APPOINTMENT WITH A SHADOW

George Nader

APPOINTMENT WITH A SHADOW (1957). Director: Richard Carlson. 

Paul Baxter (George Nader) once had a reputation as an outstanding reporter, but that reputation has been demolished by his alcoholism. His girlfriend, Penny (Joanna Moore), wants to stand by him -- despite the attitude of her highly disapproving brother, Lt. Spencer (Brian Keith) -- but she's reaching the end of her limit. Paul begs her for one last chance, and then fate intervenes. Paul almost literally runs into a gangster, Dutch Hayden (Frank DeKova), after he has supposedly just been shot down in the street by cops a moment before. Now there are two questions: will anyone believe that a notorious drunk like Paul actually saw Hayden, and will the real Hayden arrange to have Paul knocked off before anyone takes him seriously? 

George Nader and Frank DeKova

George Nader was a better actor than people gave him credit for, but the problem in this film is that he never quite comes off like a dissipated drunk -- he should look much, much worse for one thing. Moore makes a sympathetic girlfriend, Keith is on target as usual, and DeKova nearly walks off with the movie. Another important player is Virginia Field, who plays Hayden's girlfriend, the lady who fingered him without the cops being aware that it was actually Hayden's lookalike brother (talk about brotherly love). Nader and DeKova have a good confrontation scene near the end. The script doesn't really make the most of an interesting situation, but it's a fair to middling melodrama. Actor Richard Carlson directed several other films besides this one, as well as episodic television. 

Verdict: **1/2.  

I WALK ALONE

Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott

I WALK ALONE (1947), Director: Byron Haskin.

Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) and Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas) were partners in a bootlegging operation that went south. Frankie went to prison for fourteen years while Noll opened up his own successful nightclub, and got a girlfriend in singer Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott). Despite his relationship with Kay, Noll plans to marry bitchy socialite Alexis Richardson (Kristine Miller) for business reasons. Frankie makes it clear that what he wants is not just 50% of what's coming to him, but something to make up for all of those years he spent in jail. But even as Frankie and Kay grow closer, Noll may have other, less admirable plans for his old friend ... 

Kirk Douglas in a dramatic moment

I Walk Alone is fair-to-middling film noir. Frankly, it just never becomes as interesting or as explosive as you might hope. The performances are on target,  however, with especially good and slick work from Kirk Douglas, although Lizabeth Scott is a little odd and her romance with Frankie is never quite convincing. Wendell Corey is fine as a friend of Frankie's and an associate of Noll's, and there is also good work from George Rigaud as Maurice, who also works for Noll but isn't quite so  subservient; Mickey Knox as gunsel Skinner; Mike Mazurki as doorman/bodyguard Dan; and Kristine Miller as the delightfully predatory Alexis. When she manages to get Noll to agree to take her to the altar, she suggests that Kay sing "I Lost My Man" to the nightclub patrons -- what a bitch! Corey's death scene on a city street is quite well-handled.

Verdict: Comes so close but somehow misses. **1/2. 

THE BURGLAR

Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea

THE BURGLAR (1957). Director: Paul Wendkos.

Nat Harbin (Dan Duryea) leads a small gang of criminals, including Gladden (Jayne Mansfield), the girl he was raised with. They steal a very valuable necklace from a old lady spiritualist, Sister Sarah (Phoebe MacKay), who lives in a sprawling mansion. Now the question is whether to sell the necklace at a great loss or wait until the heat is off, a suggestion that does not sit well with Baylock (Peter Capell of The Fury of the Cocoon), who is desperate to get out of the country. None of them are aware that another person is watching them and scheming ...

Martha Vickers and Dan Duryea

The Burglar is an interesting crime melodrama that just misses being special. Duryea gives a solid performance, although Mansfield comes off like an amateur, and one doesn't buy that she "hungers" for Duryea (the only actor billed above the title). Stewart Bradley, who was "introduced" in this picture (he had had previous TV credits but this was his first movie role) makes a definite impression as the cop, Charlie. Martha Vickers (one of Mickey Rooney's ex-wives and who also appeared in The Big Bluff) also makes an impression as Della, a woman who picks up Nat in a bar and has a few secrets of her own. Mickey Shaughnessy  plays Dohmer, another member of the gang who is a little too trigger-happy. The Burglar features interesting settings in Philly and Atlantic City, such as a shack on the lonely coast and a fun house where the climax takes place. Paul Wendkos also directed the excellent Brotherhood of the Bell.

