Neglected film: MURDER ON A BRIDLE PATH (1936)

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“You know, don’t you— you know everything.”

A killer corners amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers near the end of this film, accusing her of knowing everything about the two murders that have been committed. She can’t deny she does, for despite being a relative novice at solving crimes of this nature, Hildegarde has good instincts and is usually able to deduce things most do not. Of course, her knowledge of such things often puts her life in mortal danger. That’s where police Inspector Piper comes in, to help bail her out of a jam. They’re a remarkable duo.

This was RKO’s fourth installment of the popular mystery series based on bestselling novels by crime writer Stuart Palmer. In the previous three outings Hildegarde was played by character actress Edna May Oliver, and the role was a bit more uppity. She was still depicted in her original milieu, that of a spinster schoolteacher. But now she is branching out, and she’s much more directly involved with aiding the criminal investigations of the local police, headed up by Inspector Oscar Piper. 

James Gleason would portray Oscar in all of RKO’s installments. There were six all told— the first three with Oliver, this production with Helen Broderick, plus two more with ZaSu Pitts. Fans of the series usually favor Oliver’s portrayal, but I favor Broderick’s. The main reason is because I don’t think her version of the character is competing so much with the cops. Instead, we see her assisting police efforts in a roundabout way. Plus, Broderick is not as rigid in her line deliveries as Oliver; her down-to-earth wisecracks are perfectly played, giving her a smart but relatable quality.

In a way, it’s a shame that Broderick only had this one chance to play the character. The next Hildegarde, Pitts’ version, is way too quirky for my liking. The role is meant to be sardonic, and mildly comical, but not so funny that we forget about the seriousness of the deaths that are occurring on screen. 

In MURDER ON A BRIDLE PATH, the deaths are rather gruesome. A debutante is killed on a horse one day in Central Park; later, her ex-father-in-law is hanged by the feet. These are horrible killings, and as Hildegarde digs deeper, we learn that there is actually a very sad motive behind it all.

L’ANGELO BIANCO – THE WHITE ANGEL (1955)

One man and two different women

The most well-known collaborations between Italian heartthrob Amedeo Nazzari and starlet Yvonne Sanson are I FIGLI DI NESSUNO (NOBODY’S CHILDREN) from 1952 and its sequel L’ANGELO BIANCO (THE WHITE ANGEL) from 1955. Interestingly, a sequel had not originally been planned, so the two stars went off and made some other films during the intervening period. 

But then director Raffaello Matarazzo was persuaded to craft a sequel, even though Sanson’s character had jilted Nazzari at the end of NOBODY’S CHILDREN to become a nun after the sad death of their illegitimate son. Yes, in Italian cinema when the characters’ passions are denied, they must suffer-suffer-suffer.

So how was Matarazzo going to reunite them on screen in a sequel if Sanson could no longer be with Nazzari romantically, since her character had become a nun? They couldn’t have her give up her religious vocation, because that would distress faithful Catholic moviegoers.

So Matarazzo put his thinking cap on, and he came up with a very clever solution. It was a solution that predated what Alfred Hitchcock did a few years later with Kim Novak’s character in VERTIGO. He decided to give Sanson a new second role.

In L’ANGELO BIANCO, Nazzari’s character is still reeling from the death of his son and is still struggling with not being able to reconcile with Sanson’s nun character. So he takes a trip across country. While traveling on a train, he comes across an attractive doppelgänger (Sanson) for whom he develops an unhealthy obsession. It’s certainly similar to the relationship between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in VERTIGO, which may suggest Hitchcock had seen Matarazzo’s movie and borrowed the idea.

As L’ANGELO BIANCO’s doppelgänger plot unspools, we learn that Sanson’s new character is the complete opposite of the nun, about as unholy as they come…using this man’s fixation with her to great advantage. Meanwhile, in other scenes, Sanson is still playing the nun, who helps out in a women’s prison…which, you guessed it, is where the evil double is sentenced for her crimes.

I don’t want to give away the ending of L’ANGELO BIANCO but Sanson does such a tremendous job with this unique double plot…you truly do believe these are two very different women. When they cross paths at the prison, things get a bit more complex and incredibly melodramatic.

