Strange Bargain (1949)

The salary of assistant bookkeeper Sam Wilson (Jeffrey Lynn) isn't enough to pay the bills for his family, so his wife Georgia (Martha Scott) pushes him to ask for a raise. Instead his boss Malcolm Jarvis (Richard Gaines, Fred MacMurrary's boss on 'Double Indemnity') fires him, as the company's been making a loss for quite some time already. Jarvis himself is also broke, but he has a plan. And for that plan to work, he needs Wilson, so he has a proposition for him... Jarvis intends to kill himself so his family can collect his life insurance policy, but that won't happen if his death is ruled a suicide. So he needs Wilson to make it look like a murder, and he will give him $10,000 in exchange for helping him. Wilson declines, but later that evening Jarvis forces his hand by announcing he's going through with his plan. Wilson rushes over to the Jarvis mansion to dissuade him from it, but he's too late. Jarvis is dead on the floor with a gun in his hand... and an envelope containing $10,000 with Wilson's name on it on the desk. Wilson reluctantly does his part, shoots the gun a few more times and gets rid of it. He hides the $10,000 at home, unsure of what he should do... The new boss, and former adversary of Jarvis within the company, Timothy Hearne (Henry O'Neill) gives Wilson his job back, with a promotion and a hefty pay raise even, and his family thinks all is well again... But Wilson's already conflicted mind gets even more conflicted when police lieutenant Webb (Harry Morgan) views Hearne as the prime suspect for Jarvis's murder...

While Martha Scott is the top-billed name on the movie's poster, her role in this movie is fairly minimal. Scott made a big entrance into Hollywood with her first movie, 1940's 'Our Town', which landed her an Oscar nomination. Her star didn't shine bright for too long however, but apparently bright enough for RKO to bill her over the principal actor of he movie, Jeffrey Lynn. She is decent enough but given she doesn't have to do much here, I wouldn't expect anything less, hah...

I wasn't very familiar with Jeffrey Lynn ('Whiplash', 'The Roaring Twenties') and this movie didn't exactly peak my interest either. In a way his performance is perfect for the character he's playing, as it's meek, unremarkable and bland, but if that's all there is to it... Lynn reminded me here of another everyman actor I find bland, Macdonald Carey... Actors who might do a great job, but the second the movie's over you've forgotten about the part already. And given he's the principal character in this movie, that's not a good sign! Sorry to all the Jeffrey Lynn and/or Macdonald Carey fans out there!

Harry Morgan is the name I was most familiar with, as he's got quite the noir resume. He played in films such as 'Moonrise', 'Appointment With Danger' and 'Dark City'. But he's probably most famous for playing Bill Gannon on the late 60's version of the iconic TV series 'Dragnet'. He plays a limp police officer here, who's cane is quite helpful in the movie's climax. Morgan could play these type of tough police officer serious in his sleep, it's always a pleasure to see his face pop up.

When you see the family's son, you'd be forgiven to think it's Billy Chapin who played the kid in 'The Night Of The Hunter'. In fact, it isn't him but his older brother Michael Chapin. The resemblance is uncanny however. And if I'm being honest, based on these 2 movies, Michael was the better (kid) actor between the two them. His character idolizes Webb, making Sam even more uncomfortable whenever Jarvis's death is brought up around the dinner table, as the son reminds him how good of a detective Webb is. It's a nice touch to the movie.

Visually there isn't a lot noirness going on here. The plot is pretty noir for the first half of the movie, but it wraps things too neatly and happily for Sam Wilson at the end... I can't say I was surprised, or even all that disappointed. The movie does move at a nice pace, and it does twist and turn a bit. It's a solid but very minor film noir.

While I doubt many people who saw this movie at the time will remember it, this movie does have a genuine claim to fame. In the season 3 episode 'The Days Dwindle Down' of the iconic TV series 'Murder, She Wrote', 3 of the principal actors of the movie (Jeffrey Lyn, Martha Scott and Harry Morgan) reprise their roles. While the episode retains the basic premise of the movie, and also uses footage from the movie as flashbacks, it does not use the movie's ending. Instead Wilson ended up taking the rap, spending 30 years in prison. And now that he's out, his wife asks Jessica Fletcher to find out what really happened to Jarvis and to finally clear Wilson's name. As with most MSW episodes, it's a lovely episode and using 'Strange Bargain' as well as several of its actors as an integral part of the episode really makes this a standout episode. I highly recommend it!

