What classics did you see last week ? (15 Sep- 21 Sep 2019)

Nocturne / Edwin L. Marin (1946). RKO Radio Pictures. Police Lieutenant Joe Warne (George Raft) is convinced (without any evidence) that the suicide of pop song writer Keith Vincent was really murder. Vincent was serial lover and then brutal dumper of beautiful, all of whom he called Dolores – that is, until one of them, Warne believes, shot him in the temple. Getting the victim’s fingerprints on the gun is easy but, if Vincent was murdered, why is there powder residue on his hands? How did any potential killer manage that? Warne works so hard at proving all the evidence wrong that he gets a suspension, but goes on investigating anyway. The main suspect is Frances Ransom (Lynn Bari) whose picture is missing from the dead man’s gallery of former girlfriends. Frances also has a younger sister (Virginia Huston, film debut) a night club singer, who might know something , as well. Huston is best known as Robert Mitchum’s “good” girlfriend in “Out Of The Past.” The cinematographer is Harry J. Wild (Cornered, The Woman On The Beach, Pitfall) who provides the requisite shadowy lighting. Script is by Jonathan Latimer who provides some witty and snappy dialog. George Raft strides through in his usual robotic style, but even he gets into the spirit a time or two. One of the ideas that Raft actually went for (he was usually so contrary) was that his tough-guy cop still lived at home with his mother (Mabel Paige). At one point he asks her, “Would you mind if I married a murderess?” Mom replies, “No, I don’t mind, as long as she’s a good girl.”





Sierra / Alfred E. Green. (1950). Universal International Pictures. Very Early Audie. First a little background. Audie Murphy had returned from WWII as the most decorated combat soldier of the war, but he had no profession. He got small roles in two movies but his career stalled after that. His breakthrough was as a juvenile delinquent in “Bad Boy” (1949), a production financed in part by The Variety Clubs of America who ran a ranch for delinquent boys where Audie’s younger brother was a resident. He was impressive enough to get a lead in a full-color western, “The Kid from Texas” (1950) which began his rise as a western hero star, a genre he mostly stuck with until his death almost 20 years later. “Sierra” was his second western following “The Kid from Texas” but is a rather weak effort. Ring Hassard (Murphy) and his father Jeff (Dean Jagger) live an isolated existence high up in the mountains. One day Ring runs across a young woman who had become lost. This was Riley Martin (top-billed Wanda Hendrix). Before Ring agrees to return her to civilization, she comes to know the two men and they become fond of her. She learns that Jeff has been wanted for 15 years for a murder he did not commit, which explains their lonely life. Taking Riley into town, Ring is accused of horse stealing and other crimes when it is discovered that he is the son of Jeff Hassard. Helping out the Hassards is another hermit known just as Lonesome (Burl Ives). Ives sings the theme song and a few other ditties along the way. In spite of a few good set-pieces e.g. Ring saves Riley’s life by shooting rattlesnake poison out of her arm (don’t ask questions), but the story mainly just plods along until the exciting finale of the hundred head horse stampede with some hard riding to turn them and stop them. The cinematographer of some beautiful Utah scenery was the already experienced Russell Metty but who went on to shoot such films as “Touch Of Evil,” “Spartacus,” “Midnight Lace,” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Wanda Hendrix and Audie Murphy were married at the time of the shoot but their marriage was already on the rocks due mainly to Murphy’s PTSD which triggered violent episodes where he threatened her life. This was also the last film of the great Irish actress Sara Allgood. With Tony Curtis and James Arness is small roles. For a more forward looking theme, Riley turns out to have a law degree like her father – she wants to defend Ring and Jeff - but is stymied and laughed out for her ambition. She turns out to be the one who clears them both.





Kansas Raiders / Ray Enright (1950). Universal International. The third Audie Murphy western; it followed “Sierra.” Young Jesse James (Audie Murphy), his brother Frank James (Richard Long), their friends James Younger (Dewey Martin), his brother Cole Younger (James Best), and Kit Dalton (Tony Curtis) ride into Kansas looking for the camp of William Quantrill, leader of a guerrilla band that supports the Confederacy in Kansas during the Civil War. This morally ambiguous set-up gives us a pro-Confederacy hero looking to fight a rear action diversion but has mixed feeling when Quantrill’s raids fall on civilian homesteads and cities with looting and wanton killing instead of opposing military units. Quantrill as played by Brian Donlevy is clearly delusional, imagining that the Union will be stopped at the Mississippi, Quantrill with join with Lee and the Confederacy will win. Jesse is repelled with Quantrill’s methods but sticks with him all the same. The moral ambiguity sticks with Hollywood as well as the movie’s characters as fighters for the Confederate South are still at this time portrayed as honorable people with a noble cause. Good performances from Donlevy, Audie Murphy and Marguerite Chapman as Quantrill’s woman. Richard Long and Dewey Martin don’t impress as stone killers. Tony Curtis – who appears in this film as well as “Sierra” – is never anything but a New Yorker. Whenever he opens his mouth, you think, “Hey, that’s Bernie Schwartz from the Bronx.” Overall, maybe one of Audie’s best.








The Phenix City Story / Phil Karlson (1955). Allied Artists Pictures. In the mid-1950s the Alabama community of Phenix City (did they not know how to spell “Phoenix”?) got a national reputation as a wide-open city controlled by organized crime. In 1954, the voters of Alabama elected a Phenix City resident, Albert Patterson, to be the state Attorney General. He ran on a promise to clean up Phenix City, but before he could take office he was murdered. This resulted in the city falling under martial law for a time. The film, rushed into production while the story was still in the public’s mind, rachets up the violence to a pitch that did not really reflect what really happened. One shocker that I did not expect in a movie of this age was a shot of the body of a dead child about 6, eyes open and staring, that had been flung from a car onto the Patterson’s lawn. This is one of the most explicitly violent films of the 1950s. Even though it would take another 14 years to end the Production Code, by 1955 cracks where starting to appear in the Code’s power over the studios. Acting, however, is at a high level. John McIntire stars as Albert Patterson, a lawyer who is happy with just letting things go on as they have been. Trying to change his mind is his lawyer son John (Richard Kiley) who is just back from military duty prosecuting Nazi war criminals. Meanwhile, the mob boss (Edward Andrews) openly strolls down the sidewalk cheerfully greeting everyone he meets. But his gang of thugs led by Clem Williams (John Larch) is there to terrorize anyone who speaks out. A noir must-see.