The success of L’ANGELO BIANCO– considered a highpoint in the careers of Matarazzo, Sanson and Nazzari– meant there would be a few more follow-ups before the decade was over.

Neglected film: LOVE LETTERS (1945)

Love followed to the letter

A lot can be said for romantic films of the 1940s, especially ones made at the end of the war. In this Paramount classic, the focus is on a soldier’s ability to readjust to life on the home front. It features two of David Selznick’s stars (and probably a lot of his input). Joseph Cotten plays the soldier who is thrust into an uncertain future when he goes back to England after international battles end. Of course he quickly discovers there are newer types of battles, and they rage inside his heart.

He is deeply connected to Victoria Morland (Jennifer Jones), a girl he wrote letters to while he was away. In a clever psychological reworking of Rostand’s ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ screenwriter Ayn Rand shows us Cotten has written the letters on behalf of another, less poetic, war buddy. When Cotten goes home, he learns the buddy died but not until after the guy had married Victoria. All did not go well in the marriage, because the other man was a phony, not the one she had fallen in love with while Cotten was pouring out his innermost feelings from somewhere in Italy.

Rand’s script relies on more than one coincidence to bring it all together. After Cotten has been mustered out, he goes to a party and meets a girl named Singleton. She just so happens to be the widowed Victoria, but she became an amnesiac when her husband was fatally stabbed.

We learn in a very skillfully photographed flashback how she went on trial and was found guilty, though she had no recollection of the killing or about herself. At first Cotten doesn’t know Singleton is the girl who received his letters, and then when he does find out, it becomes a matter of her realizing who she is and how her whole being is connected with his. But before we get to the resolution, she is prone to fits of hysteria.

Critics of the day were not too kind to the film, but audiences loved it. It became a huge hit for the studio and its stars. Jennifer Jones, on the heels of her Oscar triumph for SONG OF BERNADETTE, received another nomination. In particular Bosley Crowther found fault with her performance, calling it fatuous (silly or contrived). I would agree with Crowther to a point, but only when Jones is trying to show the girlish innocence of the character.

I think the dramatic scenes, where she has to summon more adult courage and a wiser perspective, are exemplary. Cotten for his part is fairly solid, though I don’t think he totally invests himself in the material. And Cecil Kellaway does an outstanding job as the caretaker of the house; so does Ann Richards who plays a well-meaning friend of the couple.

While it is not a perfect film, it succeeds in combining the terrifying elements of post-war readjustment– not only for the men who are returning, but also the women they return to. Both main characters in the story have a duality that puts them on a mutual path of healing. Like Rostand’s Cyrano, the mask has to come off and love has to be followed to the letter.

Neglected film: TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949)

Too late to be remorseful

In this twisted noir, one of the genre’s darkest, Lizabeth Scott delivers one of her most riveting performances as the deadliest of all femme fatales. Put her with Dan Duryea, known for playing some of noir’s most dangerous men, and you have a gripping motion picture. The screenplay is based on a serialized magazine story written by Roy Huggins, who was still cranking out these yarns in the 1970s with The Rockford Files and in the 1980s with Hunter.

It isn’t that Miss Scott’s character isn’t soft or feminine. But she’s become so corrupted and lost any sense of decency that anyone who gets in her way had better watch out. In previous noir pictures Scott was a touch more delicate and vulnerable, especially in the 1948 offering PITFALL. However, she has shed any of the sympathetic traits she might exhibit for this role. Ultimately, we have a hard woman whose actions are so vile at times, the only way the production code will be satisfied is for her to suffer a horrible death at the end. Before she dies, she does a lot of harm to the ones closest to her.

The plot hinges mostly on a bag of cash, which functions more like a MacGuffin. We don’t really care about the amount of money or why the money’s in the bag, and whom it was originally intended for. Instead, we are focused on Scott coming upon the money, coveting it and scheming to hold on to it.

This leads to her killing her husband (Arthur Kennedy) when he opts to turn the dough into the police. After that, we see her become involved with a blackmailer (Duryea) who has a connection to the money. He’s a guy with crooked ideas of his own.

