Repeat Performance
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Written by Walter Bullock from a novel by William O’Farrol
1947/US
Bryan Foy Productions
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

William Williams: Destiny’s a stubborn old girl. She doesn’t like people interfering with her plans. Anyway, I don’t think she cares about the pattern as long as the result is the same.

So glad to be reunited with my TV screen!  Criterion Channel has a collection of holiday-themed films noir this month and I’m starting with this one.

As the film begins actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) and her evil alcoholic husband Barney (Louis Hayward) are hosting a party to ring in 1947.  Before they can even greet their guests, Sheila murders Barney (not a spoiler, this happens within the first couple of minutes).  Sheila immediately regrets this and wishes that she could relive 1946 and undo many of the things that happened.  Surprise, her wish is granted!  But can she foil the Fickle Finger of Fate?  With Richard Basehart as her evidently gay poet friend and Tim Conway as a Broadway producer.

Basehart was so good in his film debut that he ended up third on the bill.  Despite some gaping plot holes, it is interesting.  This was a venture of Poverty Row distributor Eagle-Lion films into “prestige” filmmaking. It was long thought to be a lost film.

The Woman on the Beach
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Frank Davis and Jean Renoir from a novel by Mitchell Wilson
1947/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Tod: Don’t try to get away. I can sense every move you make. I can sense you like an animal. My eyes don’t see, but I have hands and ears and a nose. I can even smell your hate!

The cast makes this movie watchable. The script and editing not so much.

Scott (Robert Ryan) is a Coast Guard officer. He has been suffering from PTSD since a cruiser he was on was hit by a torpedeo. He is engaged to a sweet young thing and has begged her to get married that very night. She wants to carry on with her wedding plans.

That same day, he meets Peggy (Joan Bennett) who is collecting firewood on a beach. It is definitely lust at first sight and the fiancee is unceremoniously dumped.  Peggy is married to blind painter Tod (Charles Bickford). He was famous in his painting days and has held on to all his unsold paintings which are now quite valuable. Peggy tells Scott she hates her husband. The movie explores how the evil Peggy plays one man off the other.

This was the last film Renoir made in Hollywood. The studio meddled extensively and and it was a big flop. I thought it was watchable but not up to the high standards I expect from Renoir. I would watch this cast in anything and it is quite good. They should have radically simplified the script.

Ride the Pink Horse
Directed by Robert Montgomery
Written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes
1947/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Criterion DVD

Frank Hugo:  You know, Gagin, I like you.  There are two kinds of people in the world: ones that fiddle around worrying whether a thing’s right or wrong, and guys like us.

I prolonged my 1947 viewing a bit to be able to see this long unavailable film which was just released on DVD March 17.  It was certainly worth the wait!

Tough guy ‘Lucky Gagin’ (Robert Montgomery) arrives in San Pablo, Mexico with two aims.  One is to collect blackmail money from Frank Hugo (Fred Clark) for an incriminating check in his possession and the other is to kill Hugo, who had his friend Shorty bumped off when Shorty tried the same stunt.  Gagin is tougher than he is smart, however, and ‘Lucky’ may be quite the misnomer.  On arrival, he acts like the personification of the Ugly American, disrespecting all the Mexicans he meets while lavishly tipping in compensation.

Despite his ill treatment, naive teenage villager Pila spots Gagin as a sure murder victim and persists in sticking to him like glue.  Gagin also finds an ally in Pancho (Thomas Gomez), who runs the merry-go-round at the fiesta then taking place.  (It is from the wooden horses that the film gets its title.)

 It takes Gagin a while to catch up with Hugo.  In the meantime, he runs into a U.S. government agent who is anxious to get his hands on the check as evidence.  After he does locate his man, Gagin winds up bleeding for most of the rest of the story while being ministered to by Pilar and hidden by Poncho.

The plot does not bear 5 minutes of serious scrutiny but the whole thing is so stylishly done that I didn’t mind a bit.  Russell Metty’s lighting and the caustic dialogue carried me along oblivious to the many lapses in logic.  My one complaint is that the story had a perfect natural ending but continued for another few minutes so we could all go home happier.

Thomas Gomez was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in Ride the Pink Horse.

Trailer – does not reflect the beautiful restoration on the just-released DVD

Lady in the Lake
Directed by Robert Montgomery
Written by Steve Fisher from the novel by Raymond Chandler
1947/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Adrienne Fromsett: [to Marlowe] Perhaps you’d better go home and play with your fingerprint collection.[/box]

I went into this knowing that the “I am a camera” gimmick does not work for me.  Still, it’s such a noble experiment that I had to see it again.

