective Louis Lorelli (perfectly played by J. Carrol Naish). No one believes you can beat the mob.

And it looks like they might be right. Giovanni has some success in organizing the neighborhood to take a stand, but when they have their first meeting, thugs toss Giovanni through the door with a broken leg. 

Still, he keeps trying. By now, Isabella and Lorelli are his firm allies. And they eventually come up with a plan. Lorelli will take a vacation and travel back home to Italy. He'll check the files of the big city police forces there, making a list of wanted men now living in the U.S. This would allow the New York cops to simply deport the mob.

But, not suprisingly, there are Mafia thugs in Italy as well. Lorelli's "vacation" may not go smoothly.

By the time the action moves back to New York, Giovanni is desperately searching for Isabella's kid brother, who is being held by the Black Hand to force Giovanni to hand over key evidence against them. What follows is a very tense sequence in which Giovanni is captured, but comes up with a clever and... well, rather explosive method of escaping. 

It's a great ending to an excellent movie. The director, Richard Thorpe, infuses the dark streets of New York with menace, then manages to do the same thing on the sunny streets of Italy. Gene Kelly gives a strong performance, while J. Carrol Naish really is spot-on as Detective Lorelli. Black Hand is worth watching. 

The Mob (1951)

 

The Mob is a 1951 Film Noir starring Broderick Crawford. This is just a couple of years after Crawford won an Oscar for All the King's Men --and this was a time when the Oscars actually celebrated what I consider good movies, rather than celebrating movies I've never often never heard of and (for the most part) you couldn't pay me to see.

But I'm not sure that Crawford's performance in The Mob doesn't equal or even succeed All the King's Men. He plays a cop named Johnny Damico. We meet him as the film opens, as he barters with a jewelry store owner over the price of an engagement ring. The store owner knows him and his girl. It's a great scene. Crawford immediately makes us like Johnny and we also learn that he's quick with a clever one-liner. This, in turn, tells us he's smart.

Being smart, though, doesn't always keep you from making a dumb mistake. There's a shooting outside the store. Johnny gets the drop on the shooter, but this guy identifies himself as a cop and the dead man as a cop killer. The shooter flashes a badge, so Johnny believes him. It's only after the shooter gets away that Johnny learns he was a hitman. The dead man was a witness against the mob. The badge had belonged to a cop who had also been murdered.

That puts Johnny in hot water with his boss. Officially, he's suspended for 60 days. Unofficially, he's going to go undercover on the waterfront to smoke out the head of the mob who is forcing the longshoremen to pay kickbacks in exchange for work.

This is where Crawford's performance really shines. He adopts the identity of a low-level thug named Tim Flynn, who has just arrived from New Orleans. Like Johnny, Tim is quick with clever comebacks. But where Johnny is likeable, Tim is quick-tempered and a bit of a jerk. Johnny is pretty much using his Mirror Universe self to fool the mobsters.

He starts to make contacts, trying to find the big boss. That boss is named Blackie, but no one knows who he really is. Johnny/Tim runs into trouble when a lower level boss tries to frame him for murder.  He's able to think his way out of that situation. 

That's another strong element of the film. Despite his goof-up at the beginning of the movie, Johnny is indeed smart. He can indeed think his way out of potentially dangerous situations.

Eventually, Johnny does get a line on Blackie. He also finds out that Blackie wants to hire him (as Tim) to kill a cop named Johnny Damico. All this leads to a satisfying climax.

The supporting cast includes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Charles Bronson as a dock worker, Ernest Borgnine as a second-tier mob boss and Neville Brand as a college-educated leg-breaker working for Borgnine's character. Gee whiz, I love movies like this. Filmed in glorious black-and-white, seeded with actors whom classic movie fans come to consider to be old friends, and telling a good story in a logical manner. This is what movies should be. 

The movie can be found on Amazon Prime. Here's a link to it on YouTube::

Eyes in the Night

When I got married three years ago and moved into a nice house, my access to technology jumped forward quite a bit. Living alone, I watched movies on DVD or via Amazon on my computer and simply didn't worry about being more advanced.