Into the mix there is a kind-hearted sister-in-law (Kristine Miller) who is interested in finding out what happened to her brother (Kennedy). And there is a mysterious man (Don DeFore) who seems to be investigating another killing, concerning the death of a man from Scott’s past. It’s a rather intricate web as far as these things go. And of course, Scott’s tour-de-force acting is what holds it all together.

One thing I especially like about TOO LATE FOR TEARS, which I think gets overlooked by almost everyone who watches the film and comments on it, is how there is actually a double plot. The second arc involves the love story that develops between DeFore and Miller. This enables a very dark film noir to ironically have a happy ending. It’s a rare instance where the supporting characters eventually become the main characters at the end.

About midway through the pic’s running time, we start rooting for DeFore and Miller as a couple. We know Scott and Duryea will get what’s coming to them, but we also want the couple in love to get what they deserve, and that’s a future with each other. So on two very different levels, this independent production from Hunt Stromberg and director Byron Haskin delivers the goods.

Neglected film: TENNESSEE CHAMP (1954)

That old time boxing religion

This is a feel-good sports drama from the folks at MGM. You know it’s a feel-good movie by the amount of harmonica music that plays on the soundtrack. It certainly is catchy. The set design takes the viewer back to simpler days, evoking a sense of nostalgia with keen attention to period detail. As always, we have the studio’s usually strong production values helping to make this a worthwhile motion picture.

I was particularly impressed with Dewey Martin as a boxer who fights and wins because the Lord is in his corner. Martin had previously played a pug in a noir called THE GOLDEN GLOVES STORY (1950). In both flicks he is a lean fighting machine, if not exactly mean enough to be out for blood.

Of course, Martin is not the world’s greatest actor, but he brings a fresh-faced sincerity to the role. It’s required for a story of this type to be believable, especially since his character is a fervent Christian (a man named Daniel),  placed in an arena that seems like a den of thieves.

Keenan Wynn plays his initially unscrupulous manager, the greatest thief of them all. Off to the side is Earl Holliman, portraying a fighter turned assistant who becomes friends with Martin. And Shelley Winters is on hand as Wynn’s wife. She and Wynn are perfect together, and their on-going banter is easily a highlight of the film.

We know the characters in this story are all going to come to the Lord before the final fadeout, or at least experience some sort of personal transformation. That’s the main reason Martin is in everyone’s life, and the main reason the filmmakers are even telling this story.

As such, there are some good conversion scenes that are not as heavy-handed as I expected them to be. We do have a few religious services with preaching. It’s not ELMER GANTRY level traveling religion, but there are occasional hallelujahs and amens from the crowd. What’s more important is how Wynn, Winters and Holliman react to these spiritual demonstrations.

It causes them to be introspective, and this is meaningful for everyone, especially for Holliman who is defined as being none too bright. It’s interesting to see them all grapple with their consciences and grow as human beings. For 73 minutes, something positive has happened to this group on screen; and I’d like to believe it’s been just as good for the viewer.

Neglected film: THE DIVORCE OF LADY X (1938)

Romantic intrigue taken to farcical extremes

THE DIVORCE OF LADY X was released in North America by United Artists and was made by Alexander Korda’s London Films company. It boasts impressive Technicolor as well as elegant costuming and sets. It’s safe to say many films in 1938 were not this technically advanced. It had an American director (Tim Whelan), so its humor seems to translate well. Plus the cast was already becoming known in Hollywood productions– a group which includes Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon and Binnie Barnes.

Olivier and Oberon would soon pair up again for a completely different type of film– Samuel Goldwyn’s adaptation of WUTHERING HEIGHTS. But in this picture, they are playing characters and a scenario that is about as far from Bronte as you can possibly imagine.

It’s a shame Oberon wasn’t photographed more often in color during the 1930s and 1940s, when she was at her peak. Her complexion is absolutely flawless. And despite excessive dialogue, the scenes do move quick enough, thanks to the actress’s spirited line deliveries and her obvious chemistry with Olivier.