Philip Marlow (Robert Montgomery) is not satisfied with the miserable fees he gets as a private detective so he decides to turn author.  He is amazingly successful with his first submission to a pulp magazine and called in for a chat with editor A. Fromsett.  This turns out to be the lovely Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) and she has more on her mind than the story.  She offers Marlow $300 to locate the missing wife of her publisher (Leon Ames), Chrystal Kingsby.  It is clear Adrienne has some ulterior motive as she clearly lusts after the publisher and, more precisely, his money.

Marlow’s quest leads to multiple beatings, a couple of murders, and assorted run-ins with police and is much too convoluted for me to explain here.  Throughout, one question is “How fatale is Adrienne’s femme?” With Lloyd Nolan as a hostile cop and Jayne Meadows as a survivor.

It is just amazing that MGM, of all studios, indulged Montgomery in this audacious bit of film-making.  Sadly, the gimmick results in a lot of “deer caught in the headlights” style acting (except on the part of Totter who does very well) and does not advance the story or improve the picture.  One thing MGM did hold on to, however, was its glossy production values so we get a very noir story told in high-key lighting.  I doubt that there is another film like it, though, and it’s worth seeing at least once.

Trailer

Boomerang
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Richard Murphy based on an article by Fulton Oursler
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Films Corp.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [Camera close-up on an open book]: The primary duty of a lawyer exercising the office of public prosecutor is not to convict, but to see that justice is done. -The Lawyers’ Code of Ethics.[/box]

This is a solid, if unexceptional, film noir in the semi-documentary style favored by Twentieth Century Fox.

The story is based on a true incident.  The setting is a smallish Connecticut town.  There is an upcoming election that the incumbent reform candidates desperately want to win. One night a beloved Episcopal priest is shot down on the street in front of a number of witnesses.  The killer quickly gets away. The media begins to have a field day criticizing the police force for failing to apprehend the murderer or even turn up any clues other than that the man was seen to be wearing a dark coat and light hat.  The reform candidates and police are under incredible pressure to deliver the culprit.  Prosecutor Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews), a friend of the reform party and potential candidate for governor, is as anxious as anyone to find a suspect.

Although a hot line turns up many false leads the police get nowhere until a drifter is picked up in a distant state.   The man, an ex-GI named John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy), left town shortly after the murder and was found in possession of a gun of the same caliber as that used in the crime.

Waldrop maintains his innocence during an unrelenting interrogation and in face of identification by numerous eye witnesses and a report indicating that the fatal bullet came from his gun.  He finally confesses in a state of total exhaustion.

Harvey comes to believe that Waldrop is innocent.  Can he resist the political imperative to convict at any cost?  With Lee J. Cobb as the Chief of Police, Karl Malden as a detective, Jane Wyatt as Harvey’s wife, Sam Levene as a crusading reporter and Ed Begley as one of the politicos.

There are no surprises here but a cast such as this is always worth seeing and Kazan does quite a competent job keeping the story moving.  Fans of courtroom dramas might particularly like this film.

Boomerang was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay.

Trailer? or Montage of Clips?

The Upturned Glass
Directed by Lawrence Huntington
Written by John Monaghan and Pamela Mason
1947/UK
Sydney Box Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Michael Joyce: Up to this point in the present series of lectures, we’ve dealt exclusively with abnormal mentalities. I emphasise the fact that in civilised communities eighty percent of our murderers and violent criminals were those whose minds had been conditioned by exceptional nervous stress and unhealthy environment. Last Friday we dealt with the smaller group of strictly moronic criminals. And now we come to that much more interesting phenomenon – the sane criminal.

The rest of this film is just not up to James Mason’s awesomely brooding performance.

The film opens with prominent neurosurgeon Michael Joyce (Mason) lecturing an avid medical school class on criminology.  When he starts in on “sane” criminals his case study focuses on a doctor who killed and we segue into the voice-over narration that accompanies the long flashback that tells the tale.  Michael was an unhappily married man whose whole life had become his work.  Then he examines a young patient who is losing her eyesight and slowly becomes attracted to her mother, Emma.  The girl’s father is overseas on a work assignment.  The pair begin a friendship that quickly builds to love but Emma gets cold feet and it goes no further.

Then Emma dies when she falls out a window.  Michael blames the death on Emma’s sister-in-law and the rest of the story is devoted to his plans for revenge.

This had potential but just didn’t amount to much.  Despite Mason’s dulcet tones the lecture gimmick does not add to the drama of this oddly slight story.  I thought the ending was especially awkward and  anti-climactic.  Too bad.

Clip