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Post by topbilled on Jun 28, 2024 16:14:48 GMT
LOL...I did think of saving it for late October. But there is another movie about a witch, Republic's WOMAN WHO CAME BACK (1945) which I will save for Halloween time.
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Post by NoShear on Jun 28, 2024 16:54:13 GMT
LOL...I did think of saving it for late October. But there is another movie about a witch, Republic's WOMAN WHO CAME BACK (1945) which I will save for Halloween time. It will be welcome reading for me, TopBilled... |
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Post by topbilled on Jul 6, 2024 14:52:18 GMT
This film is from 1952.
Twelve o’clock for a man of the west
Gary Cooper gives his second Oscar-winning performance in 1952’s HIGH NOON. He stars as retired Marshal Will Kane, forced to face a killer without help from former deputies and friends.
The script, by writer-producer Carl Foreman, contains a lot of symbolism about conditions surrounding the blacklist. And the events unfolding on screen are supposed to be as closely aligned to real time as possible.
Since the film is 85 minutes, one can assume the story begins at 10:35 a.m. And in early shots where we see Kane about to marry Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly) the clock on the back wall does read 10:35. When the Hadleyville ticket agent receives a telegraph about Frank Miller’s pardon, the clock behind him also says 10:35. We cut back to the wedding, as Kane finishes marrying Amy then learns about Miller. It is now 10:40 going on 10:41.
Kane and Amy head out of town, but he decides to go back and deal with Miller. He looks at his pocket watch. Soon they return to Hadleyville and he puts his badge back on. He looks at the clock, and it is 10:50. This is followed by scenes with Deputy Pell (Lloyd Bridges). Pell and Kane have it out over the choice of a new marshal, and Pell quits in anger. Kane checks the clock again. It’s 11:02.
As the story progresses, there are other shots of clocks around town. At one point, the manager of the hotel fixes the grandfather clock in the lobby. The repeated references to time and Kane mentioning Miller’s arrival to Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado) are meant to generate suspense. Later, when Kane goes into the church to ask for volunteers, we witness conflicting points of view about the impending battle between Kane and Miller. It only adds to the tension.
Also building tension are closeups of various characters in key scenes. Along with more shots of nearby clocks, it becomes clear that time itself is a character too.
Hurrying towards the action-packed climax, there is precious time left, and still nobody will help Will Kane. He knows the street confrontation is inevitable, and he might have to face it alone.
When the showdown finally happens between our hero and the baddies, it is played rather quickly. The shooting is tidy and neatly wrapped up, with no hint of lingering effects. We’re given a sudden, quiet ending which is meant to be thought-provoking. While the screenwriter of HIGH NOON was a blacklisted member of the Hollywood community, most of the actors and technicians were not in danger of unemployment. Was it prestigious for them to be part of such a project, but not be too subversive so they didn’t end up on the blacklist, too?
The story is depicted in a very American genre, the western. I am not sure if the reason the message wasn’t presented as a horror picture in which the marshal was a policeman trying to deal with scared people and aliens is because only certain films in certain genres better lend themselves to artistic and philosophical statements. And Academy Awards.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jul 6, 2024 15:33:06 GMT
High Noon from 1952 with Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges and Otto Kruger
High Noon was written as an allegory denouncing the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigation of communist activities in Hollywood in the late '40s/'50s, but it's one of the great classic movies of all time because it works as a straightforward Western even if you know nothing about HUAC.
Leaving the political battle and baggage of HUAC aside, High Noon is a brilliant piece of filmmaking because its surface appearance of a simple good-versus-evil morality tale is contradicted by the complex underlying moral questions facing almost every one of its characters.
Screenwriter Carl Foreman and director Fred Zinnemann don't give you the full story and background of most of the characters, so just like in real life, the viewers are left to make judgements, or not, based on partial information.
The basic story is clear: On his last day in office, the town's sheriff, played by Gary Cooper, marries his Quaker bride, played by Grace Kelly, and just as the newlyweds are getting set to leave the town for good, a telegram arrives announcing that a convict Cooper had arrested and who had sworn revenge on Cooper was pardoned and is returning to town on the noon train.