Originally, third-billed Binnie Barnes played Oberon’s role in the first screen version of this story. It was called COUNSEL’S OPINION and hit screens five years earlier. Barnes proves how versatile a performer she is, relinquishing the lead and taking a supporting character part in this remake. In addition to Barnes’ presence in the two films, Korda makes sure both versions were given big budgets.

As for Olivier, he’s quite charming in THE DIVORCE OF LADY X. He plays a divorce attorney who meets a lovely costume ball attendee (Oberon). They innocently share a room for one evening; but the next morning, things do not seem so innocent when he is led to believe she’s married to his client (Ralph Richardson). The client has a supposedly unfaithful wife (in reality, the woman played by Barnes). So what develops is a romantic intrigue taken to farcical extremes. It’s all played to a tee by the film’s delightful stars.

Neglected film: GIRLS OF THE ROAD (1940)

Ann Dvorak hits the road

We are told after a brief montage at the beginning that there are 1146 homeless girls serving vagrancy sentences in an unnamed state. The matter is being brought to the attention of a concerned governor. Some female hobos haven’t yet been picked up by police; they are killed in accidents or become victims of random acts of violence perpetrated against them by sleazy opportunists and abusers. 

These are harrowing statistics, which the governor’s secretary (Ann Dvorak) writes down. She learns most of the girls on the road are ones who ran away from broken homes, and she’s compelled to do something about it.

The movie is part social message drama, and part exploitation tale. While details are not exactly lurid, what we hear about and view on screen is not quite wholesome either. In some ways, Ann Dvorak, known for her early precode work at Warner Brothers, is perfect for this type of film. It does seem to mirror plot points that were presented in WB’s WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD (1933). Only here the focus is on transient females.

For a Columbia Pictures programmer that clocks in at around 68 minutes, we’re not going to get SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS or any sort of expansive travelogue. But we do get plenty of outdoor action filmed on location in southern California. Per the AFI database, studio publicity materials emphasized the fact that Dvorak was nearly arrested while certain scenes were filmed. Her character hits the road to fully understand the plight of the girls she aims to help, and while ‘dressed down’ as a hobo, a real-life police officer thought Dvorak was actually a vagrant!

Dvorak’s costars include a group of starlets, some known to classic movie fans; some not so familiar. The supporting cast is not exactly the same caliber here as MGM’s THE WOMEN, but these are are still decent enough actresses who can put the drama across— among them: Helen Mack, Marjorie Cooley and Lola Lane.

Lane is particularly impressive as a masculine type wanderer, who’s probably meant to represent homeless lesbians that had been forced out of their homes. Not every chick is in this situation due to financial reasons.

One thing that stayed with me after watching the film was the bonding that occurs between Dvorak and the other gals. During this process they learn things about themselves. They are not going to solve every single problem they encounter, as they commiserate in front of a campfire. But they know how to cooperate and work together to make an honest appraisal of their collective situation, and maybe just maybe they can find some answers.

Neglected film: HEROES FOR SALE (1933)

The sum and its parts

There are some great sequences in this memorable precode from Warner Brothers, but I am not sure if the sum of its parts ultimately makes a whole lot of sense. At times it’s a story about postwar adjustment and morphine addiction. Then it’s a story about economic prosperity and depression. Then it’s a doomed love story, two doomed love stories in fact, since one woman (Loretta Young) is killed loving a man (Richard Barthelmess) in an impossible situation; while another woman (Aline MacMahon) pines for him and her efforts remain unrequited. 

I suppose it’s meant to be a chronicle of a fifteen year period from the first World War up to the height of the Great Depression. Interestingly, this timeline mirrors the motion picture career of the film’s star, since Barthelmess first broke through in movies in 1916, during the war, and he achieved much success in the 1920s. 

By the time this picture was in production, Barthelmess was aging out of the youthful roles that made him popular with audiences and his career would quickly go into decline. His last starring role was three years later. There was a short break, then he returned at the end of the decade to begin character parts, but retired in 1942. Ironically, Barthelmess went off to serve in WWII. Then he spent the rest of his life living off the savings of his Hollywood career, money he had invested in real estate.

