NO QUESTIONS ASKED (1951)

A black widow without a mate is just another spider.

A man is on the run through the wet, deserted streets of lower Manhattan. He scuttles into the shadows cast by a stairwell just as a prowl car tears by, its siren whining against concrete and brick. As the man hunkers down we hear his voice, “My name is Steve Keiver. That’s what all the sirens are about. They’re screaming for me. I was very popular that night—everybody wanted me, dead or alive. You think there’d be a thousand hiding places in a large city, but there aren’t.” More police cars make the scene, closing off any possible egress, their searchlights obliterating the deep dark. As Steve presses his back against the grimy recess of a doorway, the narration turns inevitably to the source of his dilemma, “You wonder how it happened and where it all really began…”

Steve (Barry Sullivan) is an insurance company lawyer who gets the brushoff from his girlfriend Ellen (Arlene Dahl), owing to the fact that his present salary won’t set her up in diamonds and pearls. A telling exchange early in the picture provides the straight dope on their shaky relationship. The scene finds their pair bickering during a taxicab ride home from the airport. Steve believes—what a chump—Ellen’s been on a solo ski trip to Sun Valley:

Her: “I’m not a one-room flat kind of girl. I don’t want to raise my children in the kind of poverty I was raised in. I couldn’t stand it. I want security.”

Him: “If you’re just patient honey—“

Her: “—I’ve waited a year. You can’t deposit patience in a bank.”

Him: “We’re never gonna be rich, that’s not security. But we love each other, you can deposit that in my bank.”

Steve asks for a raise the following day, but his boss parries: “Ladders are built for patient men,” the guy says. However, the boss also makes an offhand remark about a recent stolen fur case: he’d pay ten grand to the thieves, no questions asked, in order to avoid settling the claim. Steve gets a big zinger: he’ll find out who heisted the furs and broker a deal between them and the insurance company. He’ll receive a finder’s fee and everyone will be happy: the thieves will get more for the goods than a backroom fence would pay, his boss dodges a six-figure payout, and Steve’ll have enough in the bank to give Ellen a swimming pool full of sparklies. Unbeknownst to him—what a maroon—it’s already too late. Ellen just eloped to Europe with Gordon Jessman (Dick Simmons), a smooth operator she met on the slopes in Idaho. Steve is crushed when he discovers Ellen’s deserted apartment.

Steve contacts the crime syndicate and eventually manages to buy back the furs for the insurance company. It isn’t long before he’s finessing a deal over another caché of stolen goods, and then another, and another. Before long he’s flush. With Ellen out of the picture, Steve finally notices Joan (Jean Hagen), a coworker. Joan’s a nice girl. Steve—what an idiot—should be so lucky. She knows that Steve is walking a tightrope in his new venture, but she’s been carrying a torch for so long that she can’t help going along.

Cut to the gala premiere of a Broadway show. Two henchmen from the stable of gangster Franko (Howard Petrie), pull off a lurid robbery. In full-on drag-mode, they crash the powder room during intermission and relieve all the old broads of their Harry Winstons. During the fracas Joan gets pistol-whipped, leading the cops to think Steve might be in on the caper. What’s more is that the boys in blue have already named Steve Public Enemy Numero Uno—New York’s bad boys are stealing more than ever now that they know Steve can broker a high-dollar insurance company buy-back. Our guy Stevie may be a slick solicitor who knows how to walk the line between legal and illegal, but he’s forgotten all about the difference between legality and morality. It’s gonna cost him.

You didn’t think we were through with Ellen, did you? When she gets wind of Steve’s success, she gives Gordon the heave-ho and heads for Steve’s place, where she learns that he’s about to handle the buy-back of the loot from the Broadway premiere heist. Gordon—a cuckold but no fool—decides to rob Steve and take the jewels for himself. In doing so he kills a police detective and frames Steve as the trigger man. Already leery of cops, Steve runs. Real time and flashback coalesce as the film returns to its opening scene, with Steve clawing at the shadows in the cheap side of town.

Meanwhile, Ellen and Gordon are frantically packing their bags when Franko’s men arrive, expecting to find Steve and the jewels. Ellen thinks they can sell the jewelry bundle back to Franko, and she and Gordon go along willingly to negotiate a deal. This is where No Questions Asked becomes something special. Folks, take my advice: don’t mess about with gangsters. Pretty simple, huh? Not to stuck-ups like Ellen and Gordon, who think their nice clothes make them smarter than the lower-class types. Instead they’re amateurs who are about to learn one of film noir’s most brutal lessons. Dig them trying to handle Franko:

Her: “How much are they worth to you?”