Verdict: Not quite top-drawer but it does hold the attention. **3/4. 

GOODFELLAS

Lorraine Bracco and Ray Liotta

GOODFELLAS (1990). Director: Martin Scorsese.

As a boy Henry Hill (Christopher Serrone) admires the mobsters in the neighborhood who play by their own rules (unlike the "suckers") and goes to work for them. As an adult, Henry (Ray Liotta of The Son of No One) realizes he can only go so far because he is part Irish and not full Italian. In spite of this, he makes lots of money and marries a dead-common but feisty gal named Karen (Lorraine Bracco). Henry reports to Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino) but his main pals and associates are Jimmy (Robert De Niro) and the psychotic Tommy DeVito (Oscar-winning Joe Pesci). Henry risks Paulie's wrath when he goes against his orders and gets into the drug trafficking business ... 

Paul Sorvino

One thing you have to say about Goodfellas: it is not a dull movie and it is very well-acted by the entire cast. Although many mob films seem to glamorize the mafia, only an idiot can look at this movie and envy the gross lives of the characters who may for a time live in beautiful homes and have lots of moola but generally wind up dead or with long, long jail sentences. While I've no doubt much of the film, based on Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy (from Hill's recollections) is true, I also wouldn't doubt that Hill made himself out to be "nicer" than other mobsters and did his best to add to the alleged "glory" of his slimy legend. Entering the witness protection program (from which he was later thrown out), he became a minor celebrity for morons.

Robert De Niro

Goodfellas is undeniably entertaining and well-done, but one has to remember that its basic story -- the rise of a young man in the rackets -- is as old as the hills. The film offers an inside look into the stories of repellent low lives, but Goodfellas doesn't really have any more depth than, say, 1961's Portrait of a Mobster. Of course, when the lead character is a reptile like Hill you can hardly expect much humanism. Goodfellas is completely absorbing, but it's also depressing. Scorsese, De Niro, and Pesci all collaborated on Raging Bull ten years earlier.

Verdict: There really is no honor among thieves. ***. 

THE LOOTERS

Danton, Faylen, Adams, Calhoun

THE LOOTERS (1955). Director: Abner Biberman.

"I haven't had this much fun since I was kicked out of the Campfire Girls." -- Sheryl.

Jesse Hill (Rory Calhoun of That Hagen Girl), a loner and mountain climber who lives in the Rockies, gets a visit from a shady ex-army buddy, Peter Corder (Ray Danton of Code Name: Jaguar). When a commercial plane crashes in the mountains, the two decide to climb towards the wreckage, but with very different motives. Jesse wants to look for survivors, while Pete is more interested in salvaging what he can, which turns out to be a trunk full of loot. Pete's true nature is revealed pretty quickly, and he stakes his claim while threatening everyone else. Before long the two men start a tense descent back down the mountain along with three survivors, a former cheesecake model named Sheryl (Julie Adams), a captain named Leppich (Frank Faylen of The Mystery of the 13th Guest). and a wannabee big shot named Parkinson (Thomas Gomez). Who will get to keep the loot and who will survive?

Ray Danton as sneaky Pete

The Looters has a very good premise and could have been turned into a nail-biting and memorable suspense film. Instead it's a mediocre and often hokey time-waster that isn't good enough for the audience to ignore its many implausible aspects. Now, the plane crashed on top of a mountain, but it isn't in a nearly impassable area as the plane was in Three Secrets, so it seems to me that even if there were no survivors, arrangements would be made to get the victims' bodies back to their loved ones. But when the military, who is playing war games in the area, discovers that no one is at the plane, they start bombing the whole area -- say what? Admittedly, this adds some excitement to the climax, but it doesn't make much sense, as if the military's attitude would be "let's just blow up the bodies of the crash victims without even finding out what caused the crash!"

