NICE GIRL?

Franchot Tone, Deanna Durbin, Robert Stack

NICE GIRL? (1941). Director: William A. Seiter.

Small-town girl Jane Dana (Deanna Durbin) has a perfectly swell, handsome boyfriend in Don Webb (Robert Stack of The Tarnished Angels), but wanting to appear more sophisticated, she makes a flagrant play for an older man, Richard Calvert (Franchot Tone of Honeymoon), which only makes her seem like an idiot. That's basically the plot of this dull movie that hasn't enough drama or laughs to make it even worth sitting through -- not even Durbin's singing can save it! There are some good actors in it, including Robert Benchley [The Bride Wore Boots] as Jane's father; Helen Broderick as a housekeeper, Cora; and Walter Brennan (almost looking young) as a mailman who has a hankering for Cora. Ann Gillis and Anne Gwynne play Jane's younger sisters, and we've also got Elisabeth Risdon from the Mexican Spitfire movies and Kenneth Howell from the Jones Family series in much smaller roles.

Verdict: This picture is so slight it hardly seems to exist. *1/2.

BIG TOWN AFTER DARK

Hillary Brooke and Philip Reed

BIG TOWN AFTER DARK (1947). Director: William C. Thomas.

This is the second of two 1947 films based on the radio show Big Town -- the first film was also called Big Town -- and it was followed by a TV series of the same name in the fifties, and even a comic book. Steve Wilson (Phillip Reed) is the managing editor of the Illustrated Press of a city known as Big Town. When his crime reporter, Lorelei (Hillary Brooke), decides to quit to write more novels, he immediately hires the publisher's niece, Susan (Ann Gillis) to take her place. But is she also taking Lorelei's place in his affections? When Steve and Susan go to a gambling den run by Chuck LaRue (Richard Travis), Steve gets into an altercation with employees and he fears that Susan has been kidnapped. Her uncle winds up being forced to invest in the gambling racket, but Steve has a trick or two up his sleeve and manages to uncover the full truth behind the story. Reed [Weekend for Three] and Brooke [Strange Impersonation] are professional if uninteresting, Gillis is fairly vivid, and the big surprise is that Richard Travis (Missile to the Moon) walks off with the picture with his zesty portrayal of LaRue -- the actor should have played more nasty bad guys in his career. The climax is suspenseful and while the movie is quite minor it is watchable.

Verdict: Radio with faces. **1/2.