Him: “How much are they worth to you? I don’t think I’m going to have to pay anything for them Mrs. Jessman. You’ve got the jewels—I’ve got you.”

Her: “If anything happens to me you’ll never find those jewels.”

Him: “You’re smart, but you made a big mistake: I never went to Vassar. I’m afraid you’re dealing with dirty people. When we get finished with you you’re going to be begging to tell us where those jewels are.”

Franko makes with some torture; Gordon pisses his pants and squeals. Ellen prostests. Ellen blubbers. Ellen screams. Franko puts a bullet in her. Ellen dead. Gordon looks on in stupified horror. Franko puts a bullet in him. Gordon dead. It’s one of the most matter-of-fact and chilling death sequences in the entire history of film noir.

Steve—what a cluck—stumbles in and decides he wants to fight. He and Franko somehow go head over heels into a swimming pool. Too bad for Steve, but we learned earlier in the picture—for real!—that Franko’s special thing is holding his breath for a really long time. Boffo! Franko triumphs. Steve floats, all glassy-eyed. Enter the cops. They cuff everyone, resuscitate Steve, and then cuff him too. They figured out he didn’t pull the trigger on the dead cop, but he’s an accessory whether you like it or not. Joan hates it. The cops tells her that Steve looking at a two year jolt in Rykers. 

Let’s get something straight about the noir femme fatale: she can’t exist without her special guy. And not just any old schlub—he’s got to be screwy enough to throw away everything he’s got and everything he believes in just to have her. In No Questions Asked, Ellen Jessman is that rare girl, a bona fide femme fatale. She’s greedy, manipulative, superficial, immoral, and exists to make Steve sacrifice his place in the world in order to satisfy her material whims. Irredeemable, and yet she’s merely one side of the coin—she’s got to have her man. Steve is every bit the archetypal a film noir protagonist. Like so many others before him, he suffers from the simple, fatal inability to resist a girl who’s no good. He sees it all clearly and still can’t help himself. Wasn’t Walter Neff the blueprint? When given a clear choice between a nice girl and vampire, Steve does the noir schmuck thing and chooses sex (and redheads). 

But because Ellen is beyond redemption she’s killed, along with her cowardly and murderous husband. Steve is murdered too, but just for a little while. He traded an honest career for a fast buck and gambled the good girl for adultery with the bad. Fate holds Steve—what a dumbass—accountable for his choices. His career is kaput, but maybe with luck and early parole for good behavior Joan’ll be waiting for him outside the gates. In the movies at least, the good ones wait.

In spite of the title’s admonition, there’s still one question left as the end titles roll: When all is said and done, does Steve really get wise or is he the same sucker as before? With Ellen dead we’ll never know.

No Questions Asked (1951)

Directed by Harold Kress

(Also one of Hollywood’s legendary film editors, recipient of two Academy Awards*: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Mrs. Miniver, Random Harvest, The Yearling, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Silk Stockings, How the West was Won*, The Poseiden Adventure, The Towering Inferno*.)

Cinematographer: Harold Lipstein

(Significant films as DP: The River’s Edge, Pal Joey, Ride a Crooked Trail, Hell is for Heroes.)
Story: Berne Giler

Screenplay: Sidney Sheldon

Starring: Barry Sullivan, Arlene Dahl, George Murphy, Jean Hagen.

Released by: MGM

Running time: 80 minutes

TWO OF A KIND (1951)

Talk about a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Two of a Kind, released by Columbia in 1951, is a perfect example of how a Hollywood ending can derail a promising noir. The premise is enticing: three grifters try to work an inheritance scam on an elderly California couple. They plan to pass off a fellow con-artist as the couple’s long-lost son and claim a huge inheritance when the aged millionaires finally kick over. The cast is rock-solid, and includes noir icons Edmond O’Brien and Lizabeth Scott, as well as President Woodrow Wilson himself, Alexander Knox. 

Two of a Kind moves with verve and is characterized by tough talk and slick Burnett Guffey photography. It establishes itself as a noir early on, with a wonderfully memorable scene involving the two leads, a car door, and some great banter. Two of a Kind also foreshadows doom in half a dozen different ways, including a slew of references to the game of craps, yet in the end it fails to deliver on its dark promises — instead wrapping up like an MGM musical, where boy and girl hop into a ragtop and ride off into the setting Pacific sun, leaving the audience jilted and angry.

