HOUDINI

Tony Curtis

HOUDINI (1953). Director: George Marshall.

Harry Houdini (Tony Curtis) is performing as the "wild man" in a carnival sideshow when he encounters the pretty Bess (Janet Leigh), who finds him a little headstrong. Nevertheless, he wins her over, the two are married, and the couple head for Europe where Harry is determined to become a great magician. Harry manages to escape from a strait-jacket, gets out of a Scotland yard jail cell, and nearly dies when he is caught beneath the ice in the Detroit River. Bess feels some trepidation as Harry prepares to extricate himself from the "Pagoda Torture Cell," which is filled with water and seems inescapable ...

Curtis and then-wife Janet Leigh

Houdini is loosely based on the life of the famous magician, although it does manage to get some of the facts straight. (The Pagoda Torture Cell was actually called the Chinese Water Torture Cell and Houdini escaped from it numerous times. not just once, and the ending to this film is pure fiction). Tony Curtis makes a perfect Houdini, combining brashness with slight nervousness, and giving an energetic performance, while his then-wife Leigh compliments him well as Bess. There are also notable turns by Torin Thatcher [Witness for the Prosecution] as the assistant to a late famous magician who comes to work for Houdini; Mabel Paige [Johnny Belinda] as a phony medium that Houdini exposes; Ian Wolfe [Foreign Correspondent] as the head of a magicians' society; and others. The film is also distinguished by good period atmosphere and the photography of Ernest Laszlo.

Verdict: Entertaining, colorful romp about a fascinating historical figure. ***. 

RACKET SQUAD

Reed Hadley

RACKET SQUAD (1951 - 1953).

"There are people who can slap you on the back with one hand and pick your pocket with the other. And it could happen to you." -- John Braddock.  

Racket Squad was a very popular half hour TV show from the fifties that exposed bunco operations and lasted three seasons and 98 episodes. Reed Hadley [Sunset Murder Case] played Captain John Braddock, who introduced and narrated the episodes, and often took part in the story lines as well, such as one episode when he's nearly blown up in a mine explosion. Racket Squad was a snappy series that educated the public about schemes that are still going on today (imagine what a modern version of the show could make of Internet rackets). The best episodes focused not just on clever and occasionally diabolical schemes but the characters that got embroiled in them, including the criminals and the often gullible and sometimes greedy victims.

Hillary Brooke in Lady Luck

Among the most memorable episodes: "A Place for Grandma," with Mabel Paige as an elderly woman taken advantage of by the nasty woman who runs a boarding house; "The Case of Two Little Country Girls," which details an amazing scheme to rip off a hotel of thousands of dollars;  "The Christmas Caper," in which a kind man (Lloyd Corrigan) is exploited by people running a crooked charity for children; "The Family Tree," with Hugh Beaumont as a phony genealogist trying to scam Frances Bavier; "Miracle Mud," in which a phony health farm scheme is engineered by an unlikely suspect; "Sting of Fate," in which a couple scams a hotel with a fake ankle injury; "The Longshot," featuring a stupid old gambling woman with a fake Irish Sweepstakes ticket; "The Case of the Expensive Tumble," in which a high school boy is victimized by a gang who stage phony accidents and the resulting insurance fraud; "Lady Luck," with Hillary Brooke [Heatwave] as a woman who just can't stop cheating at cards; and "Pick a Number," with Byron Foulger playing a clearinghouse accountant who is innocently pulled into a dangerous scheme plotted by Edgar Barrier.

Garner and Gleason in His Brother's Keeper

Of the episodes I've seen, the most outstanding are "The Soft Touch," in which con artists, thinking the others are pigeons, try to out-con each other at a hotel, proving -- as Hadley puts it -- that anyone can be taken; and the moving "His Brother's Keeper" in which James Gleason [Spring Reunion] expertly plays an old bum who bonds with a boy (Don Garner) when both are forced into a phony begging racket in this grim tale of the exploitation of the homeless.  