Of course one reason for this silliness is that it may fool viewers into not scratching their heads when one survivor expresses the hope that everyone will think he died in the crash. Another problem is that no one seems to act as if this was the scene of a tragedy, that there are several dead bodies (never shown) lying just out of view for much of the film's length. Then you have to wonder why Sheryl and Jesse would want to make out when neither has brushed their teeth for at least several days. Gomez makes his mark as the weaselly Parkinson, Danton is typically vivid, Adams is reasonably adept and sexy, giving the film no more than it deserves, and Calhoun is adequately stolid and heroic. But this is one flight you may not want to book. After meeting on this film, Adams and Danton were married. Abner Biberman was originally an actor, playing a great many Asian roles, before switching to directing.

Verdict: Another reason to avoid the Rockies. **. 

OUT OF THE PAST

Jane Greer

OUT OF THE PAST (1947). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

"You're like a leaf that's been blown from one gutter to another."

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) has a new life running a gas station, as well as a girlfriend named Ann (Virginia Huston), when his past catches up with him in the person of gunsel, Joe (Paul Valentine). Joe works for crooked big shot Whit (Kirk Douglas), and some time ago he hired Jeff to go after his gorgeous gal pal, Kathie (Jane Greer), who not only shot Whit but left town with $40,000 in cash. In flashback we learn how Jeff caught up with Kathie and decided he wanted her for himself. But Kathie may have had other plans. Now she's back with Whit, who wants Jeff to do a favor for him -- or else. Well, Out of the Past should be prime film noir -- it certainly has all of the elements (even if much of it is actually played in sunlight instead of shadows), including a beautiful femme fatale, but somehow this just doesn't add up. The characters are little more than stick figures, brought to life with satisfactory but somehow second-rate thesping. Everyone, especially Douglas, who underplays nicely, is cool and professional but there's something missing, although Paul Valentine [House of Strangers] probably has the best role of his career in this and runs with it. Virginia Huston [Tarzan's Peril] is pleasant and competent but she only had a few credits after this. Dickie Moore [Passion Flower] makes an impression as the deaf and mute boy who works for Jeff at the gas station, as do Ken Niles as the nervous lawyer, Eels, and Rhonda Fleming as his secretary. Others in the cast are Steve Brodie as Jeff's former partner, and Richard Webb as a man who's carrying a long-time torch for Ann. The film is beautifully photographed in crisp black and white by Nicholas Musuraca [Clash By Night], and Roy Webb has contributed an effective theme. There's a certain poignancy to the conclusion, hinging on a not-so-little white lie. (Whether the lie should have been told or not Ill leave up to the individual viewer.) There's so much confusing going back and forth from place to place by the cast that it gets somewhat tiresome after awhile.

Verdict: For a great film noir with Robert Mitchum watch Otto Preminger's Angel Face instead of this. **1/2. 

DANCE HALL RACKET

Lenny Bruce

DANCE HALL RACKET (1953). Director: Phil Tucker. Screenplay by Lenny Bruce.

An undercover cop hangs out at a certain dance emporium whose owner he suspects of trafficking in shady deals and murder. The owner is Umberto Scalli (Timothy Farrell of Jail Bait) and his rather psychopathic right hand man is Vincent (Lenny Bruce), who stabs people right and left without hesitation. Scalli's secretary, Rose (Honey Bruce Friedman), is Vincent's chief girlfriend (Friedman was married to Lenny Bruce at the time). The two men are marking time until the arrival of fresh-out-of-the pen Victor Pappas, from whom they hope to learn the whereabouts of his stolen loot. This ultra low-budget, oddball movie, barely clocking in at an hour, was scripted by the controversial comic, and his performance as a sleazy if good-looking hood is personality-driven and competent. Farrell is a professional but uninteresting performer, and the rest of the cast veers from the broadly amateurish to the perfectly capable. The names of many of the cast members have been lost to history, but "Maxine" is noteworthy as Scalli's middle-aged former girlfriend, and she does a mean Charleston, too. The main plot, such as it is, is interrupted by supposedly comic intervals, and there's a terrible Swedish funny man (not!) portrayed by an annoying Bernie Jones. Phil Tucker also directed Robot Monster and Lenny Bruce also scripted Rocket Man.

Verdict: Now this is definitely a curiosity if nothing else. **.