7-/10

Post Office Investigator (1949)

By the time the 50s were arriving, Poverty Row studios were cranking out 'federal investigator' type movies like clockwork. Most of them can be easily recognized by their title, such as 'Federal Agent At Large' which I reviewed here, 'Customs Agent', 'Insurance Investigator', 'Secret Service Investigator' and 'Western Pacific Agent', all made between 1948 and 1951. Republic probably made the most of these movies, and on average also the best. The previously mentioned and reviewed 'Federal Agent At Large' wasn't one of the better ones, but this one is a good example of why these movies can be a lot of fun.

The movie starts with the following message, which in tone was no different than how a lot of these other movies start out, but somehow it's more comical... You decide:

Stamp collecting is the international hobby of an estimated fifteen million people. Small boys and millionaires pursue it with equal zest, finding in it pleasure, education, and a form of savings.

Collectors, with millions of dollars invested in their hobby, are ever on the lookout for rare and priceless stamps... and so, sometimes, are criminals.

In this case, the criminal is George Zelger (Marcel Journet) who poses as a wealthy stamp collector. He is in cahoots with auction house employee Clara Kelso (Audrey Long) to steal an expensive stamp during an auction. The idea is simple, Clara switches the stamp with a forgery and Zelger's associate mails the real stamp to Zelger's home address. However, Clara's boyfriend has an even better idea, what if they steal the letter before it is picked up by the mailmen, and sell the stamp themselves? That way they can get all the money for themselves rather than only a small cut. So Clara convinces the mailmen collecting the mail to give her back the letter. One of the mailmen, Bill Mannerson (Warren Douglas) tries to get a date with Clara, and she gives him a phoney address. When the police figure out mailing the stamp would be the best way to get it out of the building unnoticed they interrogate the mailmen. Knowing they would lose their job or worse if they explain they gave the letter back, which is against postal regulations, they lie. Instead they decide to check out the address Clara gave for their date and there they find secretary April Shaughnessy (Jeff Donnell). A casual remark by April makes Bill remember the mailing address of the letter they gave back, and they head to Zelger's address who is beginning to suspect Clara double-crossed him...

The movie's plot is more intricate than most of these movies, which tend to be a bit crude plot-wise. Here however, the double-cross Clara pulls off adds some tension and intrigue to the movie. It makes things slightly more complicated with more separate parties involved, and as a result, the movie focuses less, or really hardly at all, on the federal aspect of the investigation, but on Bill, Clara and Zegler. It's a minor thing but it works really well for this movie. It does make the admittedly top-notch poster feel a bit weird however. The toughguy on the left is meant to portray one of the agents investigating the case, but he plays only a minor role in the movie. I can agree with the artist however that his face is far more interesting and rugged than Warren Douglas', but it's Douglas who's the main actor here together with Audrey Long, who is the dame holding the gun in the poster.

Neither Warren Douglas nor Audrey Long are household names, and in the case of Douglas that makes sense. Douglas is too light-weight and milquetoast to be a proper noir leading man, but his casual, inoffensive acting is good enough for these noir-light crime movies. Douglas had a long but unremarkable acting career, but as of 1950 he also found steady work as a screenwriter, both for movies such as the noir 'Cry Vengeance' which he co-wrote and also played a part in, and for TV series such as 'Bonanza'. Audrey Long on the other hand had what it takes to be a noir dame, and she had had her chance already, first in the Lawrence Tierney classic 'Born To Kill', and then co-starring opposite Steve Brodie in 'Desperate', an underrated noir directed by the great Anthony Mann. Her career never really took off tho, and she was stuck playing in B-movies.

But the face that is most familiar to the casual viewer will likely be that of Jeff Donnell, who played one of Humphrey Bogart's friends in the classic noir 'In A Lonely Place' from 1950. Born Jean Marie Donnell, she gave herself the nickname Jeff, and it stuck. She steals every scene she is in with her bumbling and infectious acting. She's got a bit of a 'girl next door' quality to her and looks like she could be Gloria Grahame's more wholesome sister. The two were actually friends in real life, but unlike Grahame and like Long, her career unfortunately never really took off and she was a supporting actress for most of her career.