Reed Hadley -- tough but compassionate, firm but fair -- makes the perfect lead for the show. After Racket Squad ended its run the unconventionally handsome actor sort of switched sides and became The Public Defender. 

Verdict: Nifty old crime show is worth a watch. ***.

JOHNNY BELINDA

Lew Ayres and Jane Wyman

JOHNNY BELINDA (1948). Director: Jean Negulesco.

A new doctor in a small village on an island in Nova Scotia, Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres), who hasn't quite been accepted by the locals, befriends and helps a deaf-mute woman (whom even her loved ones call the "dummy"), Belinda (Jane Wyman), and helps her to lip-read and make her thoughts and feelings known. When Belinda is raped by local tough guy Locky, (Stephen McNally), it leads to ugly rumors about Belinda and the doctor, not to mention a custody battle over the child, the titular Johnny, and even a murder trial! Oscar-winning Wyman is excellent, with solid support from Ayres; Charles Bickford as Belinda's father; Agnes Moorehead as her aunt; McNally as Johnny's father; and Jan Sterling as Locky's confused but compassionate wife. The film is beautifully photographed by Ted D. McCord, and has a fine score by Max Steiner. Not quite a masterpiece, but lovely and interesting and it won several Oscars. Mabel Paige, who played the owner of Hanson's dress shop on I Love Lucy, plays an unsympathetic role as one of the village's gossiping old biddies. 

Verdict: A nice picture with a fine cast. ***.

HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS

HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS (1947). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

William Weldon (Franchot Tone) takes a cream invented by Professor Glinka (Mikhail Rasumny) to entrepreneurs Cruikshank (Edward Everett Horton) and

Winterbottom (Gene Lockhart) with high hopes of great success for all. Rubbed on the face, the cream will eliminate the need for shaving. Unfortunately, after a big advertising campaign, the cream doesn't quite work as expected, but Margaret Weldon (Lucille Ball), Williams wife, saves the day by pointing out that the cream still has it uses. An ungrateful, insecure boor, William is more irritated than relieved, and one of the best scenes in the movie has Margaret telling him off in no uncertain terms. The characterization of the husband, and a protracted courtroom scene late in the film, are the main flaws of an otherwise very amusing black comedy, with the unpredictable results of the cream providing much of the hilarity. Ball and Tone aren't a bad team, but Lucy and Horton are even better in a scene when a newly hairy Horton keeps asking Margaret to run her fingers through his tresses. The aforementioned actors are all great, as is Mabel Paige, who owned Hanson's Dress Shop on a classic episode of I Love Lucy, in the smaller role of Mrs. Josper, who's a witness at the trial when William is arrested for -- well, that would be telling.

Verdict: Bizarre but funny -- if flawed -- black comedy. ***.

THE SNIPER

THE SNIPER (1952). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz) is a delivery man for a cleaning service and has a problem with women. When one of his customers, a singer named Jean (Marie Windsor) innocently excites him but sends him away when her boyfriend shows up, he begins a spree of shooting women, with Jean the first victim. Franz, who is excellent, is the perfect choice for the title role, with his clean cut features and appealing presence in stark contrast to the terrible crimes he's committing. The movie certainly has an interesting cast. Adolphe Menjou is the head cop on the case, Lt. Frank Kafka, and Richard Kiley, that Man of La Mancha himself, is a police psychologist. He gives disturbing statistics about sexual predators (the situation has obviously gotten much worse since 1952). Frank Faylen and Gerald Mohr are also cast as policemen. Miller's landlady is played by Mabel Paige, who sold Lucy and Ethel her dress shop in a classic I Love Lucy episode. Jay Novello, who also appeared on I Love Lucy, turns up in another amazing characterization as Pete, the owner of the bar where Jean sings for her supper. The movie is well made and completely absorbing, but it does give rather short shrift to the victims.

Verdict: Probably Franz' finest hour. ***.