The opening finds Brandy (Lizabeth Scott), searching for a man she’s never met, a very specific kind of a man who fits the requirements that she and her accomplice Vincent (Alexander Knox) require to orchestrate a swindle of gigantic proportions. It seems that many years ago, a wealthy California couple, the McIntyres, lost their son during a trip to Chicago. Mrs. McIntyre had a dizzy spell and cracked her head on the sidewalk outside Marshall Fields. When she woke up her toddler son was gone. She wasn’t without hope though — the tip of little fellow’s left little finger is missing, making him easy to recognize. Yet despite this unusual telltale, after more than three decades the McIntyres have never been able to locate their son.

The McIntyre family attorney, who turns out to be none other than Brandy’s partner Vincent, has long been in charge of the search for the boy. And it’s Vincent who first sees the opportunity to make a grab at the McIntyre family millions; he and Brandy just need to find the right man to play the part of the prodigal son: white male, early thirties, from the Chicagoland area, raised in an orphanage, and finally: willing to pare his pinky for a big payoff. Enter Mike ‘Lefty’ Farrell (Edmond O’Brien).


Throughout film history there have been countless scenes when a character loses some limb or another, and most such films exploit the suspense-filled moments before the axe falls, the knife slashes, or the chainsaw rattles to life. In this case the exchange between Brandy and Mike leading up to the “ouch” is just as compelling. The scene occurs early on, just after Brandy discovers Mike drearily checking cards at an L.A. bingo joint. In a brief sequence of impressive narrative economy, Brandy manages to catch Mike’s eye, test his mettle against a hired thug, get him arrested and bailed out, clue him in on the potential scam, and convince him to put his little finger in the path of a car door. Considering the pair just met, Mike seems too eager to go along with her plan. It’s a weak point in the story that relies on the seductive power of the femme fatale to make believable — after all, how many men will maim themselves for a woman they’ve just met? It’s a hard pill to swallow, and Liz Scott isn’t the girl to help it go down any easier. Scott was certainly a wonderful actress — she could outperform most fifties crime pic ingénues with her eyes alone, but she lacked that Rita-esque brand of raw sexuality necessary to close this deal. 

Nevertheless the sequence is Two of a Kind’s best — though it’s the doom and gloom dialogue which brings the whole thing off. The outcome is never in doubt; we know the finger has to come off for the story to move forward, but the film carves out mucho character development before the big moment. Brandi pulls up to a shadowy curb, the emergency hospital quietly looming a block ahead. She cuts to the chase: “It has to look like an accident — you walk in with a smashed finger and tell them you caught it in a car door.” “And how does it really get smashed?” Mike asks, to which she deadpans, “In a car door.” Brandi leans across Mike’s chest and pushes open his door, while he eyes her warily for the first time. She removes the lipstick from her handbag and paints an aiming line on his little finger before announcing, “You’d better have a cigarette.” Still gregarious, Mike asks, “Who gets to make with the door?” To which Brandy’s curt “I do” not only establishes her clear control of the situation but also that Mike (like other noir protagonists) is in way over his head. Her final admonition, “Look the other way” comes just a second before she crushes his finger. The scene is certainly the most noirish in the film, particularly in how it parallels Mike’s predicament with that of a man about to be executed. The cigarette, the turning of the head, the willing submission, and finally, the moment’s sexually-charged, emasculating violence are quintessentially noirish, and ensure that Two of a Kind would be much better-remembered if only it didn’t shoot itself in the foot so soon after chopping off Mike’s finger.

But the stakes are so low! One of the reasons the car door scene resonates is because it’s the only exciting moment in the movie — and all it involves is a busted up little finger! The film is otherwise light on crime, and the inheritance scheme fails miserably. No one gets killed, and when the plan is unraveled Mr. McIntyre doesn’t even press charges, even knowing that Vincent secretly hoped to kill him in order to get rich even quicker. McIntyre simply demands that the larcenous lawyer close up shop and leave town, while he actually invites the repentant Mike to perpetuate the ruse for the sake of the forlorn Mrs. McIntyre’s newfound happiness. As a matter of fact, the stakes are so low that everyone would likely have been better off if the hustle had succeeded: The McIntyres would have lived out their final years in the happy knowledge that their son had returned, while the already-rich Vincent and Brandi would have just gotten richer and Mike would have endured a guilty inheritance. Considering that the McIntyres had no other potential heirs, perhaps the only real losers would have been the charitable organizations that would have otherwise inherited the funds.

