CRY OF THE CITY

Richard Conte and Victor Mature

CRY OF THE CITY (1948). Director: Robert Siodmak. Colorized. 

Career criminal Martin Rome (Richard Conte) is laid up in the hospital after a bank job -- during which he shot a cop --goes awry. Lt. Candella (Victor Mature) learns that a woman (Debra Paget)  came to see him and is determined to discover her identity. Could Rome have had something to do with a jewel robbery in which an elderly woman was beaten and strangled? Others involved with Rome include shifty lawyer Niles (an excellent Berry Kroeger); Nurse Frances (Betty Garde), who does Rome a big favor; gal pal Brenda (Shelley Winters); and sinister masseuse Rose Given (Hope Emerson). When Rome breaks out of jail there will be more than one death attributed to him.

A lady to watch out for: Emerson and Conte

Richard Conte gives a good performance in this but Victor Mature is even better. One could easily complain that the film is full of cliches -- a hood with an adoring younger brother (Tommy Cook) and heart-broken mother (Mimi Aguglia), for instance -- but the film is so well-written, acted and directed that it just doesn't matter. Everyone is perfectly cast and at the top of their game. This is another film in which those two hefty, homely and gifted actresses Garde and Emerson both appear, although they have no scenes together in this as they do in Caged. Garde is good but Emerson is outstanding in her portrayal of a truly slimy female reptile. Fred Clark and Roland Winters are also notable in smaller roles, as is Walter Baldwin as inmate Orvy. 

Betty Garde deals with Mature while Clark and Conte look on

This unpredictable movie has several memorable scenes: the suspenseful  business when Rome breaks out of his prison hospital cell; a violent confrontation in Nile's office between the lawyer, Rome and an unfortunate secretary who gets too nosy; and the tense subway stand-off between Rome and Candella with Emerson getting in the way. Alfred Newman contributes an exciting score and the film is shot by Lloyd Ahern Sr.

Verdict: Terrific film noir with a great cast. ***1/2. 

CAGED

Formidable Hope Emerson towers over the tough Betty Garde

CAGED (1950). Director: John Cromwell.

'If it weren't for men, we wouldn't be in here."

"If you stay in here too long, you don't think of guys at all -- you just get out of the habit."

A 19-year-old named Marie (Eleanor Parker), who may or may not have participated in an armed robbery with her now-dead husband, is sent up the river for one to fifteen. While having her baby, Marie is introduced to a motley crew of pretty tough career criminals of the female gender: Kitty Stark (Betty Garde), who wants to get Marie into the rackets; Elvira Powell (Lee Patrick), the super-hard queen of vice; June (Olive Deering), who is desperate to get paroled; Georgia (Gertrude Michael), who thinks she comes from society and is losing her mind; elderly Millie (Gertrude Hoffman) a lifer who'll think nothing of taking out a hated matron if she has to; spacey Emma (Ellen Corby) who finally murdered her husband after four previous attempts;  and others. Speaking of matrons, we have the relatively kindly head of the isolation ward, played by Jane Darwell, and the fat, sadistic and highly formidable Harper, played by Hope Emerson. Harper and Kitty are, in particular, major antagonists and sooner or later something will blow ... Caged has been dismissed in some quarters as camp (sometimes because of the not very subtle lesbian inferences), which is completely unfair, as the movie is a powerful, completely absorbing drama with excellent performances and one compelling scene after another: a disappointed inmates' suicide; the jailhouse riot over a kitten; the physical and psychological battles between Harper and Stark; and the compassionate warden, Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead), having to deal with the infuriatingly disinterested and misogynous parole board and other dumb-headed politicians. Caged doesn't say that most of these women don't belong where they are, only that their imprisonment is punishment enough and abusive behavior among the matrons should be prohibited. Parker, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar and should have won, is superb, as are Hope Emerson (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and Betty Garde; and there is notable work from Moorehead and hard-boiled Patrick, as well as Taylor Holmes as clueless Senator Donnelly. John Cromwell's direction helps give the film a major dramatic punch after 66 years, and Max Steiner's score is subdued but effective. Caged engendered several inferior imitations -- Women's Prison, Blonde Bait, House of Women, a nominal remake with absurd situations not in the original, Betrayed Women -- and practically created a new sub-genre still going today. However realistic Caged may or may not be regarding conditions in women's prisons then or now, the story still packs a wallop.

Verdict: Perhaps Parker's finest hour -- as well as Emerson's and Garde's. ****.

CALL NORTHSIDE 777

CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948). Director: Henry Hathaway.

"Did it ever occur to you that everyone might be selling that dead cop short? He might have had a mother who scrubbed floors, too."