WHEN MARRIAGES GO (MURDEROUSLY) BAD

WHEN MARRIAGES GO (MURDEROUSLY) BAD

Everyone hopes that a wedding is just the beginning of a lifetime of caring, companionship and happiness, but, sadly, it doesn't always work out that way, especially if you've had the misfortune to marry a sociopath. This theme has been explored on such true-crime cable shows as Scorned: Love Kills!, and this week Great Old Movies examines telefilms that also look into really bad marriages. Most of these films are based on true stories, but a couple are fictional.

If there's any lesson to be learned from these dramas, it's to be very, very careful who you get hitched to!

CASBAH

Yvonne De Carlo and Tony Martin 

CASBAH (1948). Director: John Berry.

Thief Pepe le Moko (Tony Martin) hides out in the Casbah while the friendly cop Slimane (Peter Lorre) hopes he'll step out of his safe harbor so he can arrest him. Pepe falls for Gaby (Marta Toren), who is the fiancee of the wealthy Claude (Herbert Rudley of Decoy), inspiring jealousy both in Claude and in Inez (Yvonne De Carlo), who thinks of herself as Pepe's one true love. Naturally, nobody's plans work out as they intended. It was only a matter of time before someone got the idea of making a musical out of the Pepe le Moko story -- filmed at least twice before as Pepe le Moko and Algiers -- and this is the closest you'll ever get, as this is what you might call a semi-musical remake with crooner Martin singing a couple of vaguely pleasant tunes by Harold Arlen and Leo Robin (Martin is in splendid voice). Casbah is not nearly as bad as you might expect, with Martin making a sexier and gruffer Pepe, and Peter Lorre spicing up the proceedings with his typically interesting portrayal of Slimane. In this version the Casbah seems less a filthy ghetto and more a mere tourist attraction, but it has at least as much artificial atmosphere as the first two versions. Unlike Algiers, Casbah is not a copy of Pepe le Moko, but eliminates some characters, has different sequences, and makes Gaby even more independent than in the other versions but also less likable. Swedish actress Toren had a few uncredited parts before being "introduced" in this film as the "next Ingrid Bergman." She's adequate and managed to amass a number of credits but she died tragically young at thirty. Yvonne De Carlo is her saucy self as Inez, although she's not always photographed very flatteringly. Other cast members include Douglas Dick [The Accused] in an unsympathetic character part; Hugo Haas as a friend of Pepe's; and the always-interesting Virginia Gregg as a friend of Gaby's. If there's any problem with Casbah, it's that this version tries too hard to make this some kind of tragic love story when the lovers barely know one another, are completely one-dimensional, and Martin and Toren don't even have that much chemistry together. The shot of Martin on the runway while the plane bearing Toren soars overhead is a dramatic composition but it also comes off as a little hokey considering. Interestingly, while the earlier versions only talk about how difficult it would be for the police to get a captured Pepe out of the Casbah, this version actually shows us how difficult it would be, as all of Pepe's cronies come to his rescue after he's been handcuffed, attack the cops, and free him. John Berry also directed Tension.

Verdict: The odd but arresting duo of Martin and Lorre almost make this work. **1/2.

THE DEADLY GAME (1954)

Maureen Swanson and Lloyd Bridges

THE DEADLY GAME (aka The Big Deady Game/1954). Director: Daniel Birt.

Composer Philip Graham (Lloyd Bridges of Deadly Dream) is in Spain where he encounters an old Air Force buddy Tony Roscoe (Peter Dyneley of The Manster), who wants him to deliver a certain envelope to someone in London. Philip also meets Marina (Maureen Swanson), the pretty niece of the corpulent Mr. Darius (Finlay Currie). When Philip discovers that Tony has been murdered, he first suspects the very married Mitzi (Simone Silva), who claims that Tony was blackmailing her. Before too long Philip finds himself embroiled in a plot involving smuggled microfilm. The Deadly Game is almost a complete waste of an hour and is like a forgettable episode of a forgettable TV series. Bridges saunters through displaying seedy charm, Swanson is pretty and appealing, Silva adds some limited spice, Currie is fat, the movie is dull, dull, dull. Hard to imagine why anyone thought it would be a good idea to film this lousy script. This is a Hammer noir "thriller" that has absolutely no thrills. Maureen Swanson has a vague Vivien Leigh quality but did not have the same type of career. Lots of stock footage of a fiesta in Spain.

Verdict: The pace is reasonably swift but that's about it. *.