Yet if a deeper reading is made, an important question comes to mind, though it’s one that potentially destroys the film, or at least makes it awfully difficult to like: What about the McIntyre’s real son? It’s not that viewers would expect this lost child to joyously reappear after thirty years to throw a monkey wrench into Brandy and Mike’s plans (though that may have made for an interesting twist). Postwar audiences were as aware as any of the potential for horror in the world, and the details of the Lindbergh case still lingered in the public mind, as would the circumstances of the Wineville Chicken Murders (known to contemporary audiences thanks to Clint Eastwood’s Changeling) and many other newswire scandals of the period. In giving Two of a Kind such a happy denouement, fate can’t mete out the justice required by the noir universe. Sometimes the happy ending is an important part of the noir journey, as in the redemption-oriented Tomorrow is Another Day. Yet here Vincent, Brandy, and Mike contrive a terrible crime: they casually and unremorsefully attempt to cash in on the grief and hope of a decent family that has lost its only child, in all likelihood to a horrible death. The film trades justice for romance, and no two stars, even O’Brien and Scott, possess screen chemistry sufficient for us to forgive a crime that involves preying on the heart of a bereaved mother. We are left to wonder how the title, Two of a Kind, is intended to represent Brandy and Mike, though in some dark, accidental way conjures thoughts of Mike and that vanished little boy, a plot device of so little consequence to the film that he’s denied even the human dignity of a name.

Two of a Kind (1951)

Director: Henry Levin

Producer: William Dozier

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Screenplay: James Edward Grant, James Gunn and Lawrence Kimble

Starring: Edmond O’Brien and Lizabeth Scott

Released by: Columbia Pictures Corporation

Running Time: 75 minutes

THE MEDIUM (1951)

“If there is nothing to be afraid of, then why am I afraid of this nothingness?”

Here’s a truly astonishing film. The experience was all the more powerful because at the outset I knew nothing whatsoever about it — not even the premise. I was immediately drawn in by the striking imagery of the opening — image my surprise a few minutes in when everyone started singing.

A film noir opera? You got it.

Considering this site is dedicated to crime films, I probably have some explaining to do. The Medium, released in 1951, is an independently produced filmic opera with a decidedly noir-ish slant. Written, directed, and composed by Gian Carlo Menotti, it stars American actress-singer Marie Powers as Baba, a bunco artist who runs a low-rent fortune telling parlor as ‘Madame Flora.’ She’s assisted by her daughter Monica and adopted son Toby, a mute gypsy boy Baba condescends to as her “poor little half-wit.” The trio scratch out a meager living in one of the worst ways imaginable: by preying on parents who have lost a child. Their routine is incredibly polished, and despite the film’s expressionism and sung dialog, the early scenes are surprisingly documentary, sharing with audiences the behind-the-curtain methods employed to take advantage of the gullible.

Things go wrong when Madam Flora has an unexpectedly visceral experience during one of her séances: at the penultimate moment, she feels a man’s hands clutching at her throat. Following the departure of her guests, she blames Toby for what she believes a cruel joke. The youth gesticulates his innocence, but the unnerved Baba refuses to be placated. The narrative unfolds from this point along two tangents: We watch Baba come unglued — at first merely uncertain, then paranoid, and ultimately, insane, while the silent Toby struggles to maintain his innocence and survive in the household. Monica looks on helplessly, pitying her mother and secretly loving the boy.

The plot may be simple, but the movie is populated with one resplendent scene after another: In one expressionistic episode Baba crouches over Toby. Incensed that he won’t rouse from feigned sleep in order to look at her, she lights a candle and then drips the hot wax all over his chest and face. When his eyes burst open, she pours the wax on them, until they are sealed shut and a terrified Monica drags her from the room. Another finds Toby and Monica searching the town square for Baba. They stumble arm in arm through a crowded festival in the town square, at first forgetting about the missing woman — merely content to be young and away from their squalid flat. All is well until the two become separated. The smiles of the crowd become leers, and the gypsy Toby becomes persona non grata to the townspeople — without Monica, he cannot survive. This notion is maintained throughout the film, and is critical to The Medium’s tragic, if also predictable (it is opera, after all) denouement.