It should come as no surprise that this movie zips by, it is just shy of an hour long. Director George Blair and director of photography John MacBurnie also worked on the aforementioned 'Fderal Agent At Large' as well as a boatload of other movies. Their professionalism shines through here as well, if you just remember that on Poverty Row professionalism equates to 'getting things done as quickly and as cheaply as possible'. Which is not a bad thing if you're into these no/low budget crime movies like I am! They even manage to make the nighttime scenes, especially those happening inside cars, look pretty noir with a lot of shadows and blocked out parts. The best shot of the movie comes when April is following Clara around after accidentally bumping into her and they're inside a metro station. April keeps an eye on Clara via her make-up mirror, which is visualized quite nicely.

This is not a hidden gem. But it is entertaining and fast-paced, which is not a bad thing. It is a typically well-made, unremarkable but also inoffensive, noir-ish crime movie which came a dime a dozen. And in this case, it's above average. If you have an hour or so to waste, you could do a lot worse than watching this movie.

6+/10

Hell Bound (1957)

'Hell Bound' starts off in a way that was common for docu-noirs and police procedurals of the 50s... With a segment portraying a crime in progress and a voice-over explaining what's going on. However, the segment in this movie goes on for quite long, and the voice-over does not introduce us to the federal agents who will risk their lives to stop these types of crime. Instead, the voice belongs to criminal mastermind John Russell ('Hoodlum Empire'). He made a home-movie detailing his plan to steal narcotics from a ship, so he can pitch it to mobster Frank Fenton ('Bodyguard'). Fenton is impressed and even lets his girl June Blair (Playboy Playmate of January 1957) take the place of Russell's girl Margo Woode ('Somewhere In The Night') as an ambulance nurse, which is part of the plan. Russell goes about finding the right men for the rest of the crew, using murder, death threats and blackmail to get these men on board. But as is always the case, there's no such thing as a perfect plan and of course the heist falls apart...

This is one gritty late 50s noir! Russell plays his character as mean-spirited and intense as possible. The only person he feels any sort of affection for is Woode, but I'm not sure it's genuine affection or if he's just using her while she's useful to him. Russell played mostly in westerns, but he would've made a pretty solid regular had he been offered more opportunities in noirs. The same could be said for Blair, who was just starting her movie career. Possibly due to being a playmate earlier the same year, this is her first big and credited role. And she does really well, I was pleasantly surprised. Her character's easily the most complex one in the movie, and she makes it work. She's quite the sexy femme fatale at the start of the movie, with a foot fetish to boot. But things become more difficult when she starts her job as an ambulance nurse, falling in love with ambulance driver Stuart Whitman ('Johnny Trouble'). As for mobster Fenton, this would be his final movie, he died before the movie opened. Which is perhaps why we see him only in the scene where Russell shows him the home-made movie? In any case, he doesn't have much to do here...

The noirs and crime movies of the 50s aren't particularly known for being lit in the stark way that 40s noirs were. With the advent of TV, movies gradually became brighter lit and day-for-night scenes became more fashionable. This is also the case here for the most part. But first-time movie director William J. Hole Jr. who did mostly TV work and accomplished cinematographer Carl E. Guthrie ('Backfire') do make the movie pretty good to look at, with some nice camera work and interesting shots. And they even manage to bring in some nice noir lighting in the scene where Russell viciously threatens a junkie to play an integral part in his plan inside a darkened room with plenty of noir shadows. The directing and editing is quite good, things move at a quick pace, and the outdoors scenes are very kinetic with plenty of action.

At just over 70 minutes long there's no place for slow filler scenes here. Even the seemingly filler scenes between Blair and Whitman serve a purpose and don't distract. There is also a funny scene where the junkie tries to score some heroin from a milk-drinking dealer who's enjoying a burlesque dance (performced by real-life pin-up model Virginia De Lee). At the end of the scene it turns the dealer's blind! It is a seemingly useless scene, but it establishes the junkie's need for drugs later on in the movie, and by introducing an odd character, it keeps things entertaining. What I also appreciated was the fact that the movie focuses on Russell and the crew, the police don't show up until the final part of the movie. Which is a quite exciting finale! It plays out at a trainyard where abandoned train carts are stacked, and is beautifully shot and staged, with a pretty cool final scene. A tense and brutal finale of a pretty good and gritty heist flick.

7+/10