In the film, Barthelmess’s character is selfless. He takes the profits he earns from an invention and gives the money to the poor. There is considerable talk about his decision to devote his income to charity.

The final stages of the film have him suspected of being a communist and forced on the road like a hobo. Personally, I felt the subplot involving the Reds a bit over-the-top, and I was never sure who to root for in the sequence where there is a labor riot which leads to the tragic death of our hero’s wife (Young). 

Her death scene is one that stays with the viewer long after the film ends, but what’s the point of it all? To show that this man, like America had been beaten and lost everything, but would continue to move forward? We are told he has a young son who’s proud of him. But proud of what? 

Mixed into his economic philosophical mishmash are some anti-war sentiments about how medals and ribbons are not important if a man cannot feed himself after a war. At the same time, we see the corruption of banking institutions and large scale businesses, so are we ultimately supposed to be sympathetic towards communism? Despite the bravura performances of the two lead actresses, plus Barthelmess who liked to pick scripts with edgy socially conscious messages, I still wasn’t sure if I was meant to like the story, and if I was even meant to like America.

Essential: THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (1960)

TopBilled:

Heist film with first-rate performers

Not long ago the folks at Criterion selected three of Basil Dearden’s films to include in a collection that pays homage to the great British director. One of these titles is Dearden’s marvelous heist film from 1960, THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN.

GENTLEMEN resonates strongly for me, though I am not exactly a fan of this sub-genre due to its often repetitive plot twists. You know, where the caper promises to be a perfect crime, but then it all falls apart and fails miserably. We’ve seen the basic scenario play out in John Huston’s THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and in Jules Dassin’s TOPKAPI.

Perhaps I enjoy Dearden’s treatment of this subject a bit more, because he manages to avoid some of the clichés, and his version wisely does not lapse into too much predictability or sentimentality. It also helps considerably that such material is placed into the hands of a distinguished set of actors who slyly punch up the more dramatic aspects of the story, which was scripted by Bryan Forbes, who happens to number among the on-screen crooks.

Besides Forbes, the cast includes several first-rate performers. Roger Livesey plays a member of the cohort nicknamed Padre; Richard Attenborough is Lexy, a womanizing associate; and Robert Coote has a funny bit as a meddling outsider who inextricably becomes involved in the criminal activity.

But it’s star Jack Hawkins who holds it all together with his smooth portrayal of an ex-colonel that masterminds the robbery with his right-hand man– I mean, major– played by Nigel Patrick.

Another great thing about this picture is the pacing. The gathering of the gang; the next sequence of stealing the guns from a government base; the heist itself at a nearby bank; and the ‘victory’ party at the end are all evenly presented. It’s a nearly two-hour movie that hums along nicely and gives us, at every turn, a sense of being pleasantly entertained. Yes, two hours of movie-watching time has been stolen from us by these gentlemen, but it is well worth the price.

***

Jlewis:

This is one of Basil Dearden’s finest films, frequently covered in the movie history books thanks to its all star cast of veterans from classic Brit cinema who, while they may not all be household names today, any old time movie buff will recognize right away if that buff has watched enough material made before the 1970s. Reportedly, Cary Grant and David Niven were also initially considered for the top role that Jack Hawkins (fresh from BEN-HUR) took on.

Based on a best selling novel by John Boland, this is your quintessential heist epic, resembling earlier classics like THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and RIFIFI as well as sharing major plot-points with SEVEN SAMURAI/THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and the 007 blockbuster GOLDFINGER as well. As usual with such stories, crime does not pay in the end but it is still a lot of fun watching the naughty rascals make an attempt at it.

Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde (Jack Hawkins) is a bored out of his mind ex-military man who investigates the where-abouts of seven other ex military men who have fallen into despicable, yet gentlemen-ly, lifestyles and attracts them to a special dinner with half £5-notes and a paperback crime novel titled “The Golden Fleece” (a bogus book made up for the screen).

His comrades are all specialists in particular fields and are needed to help him commit the ultimate crime: first fooling an actual military training camp in Dorset into thinking they are higher ups (and, thus, stealing weapons under security’s noses) and then mastering the biggest bank robbery imaginable (possibly taking a cue from the legendary 1950 robbery of the Brink’s building of Boston). While Hyde himself has no previous criminal record, his disgust for the overall lack of financial and public recognition regarding his hard work during war and peace time is enough for him to stage his very first exploit of this kind. 