This is, at its heart, a typical film noir story: A low-life con artist scams one person too many, and fate finally intervenes to set things straight. Which brings me to a point of clarification: I’m not out to convince anyone that this is a film noir — what I’m doing instead is demonstrating the prevalence and versatility of the thematic elements and the visual language of noir, both of which The Medium employs authoritatively. This was filmed during the years in which the noir style was most often on the screen, and it’s quite apparent that Menotti wanted to couch his film in a style that was popular with and familiar to audiences — and perfectly suited to his subject matter. The extreme angles and shadows of film noir are everywhere, as are the obfuscated framing and handheld camera work we’ve come to identify with the style. In spite of an obviously meager budget, the art direction and set decoration are magnificent, taking full advantage of the dilapidated condition of post-war Rome.

This is a little movie at only 80 minutes or so; music people call it a one-act opera. Fewer than ten characters have lines, only five have more than one. The cast is excellent. Baba is played by contralto Marie Powers; this was her only feature film role. She sang the part on Broadway, and then a few years later during a live television performance. (Powers grew up a few towns over from me in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, a hard-knock place — think the first act of The Deer Hunter — where people scrape anthracite coal from the ground, live for high school football championships, and cheap beer at the fire company. The place seems to have forgotten her.) She enjoyed an on-and-off theatrical career, with her brightest moment coming when she was cast third behind Olivier and Quinn in the original production of Becket. She died in New York City in 1973. Anna Maria Alberghetti appears as Monica, while the lithe Leopoldo Savona (who looks a lot like Prince) is Toby. Savona has an uncredited bit in La Dolce Vita, but made his biggest impact directing spaghetti westerns in the sixties. Alberghetti, a dead ringer for Pier Angeli, made the most of her debut here, going on to co star in numerous A-level Hollywood features and then shining on Broadway for the better part of two decades. She won a Tony award as Best Actress in 1962 for Carousel. The rest of the cast of The Medium complete the visual look of the film: the characters are unglamorous, vividly real, and occasionally frightening.

Considering that all the dialog is sung, the actors rely on rather Dreyer-esque pantomime in the intervening passages. Yet this never feels overly theatrical or the performers inauthentic. Of course the look and feel of film noir fails to resonate in every scene, and at times The Medium becomes reminiscent of a silent picture. The frame is vignetted — darkened in the corners — while continuous orchestration completes the feeling. It’s an odd, imperfect, intoxicating thing, this movie; yet despite a foreign setting it successfully communicates familiar elements of the best American film noir: it allows us to step down into and wallow in a world that isn’t all sunshine and roses. And while some have tried to paint this as a sort of specialized neo-realism rather than a film noir, it clearly owes more to the dark American crime film than it does The Bicycle Thief. The lighting and camerawork are too exaggerated, too unnatural for anyone to ever confuse this with neo-realism, and the doom that awaits Baba is entirely of her own design. In the end, The Medium reminds that there is always someone who has a tougher row to hoe, and that fate, like justice, is blind.

The Medium (1951)

Written, Directed, and composed by Gian Carlo Menotti
Cinematography by Enzo Serafin
Starring Marie Powers, Anna Maria Alberghetti, and Leopoldo Savona
Released by Lopert Pictures Corp.
Running time: 84 minutes.

APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER (1951)

Let me tell you about you, Al. That badge and a few law books have turned you into a nut. You don’t like anybody. You don’t believe anybody. You don’t trust anybody. You think everybody has a pitch.

Everybody has.

Double Indemnity is a damn good movie. When people start talking film noir, it usually comes up first. Billy Wilder, James Cain, Barbara Stanwyck, and Freddie Mac, all cavorting in Edith Head costumes for Pete’s sake. Straight down the line to seven Academy Award nominations. Can you beat it? Nah, you probably can’t — but big budget studio noirs like Double Indemnity or Laura don’t get me going like a first-rate second-rate picture. Dark, violent, gritty, neurotic, fatal, sleazy, cheap — these weren’t typically part of the vernacular over at the Metro lot. It’s a shame that film noir isn’t somehow spelled with a B, the two go together so well. Now that Appointment with Danger has been given a wide DVD release (yet expensive at $24.95), I decided to finally look at my copy, lest I get left in the cold on the off chance it comes up in conversation. I’ve owned a dusty bootleg for ages, but never watched — after reading a plot description I assumed it was a cookie cutter knock-off of Anthony Mann’s T-Men. Brother, was I all wet.