But our HOA fees included TV. I went on a "recording movies off of Turner Classic Movies" jihad and soon our DVR was over half-full.

It soon became a running gag with my wife that I had all those movies waiting for me to watch and I never seemed to get around to watching them. But recently, I had to have my gallbladder removed and that left me convalescing at home for a time before I could return to work. And, by golly, I actually watched a bunch of those movies.

One of them is a real gem. In 1942, the novel The Odor of Violets, by Baynard Kendrick, was adapted into a film titled Eyes in the Night. Edward Arnold--a wonderful character actor who often played heavies--was given the lead role as blind detective "Mac" Maclain. Though as good as Arnold is in his role, his seeing-eye dog Friday nearly steals the movie from him.

Anyway, "Mac" might be blind, but this doesn't slow him down. He's sharp-witted, of course, but he's surprisingly capable in a fight and often seems more aware of what is going on around him than those with working eyes.

The case he investigates involves the murder of a sleazy actor, but this soon expands to also involve a cadre of Nazi spies after a particular secret. The spies are working as the household staff of a scientist. Mac, as he begins to suspect what's going on, takes the role of an obnoxious uncle and arrives for a visit. Soon, there's a sometimes subtle game of cat-and-mouse going on, with the spies looking for an opportunity to break into a safe and Mac "accidentally" interrupting their plans.

Arnold is so much fun to watch in the role of Mac it makes one's heart break to know that he never reprised the role. But the rest of the cast it great as well. I especially appreciate the way the script take the time to give the various bad guys individual personalities. Mac's banter with the butler, for instance, is all the more priceless because of this:

• Hansen : Oh, you're blind sir?

  Duncan 'Mac' Maclain : Blind as a bat!

  Hansen : Excuse me sir I'm terribly sorry.

  Duncan 'Mac' Maclain : What is there to be sorry about? Plenty of great men were blind - Milton, Homer, they were blind, weren't they?

  Hansen : Yes, but they complained about it.

  Duncan 'Mac' Maclain : Oh, they did?

  Hansen : Yes sir. "O loss of sight, of thee I must complain! Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age..."

Anyway, the spies are eventually forced to come out into the open, taking the scientist and his family hostage. This, in turn, forces Mac into a gun fight in a pitch-dark room after he sends his dog Friday off to fetch help. It's a climax that generates more than it's share of honest tension.

Eyes in the Night is available to watch on Youtube and is well-worth your time. Within a few weeks, by the way, we'll take a look at the novel on which the movie is based.

Return of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #123

The last movie in the Whistler series (1948's The Return of the Whistler) is the only one not to star Richard Dix, who was too ill to continue working and was only a year away from his untimely death. That's too bad, because he had done an excellent job in the series, portraying good guys, bad guys and in-between guys with equal skill.

Michael Duane,who had played a supporting role in Secret of the Whistler and was a B-Movie regular throughout the 1940s, takes the lead in Return and does a fine job. And, as much as I miss Dix in the series while watching this one, a younger actor does fit the part better. 

Duane is Ted Nichols, who is about to marry a pretty French girl named Alice. Alice is a widow, by the way, who married an American pilot during the war and, when he was killed in action, came to the U.S. to meet his in-laws. 

Or IS she a widow? She disappears from a hotel room the night before the wedding and the clerk says she left on her own accord. Then Ted learns that her husband is apparently alive and that Alice is Cookoo for Coco-Puffs, suffering from selective amnesia and delusions.

At first, Ted accepts this. But soon after, he finds a clue that tells him Alice's supposed husband was lying to him regarding at least one important fact. Ted finds himself tasked with busting Alice out of a Sanitarium to find out what is really going on.

Duane and Lenore Aubert (Alice) are likeable protagonists and the plot is quite good. We see most of the events of the film from Ted's point of view, following along with him as the identities and apparent motivations of various characters keep shifting. Is Alice crazy? Are her in-laws who they claim to be? What's the point behind a complicated plot to seperate Ted from Alice before they get married? 