The townspeople want Cooper to leave figuring if there's no Cooper, there's no trouble, but once out of town, Cooper realizes he'll have to face the returning convict at some point, so why not in the town where he has friends.
Boom, right there, the simple morality tale gets grey as Cooper isn't returning "to save the town," as much as to have the showdown now and on what he believes will be favorable-to-him turf.
From there we see an incredible amount of grey morality: Cooper's former young deputy, played by Lloyd Bridges - angry at Cooper because he didn't recommend him for the sheriff's position and because those two share a past with the same woman, a Mexican beauty and entrepreneur, played by Katy Jurado - is less than supportive.
Jurado's motives, too, are mixed, as she claims she'd stand by Cooper if he was still "her man," but since that's over (she still has feelings for him, though), she's selling her business and getting out before the trouble starts.
Everyone has a story: the mayor thanks Cooper for cleaning up the town, but sees no need to have this fight now in his town; some townspeople agree, others seem willing to support Cooper, kinda, but of course, everyone has a family to worry about "and who'll take care of them if I'm dead."
The bulk of this classic "morality tale" has Cooper going all over town trying to recruit deputies only to find everyone has his reasons for not signing up, especially if no one else has signed up first. We know Cooper cleaned up this town, but we don't know enough to judge each person's decision.
An entire movie could be devoted to Cooper's Quaker wife's battle of conscience (and kinda is in 1985's Witness) as her religious beliefs against violence are tested in a most-visceral way when her husband is being shot at by cold-blooded killers.
While Cooper and Kelly anchor the film in two outstandingly understated performances, the cast is equally good. Mitchell is recognizable to modern eyes playing a very political mayor, just like Bridges is playing a cocky but immature kid and Jurado is playing a scorned former lover.
Additionally, Harry Morgan, Otto Kruger and others in supporting roles bring a nuance and believability that draw you into this short but powerful movie.
The climactic gun battle (no spoilers coming), just like the rest of the story, has an effective austerity that modern Hollywood would ruin today by turning it into a videogame of violence.
High Noon is a man, a wife, a killer and townspeople all making tough decisions as the clock, hauntingly shown throughout, ticks closer to noon. With a low-budget starkness belying the complex moral questions on full display throughout, High Noon is a classic, in part, because it is neither as easy nor simple a story as it appears to be on the surface.
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Post by NoShear on Jul 6, 2024 23:52:59 GMT
This film is from 1952.
Twelve o’clock for a man of the west
Gary Cooper gives his second Oscar-winning performance in 1952’s HIGH NOON. He stars as retired Marshal Will Kane, forced to face a killer without help from former deputies and friends.
The script, by writer-producer Carl Foreman, contains a lot of symbolism about conditions surrounding the blacklist. And the events unfolding on screen are supposed to be as closely aligned to real time as possible.
Since the film is 85 minutes, one can assume the story begins at 10:35 a.m. And in early shots where we see Kane about to marry Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly) the clock on the back wall does read 10:35. When the Hadleyville ticket agent receives a telegraph about Frank Miller’s pardon, the clock behind him also says 10:35. We cut back to the wedding, as Kane finishes marrying Amy then learns about Miller. It is now 10:40 going on 10:41.
Kane and Amy head out of town, but he decides to go back and deal with Miller. He looks at his pocket watch. Soon they return to Hadleyville and he puts his badge back on. He looks at the clock, and it is 10:50. This is followed by scenes with Deputy Pell (Lloyd Bridges). Pell and Kane have it out over the choice of a new marshal, and Pell quits in anger. Kane checks the clock again. It’s 11:02.
As the story progresses, there are other shots of clocks around town. At one point, the manager of the hotel fixes the grandfather clock in the lobby. The repeated references to time and Kane mentioning Miller’s arrival to Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado) are meant to generate suspense. Later, when Kane goes into the church to ask for volunteers, we witness conflicting points of view about the impending battle between Kane and Miller. It only adds to the tension.
Also building tension are closeups of various characters in key scenes. Along with more shots of nearby clocks, it becomes clear that time itself is a character too.