“The story begins in the rain of a murky summer night in Gary, Indiana.” Following a brief PSA homage to the postal service Appointment with Danger gets going — and how: two thugs (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, that’s right) are seen lurking in the shadows of a cheap hotel room, neon lights ironically pulsating the words “Hotel Compton: The Friendly Hotel” through the gauze of the window, as the rain outside flails away at the night. One hood is huddled over the body of a murdered postal inspector, coldly recoiling his strangulation rope — a real pro, this one. Cut forward in time to a sedan splashing though the vacant streets, the murderers now prowling for a quiet place to deep-six their victim. A nun (Phyllis Calvert), at war with a cheap umbrella, happens by just as they begin to dump the body in a dark alley. She sees the faces of both men, but is so grateful for Morgan’s righting of her umbrella that she buys his story of a sodden buddy “getting some air.” Nonetheless, her suspicions rise in the moments that follow, and she relates her story to a passing motorcycle cop before moving on. He glances toward the alley just before a speeding motorist steals his attention and he rushes off in the opposite direction. As the camera once again takes up position in the alley to watch the cop vanish into the night, it pans down to reveal the corpse, unceremoniously abandoned in the gutter.

The action described in the preceding paragraph takes only three minutes of screen time, but it’s one of the sharpest and most exemplary openings of any crime picture out there. Let’s put the rest of the plot summary in a nutshell: Al Goddard (Alan Ladd), another postal inspector, is brought in to investigate and discovers the killing is part of a much larger scheme to “knock over the mails.” Goddard feigns crooked in order to infiltrate the gang, led by Big Earl (Paul Stewart), all while getting to the bottom of the murder and protecting the nun. If the story of Appointment with Danger is routine or unspectacular, the atmosphere, characters and dialog aren’t — and that’s what makes it such a damn good time. Here’s a picture that has it all: dark corners; wet streets; gunsels and gun molls; crackerjack dialogue that spits faster than machine gun fire and sharper than a straight razor; and a noir icon at the absolute top of his game — a guy so hard boiled he describes a love affair as “what goes on between a man and a .45 pistol that won’t jam.” Later on he even tries to convince the nun to protect herself by borrowing his ankle piece. The man is Alan Ladd, who crashed the scene in This Gun for Hire and quickly became Paramount’s golden boy in a series of successful crime pictures: The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, Calcutta, and Chicago Deadline. His role in Shane made him a Tinseltown legend, but as far as film noir is concerned Ladd is never better than in Appointment with Danger.

Al Goddard is no fresh-faced G-Man. As a matter of fact, he seems less like a cop than a bounty hunter, operating in the hazy area just outside the law. He plays by his own rules and doesn’t answer to anyone so long as he delivers, which apparently he always does. Goddard is so relentless that the movie takes its own denouement for granted — letting us know early on that he’s sure to make good: his boss is lecturing him about his ruthlessness when Al smirks, “Now, do you mind if I go find out who killed Harry Gruber?” The response is frank, “I’m sure you will Al — because you’re a good cop. But that’s about all you are.” It’s an interesting moment in the film, and a prescient one in the maturation of noir: we continue to see a shift in the cinematic depiction of the law enforcement officer, from the community-centered and morally infallible family man, supported in his work by the efficient bureaucracy he serves, to the lone wolf: single, obsessed, unable to adjust, embittered by that same bureaucracy. It’s a compliment to Ladd to suggest that his work in this film is worthy of comparison to that of Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground, though maybe it’s the other way around — the Ryan film went into production well after Appointment’s theatrical run.

We’ve gotten used to the idea of a determined, maverick cop through the decades, but if there was ever an era of conformity and team spirit in this country it was in the years during and just after the war. However Goddard doesn’t seem to need the uniformed officers, APBs, or array of gadgets available to him. He holds all that garbage in contempt, instead making do with his wits, his fists, and that can’t-jam police special. When he decides to pass himself off as a bent cop and go undercover he does it on the fly, smoothly convincing the thugs he’s capable of theft, bribery, even murder. The lines between film hero and villain have blurred. Only once does Goddard rely on colleagues to help him out of a jam, despite a dozen close calls. And who can blame him? His job is a thankless one. The same men who place in harm’s way chastise him for not fitting in with polite society, telling him, “You’ve been chasing hoodlums for so long, you don’t know how to treat ordinary people.” Yet Goddard is no cardboard caricature either, he’s generally polite and occasionally even kind. The clever writing of a nun as his character foil, situating the two leads at opposite ends of the “nice” spectrum, is ample proof. The fact that Ladd and Calvert have such easygoing chemistry makes their relationship that much more enjoyable.