I especially enjoy the inclusion of a private eye played by Richard Lane, who's own shifting motivations for helping Ted, then working against him, then helping him again make him a key part of the story. And Lane, who played Inspector Farrady in the Boston Blackie movies, is one of the character actors I always enjoy seeing in a movie--a guy who feels like an old friend whenever he pops up in something I'm watching. 

Of course, watching this movie has made me feel like my own honeymoon was lacking. I didn't have to rescue Angela from a Sanitarium ONCE during the entire trip. Oh, well. 

That's if for the Whistler movies. Watching them all has made me wish there had been more of them--or simply that Hollywood still churned out B-Movies and double features today. Nostalgia can be a misleading feeling, because its certain that many things were not better in the past. But I think that it can be argued that in many ways, storytelling in popular culture was stronger in the 1930s, 40s and 50s than it is today. 

The Thirteenth Hour

 

Read/Watch 'em in Order #122

The penultimate entry in the Whistler film series is the last one staring Richard Dix, Sadly, bad health and alcoholism led to his death in 1947.

But at least his acting career ended on a strong note. The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is another strong, well-written entry in the Whistler series, with Dix giving yet another fine performance.

In this one, he plays a truck driver named Steve Reynolds. Steve's life is going well. He's engaged to a pretty widowed mom named Eileen (Karen Morley) and he's recently paid off his truck. 

But a moment of bad luck changes everything. His truck is run off the road by a reckless driver, but no one else sees the other vehicle. He has alcohol on his breath because he drank a glass of punch at Eileen's birthday party before hitting the road. A hitchhiker he had picked up disappears and can't back up his story. And, perhaps worst of all, the motorcycle cop who shows up after the crash also had a thing of Eileen.

The end result is Steve getting his license suspended for six months, which means he has to hire other drivers to stay in business. But when a driver calls out sick, Steve takes a chance on getting back behind the wheel of the truck to make that night's delivery.

He figures all he has to worry about is getting pulled over by the cops. But what happens is a tad bit worse than that. A hijacker knocks him out, uses the truck to kill the motorcyle cop and leaves Steve to take the blame.

So the movie becomes a "man on the run to find the real killer" story.  It's a well-used plot devise, but that's because it makes for a good mystery when well-written. And The Thirteenth Hour is indeed well-written, with a logical plot and several unexpected plot twists. 

I actually don't want to give too detailed a summary because I don't want to spoil the nicely done twists for anyone. Suffice to say that Steve and those helping him, which includes a good friend, Eileen and Eileen's son, act in an intelligent and logical manner when pursing leads to find the real killer. They also keep their heads to outsmart the bad guy when the situation turns dangerous during the climax. 

The bad guy's identity is a real surprise (though many alert viewers will tumble to it a few minutes before the film reveals it) and he also acts with reasonable intelligence, making him an effective villain. 

I like this one a lot and it runs neck-to-neck with Mysterious Intruder as my favorite in the series so far.

Of the eight Whistler films, I have six on DVD (recorded off of TCM a few years ago). The Thirteenth Hour one of the two I don't have on disc, so I watched it on YouTube. I'm posting that YouTube video below. But I don't know what the copyright situation is for the movie and don't know if it might one day get pulled. So, as I stated with the other Whistler movie shared here, if my future biographers visit this post in the future (while researching my influence that made me the cultural savior of civilization) and the post below isn't active--it's NOT MY FAULT!

The Secret of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #121

The sixth movie in the Whistler series--movies based on the radio show of the same name--is another quietly suspenseful story. The Secret of the Whistler (1946) is similar in a way to the previous year's Voice of the Whistler, in that a large chunk of its 65-minute run-time is devoted to setting up the crimes that will eventually be committed.  

But that short run-time and another strong performance by Richard Dix keeps the story from dragging. This time, Dix plays an artist named Ralph Harrison, who has very little talent but is able to live off his wealthy wife's fortune.

His wife, by the way, is physically frail and has suffered several heart attacks. So when Ralph falls for a pretty model named Kay Morrell (Leslie Brooks), he figures it won't be long before they are free to get married. In retrospect, though, he should have made sure his wife wasn't nearby listening when he explains this to Kay.