Hurrying towards the action-packed climax, there is precious time left, and still nobody will help Will Kane. He knows the street confrontation is inevitable, and he might have to face it alone.
When the showdown finally happens between our hero and the baddies, it is played rather quickly. The shooting is tidy and neatly wrapped up, with no hint of lingering effects. We’re given a sudden, quiet ending which is meant to be thought-provoking. While the screenwriter of HIGH NOON was a blacklisted member of the Hollywood community, most of the actors and technicians were not in danger of unemployment. Was it prestigious for them to be part of such a project, but not be too subversive so they didn’t end up on the blacklist, too?
The story is depicted in a very American genre, the western. I am not sure if the reason the message wasn’t presented as a horror picture in which the marshal was a policeman trying to deal with scared people and aliens is because only certain films in certain genres better lend themselves to artistic and philosophical statements. And Academy Awards. I like how you focused on the time(line) element, TopBilled, and the three "A"-ed ending would've no-doubt been met with a nod of agreement from William Peter Blatty. |
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Post by kims on Jul 7, 2024 2:42:41 GMT
My favorite trivia about HIGH NOON: John Wayne denounced the film long and loud. Cooper asked Wayne to accept his Oscar in the event he won. Why? It's harder to be intensely critical if you have a personal connection.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 14, 2024 13:47:51 GMT
This film is from 1942.
Life is a Lubitsch and then you die
Ernst Lubitsch died in 1947 at the age of 55. His romantic comedies still hold up well today. Like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, Lubitsch’s efforts often pushed the boundaries of what was allowed under the production code in Hollywood. One of Lubitsch’s most beloved films is TO BE OR NOT TO BE, a raucous political satire that was filmed in late 1941. It was not released until early 1942, after its lead actress, Carole Lombard, had been killed in a plane crash. Lombard’s last leading man in this motion picture is Jack Benny of all people.
Benny gives a strong performance here; and TO BE OR NOT TO BE is justifiably the one he was most proud of, according to interviews he did late in life. It was the only time he’d worked with Lubitsch, and certainly the only time he’d worked with Lombard on screen. It’s definitely an “A” film. Some of Benny’s movie assignments, the more forgettable stuff, would be considered “B” films today. Though all his movies received favorable publicity on his radio show.
One of TO BE OR NOT TO BE’s strongest aspects is Lubitsch’s sly way of telling us that political “reality” can be manipulated. There’s an assortment of characters, so not all of the action is focused on the lead stars who play members of an acting troupe in war torn Europe. Sometimes the characters work as a team, and sometimes they work at cross-purposes.
While watching the film, I sometimes wondered if this was a funny drama or a serious comedy. It’s not exactly a comedy-drama. But Lombard probably plays it more comically than dramatic. As for the gags involving Benny, some of that might’ve worked better on radio than on the screen. In addition to the gags, there are various disguises that the characters use to fool others. To be honest I found the use of disguises a bit overdone. Maybe this sort of monkey business would have worked better in a Marx brothers film.
Costar Robert Stack plays the third part of a romantic triangle with Lombard and Benny. In 1940, Stack had played a young Nazi in MGM’s classic war drama THE MORTAL STORM. Stack is such a nice looking guy who played a variety of roles in his long career.
Incidentally, the film wasn’t a huge hit when it was released in early ’42. What plays out on screen is more of a romp than a story designed to arrive at a happy and moral ending, so it probably left wartime viewers a bit cold. A lot of Hollywood productions in the early 1940s were meant to evoke certain feelings of patriotism and basically generate conditioned responses. But TO BE OR NOT TO BE doesn’t exactly work that way.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jul 14, 2024 14:29:56 GMT
I wrote the below comment a few years ago.
 To Be or Not to Be from 1942 with Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Lionel Atwill and Felix Bressart
To Be or Not to Be pushes farce as far as it can go without breaking, making this WWII propaganda film mocking Hitler and Nazism a goofy but fun-enough romp.
Carole Lombard and Jack Benny play a famous Polish husband-and-wife acting duo who are working on a satirical play about Hitler when Poland is invaded by Germany in 1939.