Chicago Times reporter P. J. McNeal (James Stewart) is assigned to look into an ad offering a $5000 reward for information about an old murder case. Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte), a small-timer, was convicted of shooting a cop and has spent eleven years in jail. His mother, Tillie (Kasia Orzazewski), who scrubs floors for a living, has saved up her money in the hopes someone will come forward with info that may exonerate her son. Initially skeptical, and told by his editor, Kelly (Lee J. Cobb) to keep the human interest story going to sell papers, McNeal eventually comes to believe in Wiecek's innocence and does all he can to overturn his conviction. Call Northside 777, which was based on real-life events, features solid performances from the principals (with especially good work from Orzazewski), as well as Betty Garde [Mr. Lucky] as Wanda Skutnick, the primary witness against Wiecek, and Otto Waldis [Unknown World] as her husband, Boris. Joanne De Bergh has a nice turn as Wiecek's ex-wife, but Helen Walker [Impact] has hardly any screen time as Mrs. McNeal. The picture is briefly stolen by an uncredited actress who certainly delivers in her role as a drunken barfly who gives McNeal much-needed information. The film builds up much suspense as it goes along, has interesting details (even if some are suspect), and a nice score by Alfred Newman. However, you're left with the nagging feeling that this new evidence might well mean Wiecek should get a new trial, but it doesn't absolutely prove his innocence!

Verdict: Real-life suspense story holds the attention. ***1/2.

MR. LUCKY (TV SERIES)

Ross Martin, Betty Garde, and John Vivyan

 MR. LUCKY television series.1959. Created by  Blake Edwards.

In this series, one of several created by Blake Edwards, Mr. Lucky (John Vivyan) -- with no first name -- operates a legal gambling ship outside the limit with his friend, associate and fellow adventurer Andamo (Ross Martin) -- which could be the fellow's first name or last. The boat is named the Fortuna, which means luck. Halfway through the first and only season of the show, Lucky decides to give up gambling and turn the Fortuna into an exclusive and very expensive private restaurant and night spot; oddly the scripts seemed somewhat better afterward and there was even more action. Pippa Scott was a semi-regular who played Lucky's girlfriend while Andamo played the field. Another character who appeared frequently was Lt. Rovaks, (Tim Brown), whose voice was so squeaky that he sounded like a cartoon character [maybe "Lucky Duck."] Mr. Lucky, frankly, was not one of the classic shows of television, nor was it one of Edwards' better or more successful series, but some of the generally mediocre episodes were somewhat more memorable than usual, with the best single episode being one wherein Lucky gets targeted by a hit woman played by Mari Blanchard. Another memorable episode has Jack Nicholson and Richard Chamberlain robbing the Fortuna and its customers at gunpoint. There were plenty of desperate, kooky or sinister females, as well as gangsters [one of whom is played by Lou Krugman, from the "Lucy Gets in Pictures" episode of I Love Lucy] and other reprobates. Despite the competent and often charming performances of the two leads -- although Vivyan was a borderline stiff -- the characters were shadowy and never quite came alive. Other guest-stars on the show included Betty Garde [that tough maid in a classic Honeymooners episode]; Grant Williams, Barbara Bain, Cyril Delevanti, Eleanor Audley, Lee Van Cleef, Nita Talbot, and Doris Singleton [Carolyn/Lillian Appleby on I Love Lucy] who's striking as an especially ruthless female with murder on her mind. Henry Mancini's music is nothing special. Ross Martin ["Death Ship" on The Twilight Zone] would have much more success with The Wild, Wild West a few years later.

Verdict: Stick with Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin.**

CHECKMATE Season 1

McClure, Cabot and George of Checkmate, Inc.

CHECKMATE Season One. 1960. Created by Eric Ambler.

This detective/suspense program aired for two seasons in the early sixties and took place in San Francisco. The premise was that Checkmate Inc., an agency, did its best to stop crimes before they occurred, thus in quite a few episodes they were hired to find out who was trying to kill a particular individual. Don Corey (Anthony George) was the head of the outfit, with able assistance from girl-happy Jed Sills (Doug McClure) as well as from consultant criminologist Dr. Carl Hyatt (Sebastian Cabot). Late in the first season Donna Douglas [The Beverly Hillbillies] became their secretary, but she was given little to do and eventually just disappeared.The three leads all had a different style, played well together, and were very well-cast.

The show was respected enough to sign up some pretty hefty guest stars, including Anne Baxter, Jane Wyman, Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre and even the inestimable Charles Laughton! [Betty Garde, who played the tough maid on a classic episode of The Honeymooners, has a good dramatic turn in "Hot Wind in a Cold Town."] Most of the episodes were solidly in the "B+" category but there were a number of "A"s as well: In "Face in the Window" Joseph Cotten cancels his engagement to Julie Adams after he sees a man whom he presumed dead looking in at him through a shop window. In "Deadly Shadow" a grown-up Margaret O'Brien is a marine's widow plagued by a shadowy assailant. Barbara Rush plays a troubled woman with two distinct personalities in "The Dark Divide." In "Mask of Vengeance," with Janice Rule and Cloris Leachman, the Chinese community is outraged after a diplomat's daughter claims immunity after running over a child. In "The Murder Game" a dying defense attorney, beautifully-played by John Williams, plans to kill the one guilty client that he got off. In "Terror from the East" Charles Laughton superbly plays a missionary who's come to San Francisco to warn a man who has been targeted for death. [This episode also marks the first appearance of Hyatt's adorable daschund, Bismark, who figures in an especially cute prologue in "Tight as a Drum."] "Melody for Murder" has pop singer Jimmie Rodgers threatened by an unknown female out for revenge. "Voyage into Fear" guest stars Joan Fontaine as a neurotic woman who is convinced her husband has sent a hit man after her on a cruise ship, but is she right or is she nuts?

Verdict: Memorable crime drama with fine performances and an especially interesting guest cast. ***.