Decoy
Directed by Jack Bernhard
Written by Nedrick Young from a story by Stanley Rubin
1946/USA
Bernhard/Brandt Productions
First viewing/Film Noir Classics Vol. 4 DVD
[box] Sergeant Joe Portugal: People who use pretty faces like you use yours don’t live very long anyway.[/box]
This poverty-row film noir was thought to be lost for years and now enjoys a kind of cult status. The movie is all over the place, but it is easy to see why fans longed to see it for all that time.
The story is told in flashback to policeman Joe Portugal (Sheldon Leonard) by dying femme fatale Margo (Jean Gillie). Margo’s boyfriend Frankie Olin (Robert Armstrong) had been on death row for several years having killed a security guard during a bank robbery. Margo’s one aim in life is to get her hands on the $400,000 Frankie hid away before being arrested. Frankie is obsessed with Margo and is unwilling to part with the money’s location until he is released from prison and they can spend it together. The fickle Margo has already convinced her gangster lover to finance Frankie’s appeals with promises that he will share in the proceeds.
When all the appeals fail, Margo learns of a drug that is an antidote for cyanide poisoning, such as that used in California’s gas chamber. She sets about seducing altruistic free clinic doctor Lloyd Craig, who officiates at executions to bolster his meager income. The doctor, despite his Hippocratic Oath, is putty in her hands.
Craig just happens to be well equipped with the necessary stuff to revive the dead. The spoilers will stop here but I can let you know that we get a lab scene vaguely reminiscent of the one in Frankenstein (I’m ALIVE … I’m ALIVE!!!) and multiple violent murders and double crosses.
One can overlook quite a lot of bad acting when a story is as fun as this one. The dead spots and poor pacing – not so much.
Five-minute documentary on the film