In response and for very obvious reasons, the acting troupe shelves the project. Also in response, a young Polish military pilot and, now, resistance fighter, played by Robert Stack, who is an admirer of Lombard, and who drove husband Benny crazy with jealousy, escapes to England to fight for Poland.
Once there, Stack gives names of the Polish underground to "Professor Siletsky'' who is believed to be part of the Polish resistance. However, it is later learned he is a Nazi informant now back in Poland and about to expose the entire Polish resistance network to the Nazis.
Stack parachutes into Poland to stop Siletsky from giving the names of the resistance members over to the Germans. Once in Poland, Stack teams up with Lombard, Benny (who's still jealous) and the acting troupe.
From here, the movie is a series of pretty funny mix ups as the acting troupe uses its professional skills to masquerade as Nazis to stop Siletsky. It's a series of scenes of who are the real Nazis, who is the real Siletsky, whose beard is real, who has the "list of names," and on and on as the troupe tries to save the underground from exposure.
At times, the troupe tries to fool Siletsky into thinking he's turning over his information to the Nazis when it's really the acting troupe posing as Nazis. The troupe also makes Benny up to look like Siletsky so that he can give false information to the real Nazis. Several iterations of both charades take place in rapid-fire succession.
The real fun in this one is not so much the plot, which is less confusing than it sounds, than all the mocking of Hitler and the Nazis - exaggerated salutes, insane goose stepping, a fake Hitler popping up in silly places, etc.
Farce is tough to pull off as it can easily spiral into nonsense, but sharp writing, strong acting (if you only know the later Jack Benny, you'll be impressed with him here) and crisp directing from Ernst Lubitsch keeps To Be or Not to Be sailing along at a good clip without becoming completely absurd.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 27, 2024 14:29:10 GMT
This film is from 1955.
Prey to God
A lot has been said about this being Charles Laughton’s first and only effort as a film director. It’s also been said, depending on whose version you believe, that Robert Mitchum directed scenes and “replaced” Laughton during a few days on set. But while I believe Laughton’s stamp is on nearly every frame, visually and performance-wise, I feel the story’s authorship belongs to James Agee.
During the 1940s Agee made a name for himself as an outspoken film critic. The best critics probably become filmmakers (see Francois Truffaut), having decided they know what goes into making a decent motion picture. Agee would not only write the script for HUNTER, he also wrote a novel based on his father’s death. Agee is primarily responsible for the main vision of this film because despite using other source material, he shaped the ideas that were put on to the page…ideas that found their way on to the screen.
Laughton, Mitchum, the other actors and the cinematographer were of course interpreting Agee’s ideas. The central idea is that children who are without a legitimate father are vulnerable and need protecting. This connects with Agee’s novel, since that also deals with children (and a mother) cast adrift by unforeseen circumstances.
In some ways HUNTER plays like a gothic children’s fairytale. The exaggerated archetypes are likely Laughton’s key contribution. The audience wants the children to reach a point of safety, and the children eventually do. However, I cannot help but feel the ending is a bit too syrupy for the edification of viewers.
There are some rather brutal sequences earlier in the movie, especially the part where Willa the mother (Shelley Winters) is killed and then ends up at the bottom of a lake.
There are also chilling scenes of the kids hiding in the basement from their dangerous stepfather (Mitchum), and scenes with them on the run. It’s them against the world.
Suddenly they meet a kindly woman (Lillian Gish) whose angel-like qualities mean salvation. The kids will now be protected and nobody will harm them again. It’s a little too good to be true, and those last few scenes seem like they belong to another movie. Was this due to the production code, or due to the producers’ wish to make the product more commercially viable?
The story might have been stronger if the kids hadn’t survived. If it had been a teaching point about what happens when latchkey children are not properly looked after. There are youngsters in our society who do not have happy endings.
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Post by NoShear on Jul 28, 2024 16:37:04 GMT
This film is from 1955.
Prey to God
A lot has been said about this being Charles Laughton’s first and only effort as a film director. It’s also been said, depending on whose version you believe, that Robert Mitchum directed scenes and “replaced” Laughton during a few days on set. But while I believe Laughton’s stamp is on nearly every frame, visually and performance-wise, I feel the story’s authorship belongs to James Agee.