Ralph soon learns he's going to be kicked to the curb and cut out of his wife's will. In response to this, he drops poison into his wife's medicine.

I mentioned Dix's strong performance as Ralph. Dix is playing a guy who is definitely a self-centered jerk, but murder is something that is normally far above his pay grade. Dix portrayal of him as nervous and sometimes near outright panic--both while committing the murder and later worrying about being found out--gives backbone to a good script.

Ralph marries Kay, but news about another husband who was arrested for killing his wife worries him constantly. The fact that he can't find his first wife's diary and doesn't know if there is anything in it that can hurt him is yet another worry. And, after a while, Kay begins to wonder about Ralph as well. Has she indeed married a murderer?

This all leads up to a violent and satisfyingly ironic climax. 

Another good, solid entry in a well-written and well-produced series. 

Mysterious Intruder

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #120

The fifth movie based on the Whistler radio show is the only one that doesn't include the world "Whistler" somewhere in the title. 

This time around, Richard Dix plays a private detective who is a bit ethically-challenged. An elderly shop owner hires him to find a girl who moved out of the neighborhood seven years earlier. He won't say exactly why he needs to find her, only stating that he has something that belongs to the girl that is worth a fortune.

I mentioned  that Don Gale--Dix's character--isn't the most ethical person in the world. The girl would now be grown-up, so Gale hires a woman to impersonate her and find out what the valuable item actually is.

But while she is in the midst of pulling off this con, a thug arrives to murder the shop owner and kidnap her. The movie gets huge points right out of the gate by casting Mike Mazurki--my all-time favorite movie thug--as the killer.

This kick-starts one of the best movies in the series. Don Gale doesn't know what's going on, but he knows there's a very valuable prize out there somewhere. Soon, the cops know that as well. And the woman who Gale hired to impersonate the missing girl (who was soon released by the thug) knows it as well. Everyone has their own agenda and no one can completely trust anyone else.

One of the strengths of the film is that both Gale and the cops investigate the case in an intelligent manner, following up logical clues to their logical end. As a detective movie, it is very well-written.

In addition to a Mike Mazurki appearance, the rest of the movie is well-cast as well. Dix gives a typically strong performance as a smart-mouthed P.I., making us like him even as we recognize that he tends to slide down on the wrong side of the law from time to time.

The head cop is played by Barton Maclane, another of my favorite always-fun-to-watch character actors. His partner is played by Charles Lane, who usually portraits officious or greedy businessmen. Seeing him play a competent detective in a straightfoward manner was another treat the film offers.

As the plot unfolds, there are a couple more murders and Gale ends up in the role of chief suspect. Now he needs to not only find the MacGuffin, but also find the real killer. Both the unusual nature (and eventual fate) of the MacGuffin and the real killer's identity are effective twists. 

There are, in fact, a number of plot twists, but the overall story remains solid and well-constructed, smoothly incorporating the twists into the film. It's the sort of movie that I don't want to write about in too much detail. If you haven't seen it, it's too much fun to watch it unfold to give you too many spoilers.

 Mysterious Intruder is definitely in the running as my favorite Whistler film. 

Voice of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #119

At first, I was a little annoyed with the way director William Castle opens Voice of the Whistler (1945), the fourth of the eight Whistler movies. He shows us the character of Joan Merrick (Lynn Merrick) living alone and embittered in a lonely light house. So right away we know that everyone she's involved with throughout the movie is going to end up dead or in prison. Why start the movie out with such a spoiler? After all, not all the Whistler movies have had tragic endings. 

But, as I watched it, I realized that the scene provides us context. Voice of the Whistler is only barely movie-length, even for a B-movie. It clocks in at an even 60 minutes. And a little over half of that is setting up the characters and getting them into a situation where at least one of them wants to murder at least one of the others. 

Up until that point, it seems like a pleasant drama about a lonely man gradually finding a reason to live. If we didn't know that some sort of shenanigans were coming up soon, we might not know we were watching a Film Noirish crime story.

It all works out, though. The short run and another great performance by Richard Dix keeps our interest and the build up to murder turns out to be quite effective.