A roll call of his fellow hoodlums…

-Major Peter Race (Nigel Patrick, seen earlier in SAPPHIRE)

-Captain “Padre” Mycroft (Roger Livesey who needs no introduction to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger fans)

-Lieutenant Edward Lexy (Richard Attenborough… yes the same Attenborough who was the older brother of everybody’s favorite animal documentary guru David and most famous for both GANDHI, as director, and two of the JURASSIC PARK films as star)

-Captain Martin Porthill (Bryan Forbes, co-writer and jointly involved with director Dearden and fellow producer Michael Relph in the Allied Film Makers production company that made this film)

-Captain Stevens (Kieron Moore)

-Major Rupert Rutland-Smith (Terence Alexander)

-Captain Frank Weaver (Norman Bird)

One curious point that I find fascinating here are the backstories each has with assorted women, such as Norman Hyde being divorced but still retaining a portrait of his ex (actually a portrait of Deborah Kerr recycled from THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COL. BLIMP, featuring co-star Livesey). There’s another leading the gigolo life and having to compete with younger beefcake with his wealthy client; yet another married with a mistress on the side; and, of course, the usual roving Romeos.

Livesey’s Mycroft poses as a prim and proper minister but hoards topless girlie magazines in his suitcases, resembling the equally risqué reading material found later at the soldiers’ barracks. When a strip-tease lady pops into a slide presentation, everybody wolf-whistles in unison. 

At least one in-depth review I read online hints that one of these gentlemen might have been gay-coded due to a military “morals” dismissal but any sign of it on screen is way-way too subtle to notice. I’ll let other eagle-eyes watch this and look for the clues I am missing. When a pre-stardom Oliver Reed makes an unexpected cameo as a swishy sweater dancer-actor, it appears that these men all sport the smug, condescending look.

Such gay stereotypes first crested during the “pansy craze” of the late twenties and early thirties before the Production Code deemed them too deviant. Then they gradually starting reappearing sporadically in the later fifties with this film as a key landmark example and, by the end of the sixties through much of the seventies, were so commonplace in mass media that the newly created G.L.A.A.D. had to put the crunch on Hollywood and the TV industry in much the same way the N.A.A.C.P. had previously with the all too frequent stock “comedy” of watermelon chomping, black-face minstrel shows, dice throwing, chicken stealing and Stepin Fetchit inspired low-draws on screens.

It is rather ironic that THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN makes backward steps here, considering that the same production team would very soon make VICTIM, a radically different and forward moving social commentary on equal rights for everybody regardless of sexual orientation.

Despite its flaws, this is one very hilarious Brit comedy done in the Ealing tradition with a veteran of that legendary studio, Michael Relph, taking full charge. All of the effort this team puts into their robbery resembles a full scale British military routine with Hyde’s home quarters becoming a training base complete with potato peeling as protocol. The main van is refitted with a rather professional “legit” name of “Co-operative Removal Ltd.,” which is obviously a joke on their real “removal” goals.

When curious police officers question the gentile Hyde of their exploits, he is most professional and authoritative in all of his dubious explanations and prompts them not to investigate further. As for his comrades, this major undertaking gives them a sense of purpose and companionship they have desperately needed since their wartime duties many years ago.

The actual bank scenes are beautifully staged and look rather convincing with the robbery done with smoke bombs and gas masks. I especially like the ominous shots of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the clips leading up the key climax as Hyde looks up to it as if he feels what he is doing is serving some “divine” purpose. Fittingly, St. Paul’s stayed pretty much in-tack despite all of the bombings of the war, a symbol of British resistance and viewers can make all kinds of symbolic analysis here.