During the 1940s Agee made a name for himself as an outspoken film critic. The best critics probably become filmmakers (see Francois Truffaut), having decided they know what goes into making a decent motion picture. Agee would not only write the script for HUNTER, he also wrote a novel based on his father’s death. Agee is primarily responsible for the main vision of this film because despite using other source material, he shaped the ideas that were put on to the page…ideas that found their way on to the screen.
Laughton, Mitchum, the other actors and the cinematographer were of course interpreting Agee’s ideas. The central idea is that children who are without a legitimate father are vulnerable and need protecting. This connects with Agee’s novel, since that also deals with children (and a mother) cast adrift by unforeseen circumstances.
In some ways HUNTER plays like a gothic children’s fairytale. The exaggerated archetypes are likely Laughton’s key contribution. The audience wants the children to reach a point of safety, and the children eventually do. However, I cannot help but feel the ending is a bit too syrupy for the edification of viewers.
There are some rather brutal sequences earlier in the movie, especially the part where Willa the mother (Shelley Winters) is killed and then ends up at the bottom of a lake.
There are also chilling scenes of the kids hiding in the basement from their dangerous stepfather (Mitchum), and scenes with them on the run. It’s them against the world.
Suddenly they meet a kindly woman (Lillian Gish) whose angel-like qualities mean salvation. The kids will now be protected and nobody will harm them again. It’s a little too good to be true, and those last few scenes seem like they belong to another movie. Was this due to the production code, or due to the producers’ wish to make the product more commercially viable?
The story might have been stronger if the kids hadn’t survived. If it had been a teaching point about what happens when latchkey children are not properly looked after. There are youngsters in our society who do not have happy endings. TopBilled, your review title reminded me of the following one for an episode of THE GREEN HORNeT:  |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 1, 2024 13:49:09 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
She travels north to Canada and her whole life changes
The first time I found out about this film I was looking at a list of United Artists releases of the 40s. When I reached the end of the list, from December 1949, there was a title called MRS. MIKE starring Dick Powell & Evelyn Keyes. I thought it was an interesting sounding title.
Since I enjoyed watching Powell and Keyes in the Columbia crime flick JOHNNY O’CLOCK, I decided to seek this one out. Of course, what I didn’t know is that MRS. MIKE is based on a bestselling romance novel, and the main storyline is about as far from noir as you can get. But that only increases my admiration of these two stars who proved they could adapt to different genres.
Keyes plays the title character, a woman from Boston who travels north to Canada to visit a family member. While staying with her uncle in Alberta, she meets a Canadian Mountie played by Powell. Theirs is a whirlwind courtship. They have quickly fallen in love and soon marry. After the wedding, Keyes will venture even further north with her new husband, since he has been sent to a very remote post to begin a new work assignment.
In this region of frozen tundra, Keyes learns to deal with many hardships that involve the most difficult living conditions a person might face in such an unforgiving climate. The movie also depicts scenes of illness and tragedy. One thing that especially stands out is a scene where Keyes gives birth; she rarely played a mother on screen, often typecast as sexy ingenues and femme fatales.
Keyes and Powell are excellent together, so relaxed and in sync– I totally believe they are a married couple as the story plays out on screen. The occasional bleakness of the cold northern Canadian wilderness contrasts with the warm relationship these two share. Part of what keeps the film grounded in reality is that they seem genuine in their interactions, which offsets the fact that some of the dramatic situations are slightly contrived. But to the story’s credit, a few things are left unresolved, and not all the people they meet are exactly wholesome (which is how life and people sometimes are).
In case it gets too serious, there are light moments. At one point, Powell has a scene where he sings, which he had stopped doing when he made all those crime films in the mid-1940s. Another good thing is that a lot of unknowns are in the cast, so the supporting cast seem like real people– which helps Keyes and Powell deliver a much more sincere performance.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 17, 2024 15:44:08 GMT
This neglected film is from 1954.
“They’d never believe you.”