Dix plays John Sinclair, a wealthy industrialist whose entire life has been dedicated to make money. He doesn't have any friends and he's also lost his health. His doctors have told him to get away on a restful trip. It's best if he takes someone with him, but... well, who would a man with no friends take with him?

A train trip from New York to Chicago ends when he has another attack of weakness and dizziness. This, though, leads him to make a friend when a compassionate cab driver (Rhys Williams) helps him out. A trip to a local clinic also brings the nurse, Joan Merrick, into his life.

Joan is engaged to a local doctor (James Cardwell), but won't marry him until he's making enough money to provide her with a nice home. That, we gradually realize, is Joan's thing. In many ways, she's a nice person. But her eyes are too rigidly fixed on a financial prize.

Sinclair offers to marry her. He figures he only has a few months to live, so he makes her a deal. He wants her companionship for those months. In return, she inherits her fortune.

She agrees, dumps the doctor and marries him. Along with the cab driver (now Sinclair's best friend), they move into a remote light house in Maine. But Sinclair spoils things by not dying. In fact, he gets better.

Then the doctor comes for a visit. He wants Joan back. She wants to leave Sinclair, but still wants money.  Sinclair knows Joan wants to leave him, but wants to keep her. Soon, Sinclair and the doc are thinking about ways to get and keep the woman they both love. Both begin to think she might be worth killing for.

Of course, things go awry as soon as a murder is committed. But the twists at the end are good ones and, though the tragic ending has been spoiled for us, that ending turns out to be a very satisfying one.

Voice of the Whistler is another strong entry in this entertaining series.

Power of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #118

Richard Dix played a more or less good guy in the first two Whistler films--men who definitely made moral mistakes, but were essentially decent human beings.

Well, in 1945's The Power of the Whistler, this changes. Here, Dix plays a man with amnesia who seems to be decent and friendly, but who long ago moved to one of the more violent neighborhoods of Crazy Town. 

I suppose that's a spoiler, but anyone who doesn't realize this very early in the film simply isn't paying attention. 

And that, I think, is a flaw in this otherwise entertaining movie. After getting sideswiped by a car, Dix's character doesn't remember who he is. He's soon befriended by Jean Lang (Janis Carter), who tries to help him figure out his identity.

This part is fine, though reasons given for not going to the police are weak. "George" (Jean's temporary name for him) and Jean take a look at the items in his pockets. There is no solid identification, but there are a pile of clues: A prescription, an order for a cake from a bakery, another orders for flowers to be delivered to a singer, a lighter with initials monogramed on it, and a few other intriguing items. The process of following up these clues is done logically and allows the story to gradually uncover "George's" real idenity. And also uncover the fact that he's a maniac.

But Jean is simply far too trusting, even after disturbing indications that "George" might be dangerous keep popping up. I get that the 1940s were a more trusting time, but that attitude is taken to an absurd degree. This, plus occasional dumb decisions by other characters, definitely weaken the story.

In particular, a reason given for why an escape from an insane asylum was not reported to the cop is criminally stupid, though it is treated as reasonable by the police officer who is listening to it.

All the same, the story--most notably the finale--generates a fair amount of suspense and Dix's performance as the maniac, in which he only gradually reveals his dark side, is wonderful. I don't know why Richard Dix isn't better remembered today. He was an excellent actor.

So The Power of the Whistler, though a weaker entry in the series, is still worthwhile and worth watching.

Charles McGraw Loses Another Partner

 

A few years ago, I wrote about an excellent 1952 Film Noir titled Narrow Margin, which was directed by Richard Fleischer and starred Charles McGraw as a tough cop.

Well, a couple of years before that, Fleischer directed McGraw in another Film Noir, in which McGraw once again played a tough cop.

By the way, if you're a cop, don't partner up with Charles McGraw. Judging from these two movies, his partners don't last long. 

In this film, William Talman plays a professional crook with a talent for planning elaborate heists. He assembles three other guys to rob an armored car outside of Wrigley Field one afternoon. The ball park is the car's last stop for the day, so it'll have a fortune in cash receipts aboard.

Talman, by the way, played the bad guy in several Film Noirs before eventually becoming D.A. Burger in the Perry Mason series. He was always quite menacing as a villain.