Alas…what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away and, despite the robbery initially being a great success and these gentlemen congratulating themselves over drinks back at Hyde’s home as they open their loot, something…or somebody…will prevent them from getting away with it all. That somebody winds up being a rather innocent 8 year old boy with a hobby interest in collecting driver license numbers and discovering that one of their vehicles with a U.S. state Alabama plate that is most interesting to the authorities. This boy reminds me of another little boy who exposes all of the truth regarding Hans Christian Andersen’s Emperor’s “New” Clothes. 

Yet we don’t get to the final downfall right away. In true Ealing tradition, there is a wonderful chip-chip-cheerio false alarm when an old chum of Hyde’s, Brigadier “Bunny” Warren (Robert Coote is absolutely wonderful in his bit role), temporarily crashes the gentlemen party and all worry that their scheme has been exposed too prematurely. Of course, this is all merely a delay before the final “gotcha.” As Hyde watches a grand fortune slip through his fingers as each of his party unexpectedly succumb to the police paddy wagon, he at least is happy to see Major Race address him “all present and correct, Sir” as all faithful comrades who stick together during any conflict must.

Neglected film: THE RECKLESS MOMENT (1949)

When we had that blackmail trouble

European director Max Ophuls spent a few postwar years in Hollywood, where he worked on five studio pictures. The results varied, but one of his best efforts from this period was THE RECKLESS MOMENT for Columbia. The project teamed him with James Mason, whom he had already directed in another noir thriller, CAUGHT.

Mason costars alongside Joan Bennett, whose husband Walter Wanger served as the producer. Like Ophuls, Mason had just emigrated to America. Meanwhile, Bennett was continuing to freelance in dramas that had her taking direction from European emigres who in addition to Ophuls, included Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir.

THE RECKLESS MOMENT deftly combines formula filmmaking with the flourish of a well-known auteur. A fairly routine plot about blackmail and paranoia is elevated almost to an art form. Mason and Bennett etch vivid portrayals, understanding the characters assigned them are flawed yet still spiritual and deserving of salvation.

It all starts when Bennett’s 17 year old daughter, played by 24 year old Geraldine Brooks, is involved with a man who’s much older than her. The shady boyfriend wants to extort money out of the the family, and if he’s paid what he wants, he’ll leave the teen girl alone. Things go horribly wrong when he shows up at the estate and has a quarrel with Brooks, which results in his accidental death.

There are a few twists. Brooks doesn’t know the guy died at first. And when Bennett discovers the body along the shore the following morning, she assumes her daughter was responsible for the killing, so she disposes of the corpse. After this is taken care of, Bennett then gets a visit from Mason, who has in his possession some letters that Brooks wrote to the deceased man, which would look bad if they wound up with the police.

As I said, it is a somewhat predictable blackmail plot. But what sets this film apart is how Bennett and Mason develop an unusual rapport with one another, while working out how she will pay the five grand expected in exchange for the letters. Bennett’s husband, who remains off camera, is away on business in Europe.

Bennett has trouble scraping up the cash, and Mason is surprisingly patient with her since he’s come to like her. However, Mason has a hard-nosed associate (Roy Roberts) who is pressuring him to wrap up the deal and collect the dough. That backfires, leading to Roberts’ death.

The story’s pacing is quick, with everything squeezed into a compact 82-minutes. The dialogue is not quite rapid-fire in its delivery, but the lines are recited without any pauses, and there are no extra words. Characters get to the point, the scenes accomplish what they need to convey, and we are then on to the next part. Since Ophuls is at the helm, there is a focus on shadowy visuals and a keen sense of time and place. The family’s estate is set on Balboa Island in southern California, and there are plenty of on-location exteriors to add realism.

Bennett’s role could just as easily have been performed by Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford. She is that sort of woman in peril: exquisitely maintained by an absent hubby, perfectly poised and able to successfully negotiate with a criminal element while protecting the home front and retaining her femininity at every turn.

As for Mason, it seems like he is summoning some of the rougher aspects of the character he played in ODD MAN OUT, yet there is a poignant vulnerability. Especially in a scene near the end when he confesses that he was one of five brothers and his mother had hoped he would be a priest, refusing to ever believe he was the bad one. In the end, his reckless lifestyle leads to his demise…but before his time’s up, he returns the incriminating letters to Bennett and assures a happy ending for her and her daughter.