When you watch WITNESS TO MURDER you are witnessing the acting talent of a great movie star. Barbara Stanwyck was coming off a divorce and some ‘A’ budget films at MGM and 20th Century Fox that kept the money rolling in along with alimony payments from Robert Taylor. She wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel as one of the big screen’s leading ladies; not quite ready for the weekly grind of a television series.
Here she plays slightly against type as a fairly tough woman whose sanity is called into question when she can’t sleep one night and witnesses a murder (hence the title) by neighbor George Sanders. The gripping opening sequence where the killing occurs is filled with interesting noir compositions by cinematographer John Alton.
In some ways that voyeuristic look at death is similar to what happens when Jimmy Stewart is a witness to depraved crime in REAR WINDOW, which was released just after this picture. Or the opening sequence in MURDER SHE SAID where Margaret Rutherford’s Jane Marple watches the strangulation and death of a woman in a passing train. In the Agatha Christie story the police also don’t believe the woman and suggest she may have been observing sexual horseplay.
In this film there is nothing very sexy about George Sanders’ Nazi character offing a pretty woman. Though we are told a bit later into the story that her body is found nude in a city park. Did he get a thrill pulling her clothes off before putting her in a truck, then driving to the park and dumping her on public land for vultures, other sickos and police to find? The production code doesn’t quite let the story go too far in that direction.
Instead the focus remains mostly on Stanwyck’s character, an interior designer, whose ability to distinguish between fact and fiction is continually called into question. Sanders knows she knows what the police don’t fully suspect. As a result, he is forced to gaslight her to destroy any credibility she has in case the police ever consider listening to her version of events.
Of course she is too smart for him to get away with it, but 1950s society and handsome cops like Gary Merrill don’t exactly value the opinion, emotions or sheer intelligence of successful females. If these gals cry murder, then surely they must be dotty or unhinged or simply mistaken.
Perhaps the best scene is the bit where Stanwyck is sent to a mental hospital for 48 hours of analysis. She is in bed while the other women in the room go completely bonkers around her. Stanwyck has virtually no dialogue in that scene, the guest characters get to do all the heavy lifting. She doesn’t ham up her reactions to them; and they don’t go too overboard in depicting the various forms of mental illness.
One thing especially good about that scene is there is a multigenerational sense of women in trouble, with them ranging in age from a bit younger than Stanwyck to middle aged and elderly. Plus there is ethnic diversity as one of the loony birds is African American, suggesting that any woman from any segment of society can wind up there.
Of course we know Stanwyck is actually sane— and Sanders is the real insane one. Stanwyck will be rescued in the end, when it looks like Sanders may succeed in killing her and making it look like suicide off the edge of a high rise development. As she struggles against him at the top of the construction site, Merrill and other cops race up to save her and prevent Sanders from getting away with the perfect crime.
He is guilty of using the pain of women for his twisted satisfaction. And he is guilty of sneering vociferously at Stanwyck for 83 minutes. For that, they should lock him up and throw away the key forever.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Aug 31, 2024 18:33:51 GMT
I enjoyed TopBilled's review and FadingFast's review. I saw the film for the first time a couple days ago.
Shield for Murder (1954)
Directors: Howard W. Koch, Edmond O'Brien
Writers: William P. McGivern, Richard Alan Simmons, John C. Higgins, Richard Alan Simmons
Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Marla English, John Agar
Production: Camden Production Inc.
Sometimes I really enjoy a film in which the murder happens right up front. Now you know whodunnit, and you're left wondering, "Why'd he do that?"
This is exactly how it happens in Shield for Murder (1954). Because the crime happens right away, the viewer is invested in the story in the first thirty seconds. When we learn just a couple of minutes later that the killer is also a cop, well, hang onto your popcorn 'cause now we got a story!
Police detective Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) murders a bookmaker's money runner for the cash. He believes he's covered his tracks, but a witness will soon surface, giving him one more loose end to tie up. Clearly nervous about the police investigation into the crime, Nolan believes he is successfully steering suspicions in a direction that will leave him in the clear. His nervousness does not go unnoticed by his partner, Mark Brewster (John Agar) however, and Brewster begins to think Nolan is hiding something.