The robbery goes off, but not quite as planned. What I like about this part is that the plan really is a good one. Purvis (Talman's character) is a smart guy and when things go wrong, it's because of a little bad luck or someone else on his team making a small mistake that the cops can later capitalize on. 

The bad guys inititally get away, but they leave a dead cop behind and one of the crooks is badly wounded. The wounded guy doesn't last long, but that's just as well. It's one less person with whom to split the take and Purvis has been playing footsie with the now-dead guy's wife anyways.

What follows is an atmospheric story in which McGraw and his fellow cops use intelligent police work while Purvis works to stay one step ahead of them. But Purvis's relationship with his dead partner's wife might just be his downfall, giving the cops an avenue of investigation that leads them towards him.

McGraw and Talman are both great, the script is strong and the director effectively uses Film Noir techniques to give us a great looking movie. 

That I watched this movie pretty much at random recently is quite a coincidence, because for the last few months, I've often been alone at work and I've been listening to lots of audio books as well as old-time radio. This includes listening through the Parker books by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) about a professional crook who plans elaborate heists. 

Between that and this movie, I told my wife that perhaps we were being called on by Fate to become professional thieves ourselves and plan our own elaborate heists. I even told Angela this might give her an opportunity to one day play the role of Double-Crossin' Dame.

Sadly, she shot down the idea without even really considering it.

The Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #116

The Whistler was a great radio show. Running from 1942 to 1955 (mostly on the West Coast), it told stories of average people driven to murder, with the creepy voice of the narrator acting as "a voice of fate, baiting the guilty with his smiling malevolence." (quote from John Dunning's Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio)

So it's really pretty neat-o that when a series of eight B-movies based on the series were produced beginning in 1944, they were all high quality Film Noirs that do justice to the show. Director Robert Wise once said that the films were "examples of budget filmmaking at its very best."

Most of the Whistler movies starred Richard Dix, who (because of the anthology nature of the series) played a different role each time. In the premiere film (1944's The Whistler), he plays businessman Earl C. Conrad, a man who is feeling suicidal because he lost his wife when the ship they were on sank.

So he comes up with a rather convoluted way of commiting suicide. He makes contact with a shady character named Lefty and, without giving his name, uses Lefty as a subcontractor to kill a guy named Earl C. Conrad. This means that Earl will soon have a hitman on his trail. He doesn't know who the hitman is or when he'll strike, but that doesn't matter. As long as he gets killed, he gets what he wants.

Then he finds out his wife is alive in a Japanese internment camp and is being returned to the U.S. as part of a prisoner exchange.

So, all of a sudden, Earl doesn't want to die anymore. He tries to contact Lefty to call off the hit, but Lefty has been killed by the police when they try to arrest him for a past crime. There is no way for Earl to let the hitman know the job has been cancelled.

Director Walter Castle does a great job with staging and lighting the movie to enchance the tension and Dix gives a superb performance as a man being driven to the edge of sanity as he desperately tries to save his own life.

The hitman is played by the excellent character actor J. Carrol Naish. He's not your average dispassionate killer. He's a psychopath who, when he misses one opportunity to simply shoot Earl, decides to see if he can experiment and scare Earl to death. He even kills a hobo who is about to mug Earl to preserve his victim for the experiment.

As Earl grows more desperate, he goes into hiding and is soon staying in flophouses. By now, he's aware that the killer is pretty much openly stalking him and even confronts him at one point, telling him the job is off and that he can simply keep the money he's been paid. 

But this sets the Killer's mind into panic mode. Earl is now a high-risk job in his mind. Perhaps Earl saw him kill the hobo. Perhaps Earl is now a danger to him! We soon have a panicky target being stalked by a panicky hitman.

It really is a great little film, with the Whistler's occasional narration providing additional punch to the story. In fact, at one point, the Whistler actively intervenes in the story, using the sound of his whistle to cause the Killer to back off from Earl, preserving the murderer for his fore-ordained destiny.

Keep an eye out for the Whistler films on TCM or other classic movie sources. They are definitely worth your time.