CRIME WITHOUT PASSION

Margo

CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (1934). Produced, written and directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

Reading a note: ""If you're not here by four o'clock the comedy is finished -- Carmen.' You should have signed it 'Pagliacci.'" -- Lee

A brilliant if arrogant lawyer, Lee Gentry (Claude Rains), is involved with a club entertainer named Carmen (Margo) but thinks he would be better off with the less tempestuous and more patrician Katy (Whitney Bourne). Carmen was once involved with a man named Eddie (Stanley Ridges), and Lee tries to make a big deal out of Eddie's coming to see her just so he can make her the "fall guy" and end his relationship with her. But Carmen is no fool, and things don't work out the way anyone intended. Crime Without Passion has some good acting -- Margo [Lost Horizon] and Rains [The Passionate Friends] are both splendid -- dialogue and situations, but it falls apart by ignoring certain realities of the criminal justice system (even back in those days). Just because someone gets shot doesn't always make it first degree murder. Anyway, the film is brief and minor. Hecht also co-authored the screenplay for Legend of the Lost.

Verdict: Good lead performances can't save a turgid movie. **.

EYES IN THE NIGHT

Edward Arnold and Ann Harding

EYES IN THE NIGHT (1942). Director: Fred Zinnemann.

Norma Lawry (Ann Harding) goes to see her old friend, the blind private eye Duncan Maclain (Edward Arnold), because she's concerned for her stepdaughter, Barbara (Donna Reed), who has fallen for a roue, Paul (John Emery), who was once involved with Norma. Naturally this roue is murdered, but Eyes in the Night is not a murder mystery, unfortunately. We learn early on that Paul was part of a spy ring run by Barbara's friend, the playwright Cheli Scott (Katherine Emery), and they are responsible for his death. Cheli and her cohorts want Norma's husband, Stephen (Reginald Denny), to turn over some secret plans to them under pain of death. With the assistance of his miraculous seeing-eye German Shepherd, Friday, will the sightless Maclain be able to save the day, catch the spies, and turn the plans over to Washington? The trouble with Eyes in the Night is that it has absolutely no suspense or surprises, only coming to life in the final minutes. Arnold [Dear Wife] and Harding [The Unknown Man] are fine, but the zestiest performances are from Donna Reed; Katherine Emery [The Locket]; Mantan Moreland as Maclain's butler; Stanley Ridges as Hanson, the Lawry's butler; and, of course, that amazing dog, Friday. Rosemary DeCamp and Stephen McNally are also good as a couple employed in the Lawry household and also in Cheli's gang. Barry Nelson, Steven Geray and Allen Jenkins have less to do. Three years later Arnold did a sequel, The Hidden Eye, but mercifully this did not become a series. Arnold also played Nero Wolfe in Meet Nero Wolfe in 1936. Director Fred Zinnemann went on to better things. This was Katherine Emery's (no relation to John) first film out of only twelve.

Verdict: Never have 80 minutes seemed so long. *1/2.

MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Peter Lorre

MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY (1941). Director: William Morgan.

Socialite P. Cadwallader Jones (Dennis O'
Keefe) is assigned to the district attorney's office primarily on the strength of his father's name. At first he's a first-class screw-up, but then he gets involved with some missing money, and a suspect, Hyde (Peter Lorre), who seems to be missing himself. This picture is the first of two that were based on the radio series of the same title -- there were two TV series as well -- all of which have the exact same title, which meant that I looked up Mr. District Attorney and couldn't understand why there was a completely different cast aside from O'Keefe (not even playing the same character) and Lorre was nowhere to be found. Well, of course that was the 1947 version. In any case, this picture is utterly undistinguished but for the brief appearance of Peter Lorre. O'Keefe is okay, and the supporting players include Minor Watson, Grady Sutton, Stanley Ridges, and Florence Rice. After Lorre, Helen Brown makes the best impression as Hyde's wife. Let's hope the second movie with this title was a bit better.

Verdict: Fast-paced but stupid and uninteresting. *1/2.

THE PHANTOM SPEAKS

Richard Arlen and Pierre Watkin

THE PHANTOM SPEAKS (1945). Director: John English.

A nutty doctor named Paul Rudwick (Stanley Ridges) thinks he can bring back the spirits of the dead, and tests his theory on a convicted murderer, Bogardus (Tom Powers of I Love Trouble), after he has just been executed. It never occurs to this fool that the soul of this extremely dangerous murderer can take over the doctor's mind, which is what happens, with the result that Rudwick starts tracking down and murdering all of Bogardus's enemies. Reporter Matt Fraser (Richard Arlen of Island of Lost Souls) is engaged to Joan (Lynne Roberts of Because of You) the doctor's daughter, while Pierre Watkins plays Fraser's boss, Davis. This is a cheap Republic production that somehow manages to hold the viewer's attention despite the fact that it's pretty much by the numbers, unoriginal, and predictable; if only the basic story had been developed more. Ridges is effective as the decidedly dumb doctor who pays a terrible price for his stupidity and irresponsibility. This is practically a remake of Black Friday, the Lugosi-Karloff film in which Ridges also played a decent man taken over by a hoodlum's consciousness.

Verdict: Republic cheapie creepy has its moments. **1/2.

THE GROOM WORE SPURS

Joan Davis and Ginger Rogers

THE GROOM WORE SPURS (1951). Director: Richard Whorf.

Cowboy star Ben Castle (Jack Carson) owes 60,000 dollars to a gambler named Harry (Stanley Ridges of Black Friday), so attorney Abigail (Ginger Rogers) tries his best to make a settlement. Ben winds up getting married to Abigail, but he fears it's all just part of the deal. Later there's a murder and an unfunny business with a plane going out of control on the runway. In the meantime, most of the minimal laughs have to do with Alice (Joan Davis), who wears a short chic hairstyle and thinks Abby is a little nuts. Carson and Rogers are adept, Davis is as lively as ever, but the script is pretty bad. James Brown is a pilot named Steve who would probably make a better match than lunkhead Carson, and Ross Hunter [All I Desire] is Austin Tindale, a banker who seems to have a hankering for Alice. Mira McKinney [Young Fugitives] is fun as a termagant cook, as is Victor Sen Young as Carson's butler, although he's unfortunately asked to speak fractured Chinese.

Verdict: Davis deserves much better, which is usually the case. **.

INTERNES CAN'T TAKE MONEY

INTERNES CAN'T TAKE MONEY (1937). Director: Alfred Santell.

This is the movie that introduced the character of Dr. Kildare (Joel McCrae), who not only starred in a series of films, but his own TV show [starring Richard Chamberlain in the role]. Kildare is concerned over, and attracted to, a pretty patient named Janet (Barbara Stanwyck) who desperately needs money to pay a popcorn-loving heel, Innes (Stanley Ridges), who says he knows where her little girl is. Kildare does an emergency bar room operation on a shady character named Hanlon (Lloyd Nolan), who helps him get the necessary info from Innes. In the meantime, there are a number of misunderstandings between Kildare and Janet, not to mention Kildare and Hanlon, who tries to pay him cash even as Kildare protests that "internes can't take money". [Yet Kildare doesn't report Hanlon's injury to the police!] Irving Bacon is Jeff, a bar owner; Lee Bowman an interne who is unfairly fired for "experimenting" on a patient; and Pierre Watkin is the chief doctor. Well-acted and quite entertaining.

Verdict: Fine introduction for a very long-lived character. ***.