Nolan commits his crime in order to afford a new house for himself and Patty (Marla English), whom he intends to wed. He is fiercely protective of her in a borderline oppressive manner, and witnessing this aspect of Nolan's personality helps inform viewers about his flaws. Though Patty loves Barney, one wonders if he is good for her. When Barney spends time with the bar pickup*, Beth (Carolyn Jones), it is made clear that he definitely is not for the wide-eyed Patty, and it is plain to see that Nolan is probably non-rehabilitative and must go down for his crime.
Desperate and alone, Nolan makes a run for it to collect the cash from the hiding place he'd found for it at the model house he'd visited with Patty. The blatant irony that the "model home" is the last thing Nolan would have been able to provide is an excellent place to bring Nolan's run, the subsequent chase, and the film to a close.
Shield for Murder was O'Brien's directorial debut, and it is compact and straight forward. All of the cast turn in B+ work in this UA B-film, but I award extra gold stars to Carolyn Jones for tramping it up, and to Claude Akins for the incredible amount of smarm he's able to achieve in so few minutes on screen. The film is definitely worth eighty-two minutes of your time.
*I've been in enough dive bars to know a bar-hide when I see one, and I'm looking at you, Beth.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 31, 2024 20:31:25 GMT
I enjoyed TopBilled's review and FadingFast's review. I saw the film for the first time a couple days ago.
Shield for Murder (1954)
Directors: Howard W. Koch, Edmond O'Brien
Writers: William P. McGivern, Richard Alan Simmons, John C. Higgins, Richard Alan Simmons
Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Marla English, John Agar
Production: Camden Production Inc.
Sometimes I really enjoy a film in which the murder happens right up front. Now you know whodunnit, and you're left wondering, "Why'd he do that?"
This is exactly how it happens in Shield for Murder (1954). Because the crime happens right away, the viewer is invested in the story in the first thirty seconds. When we learn just a couple of minutes later that the killer is also a cop, well, hang onto your popcorn 'cause now we got a story!
Police detective Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) murders a bookmaker's money runner for the cash. He believes he's covered his tracks, but a witness will soon surface, giving him one more loose end to tie up. Clearly nervous about the police investigation into the crime, Nolan believes he is successfully steering suspicions in a direction that will leave him in the clear. His nervousness does not go unnoticed by his partner, Mark Brewster (John Agar) however, and Brewster begins to think Nolan is hiding something.
Nolan commits his crime in order to afford a new house for himself and Patty (Marla English), whom he intends to wed. He is fiercely protective of her in a borderline oppressive manner, and witnessing this aspect of Nolan's personality helps inform viewers about his flaws. Though Patty loves Barney, one wonders if he is good for her. When Barney spends time with the bar pickup*, Beth (Carolyn Jones), it is made clear that he definitely is not for the wide-eyed Patty, and it is plain to see that Nolan is probably non-rehabilitative and must go down for his crime.
Desperate and alone, Nolan makes a run for it to collect the cash from the hiding place he'd found for it at the model house he'd visited with Patty. The blatant irony that the "model home" is the last thing Nolan would have been able to provide is an excellent place to bring Nolan's run, the subsequent chase, and the film to a close.
Shield for Murder was O'Brien's directorial debut, and it is compact and straight forward. All of the cast turn in B+ work in this UA B-film, but I award extra gold stars to Carolyn Jones for tramping it up, and to Claude Akins for the incredible amount of smarm he's able to achieve in so few minutes on screen. The film is definitely worth eighty-two minutes of your time.
*I've been in enough dive bars to know a bar-hide when I see one, and I'm looking at you, Beth.
But I think the real story we want to know about is the one behind this line, "I've been in enough dive bars to know a bar-hide when I see one, and I'm looking at you, Beth."
We're ready to listen anytime you're read to tell. 
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Post by BunnyWhit on Aug 31, 2024 20:54:09 GMT
Your excellent review reminded me of how much I like this movie.
But I think the real story we want to know about is the one behind this line, "I've been in enough dive bars to know a bar-hide when I see one, and I'm looking at you, Beth."
We're ready to listen anytime you're read to tell.
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