Let’s get back to the rest of the cast, beginning with the fellows from Dragnet. Jack Webb and Harry Morgan were paired in two films before beginning their long television association – and both find them in similar roles: Webb as a crook and Morgan as a dimwit. What’s more, in neither picture do they get along. In Dark City they appear as habitués of a New York bookie joint, ex-pug Morgan sweeps up while Webb takes part in crooked card games. Morgan’s role in Appointment is fairly small, but splashy — and dig that creepy mug shot! Three pops for armed robbery and five years in Lewisburg for dodging the draft. Morgan’s part is unfortunately small, but his exit is legendary — so spectacularly brutal I deserve a free drink for not spoiling it.

Another standout performance belongs to Jan Sterling, who makes the most of a small part as Dodie, Big Earl’s girlfriend. There’s something … trashy … about Sterling, and I mean that as high praise. She’s the kind of actress born to portray gun molls: attractive to be sure, but her charisma comes from a combination of slightly frayed sex appeal and the sense one gets that she’d never stick with a guy unless her heart was in it. Yet there’s also a brain lurking behind the pretty face. If there’s anyone other than Goddard in the picture that knows the score, it’s Dodie. Like other women in film noir she finds herself a victim of unlucky love, but Dodie is too smart to allow her fate to be bound to that of her man. Knowing her horse isn’t a winner, she hedges her bets with Goddard and gets out. This is no stand-by-your-man fifties house frau; this is a woman who thinks on her feet and looks out for number one. But unlike the femme fatale, she takes responsibility for her actions. When Goddard’s caught in his most vulnerable position it’s Dodie who bails him out, and while it’s apparent she’s acting in her own self-interest, and likes Goddard in spite of herself, she doesn’t hesitate with one of Appointment’s most delicious lines after he offers his thanks, “Don’t bother, Earl was good to me. I hope he kills you.”

Appointment with Danger is a fast moving, entertaining, punch in the gut of a movie. In spite of its obscurity Appointment is a crime film of the first order. It’s a textbook example of the visual aspects of the noir style, transforming the industrial wasteland of northern Indiana into a nightscape as rich as any found on the hallowed streets of New York or L.A. It sounds even better, with classic dialog delivered by a game cast and a score to match. One memorable scene follows the next, making it worthy of multiple viewings. And finally Alan Ladd’s Inspector Goddard is one hell of a cop, the mean uncle of Harry Callahan and Popeye Doyle. A brazen tough guy who does things his way and manages to get results. Go watch the movie — I won’t even mention the handball match.

Appointment with Danger (1951)

Director: Lewis Allen
Producer: Robert Fellows
Cinematographer: John F. Seitz
Art Direction: Hans Dreier and Albert Nozaki
Written By: Richard Breen and Warren Duff
Starring: Alan Ladd, Paul Stewart, Phyllis Calvert, Jack Webb, Jan Sterling, and Harry Morgan.
Released by: Paramount
Running time: 89 minutes

HOLLYWOOD STORY (1951)

Like many of you I’m often surprised by the inclusive definition some have of film noir. I once cared about whether or not a particular movie “qualified” as a noir — as if there were a checklist of traits used to keep score. It seems that many enthusiasts still think this way. I stopped doing so because it gets in the way of a more meaningful and rewarding look at the films, robbing them of much of their value and individual identity. A film can’t “add up” to noir status — just like a list of ingredients haphazardly thrown in a bowl don’t “add up” to a well-prepared meal. Something has to bind the ingredients together — something thematic, purposeful, and altogether more difficult to put a finger on. The best way to identify a noir for sure is to watch enough, read enough, and learn enough to recognize the ties that bind when you see them. Like so many other things in life, the right answers come with education and experience. Thinking about film noir this way still allows for debate about what exactly it is and what films are representative, inching all of us closer to a shared truth,while keeping the films alive and breathing.

That being said, there is a central set of about 200, maybe 250 films that most agree on, and the great thing about film noir is that it’s possible to pull any two at random from such a list and find that they have little in common. Nonetheless, we seem to exist in a world where any movie with a bad girl or a private eye is called a film noir, which has led to a multitude of movies being codified as such that just … aren’t. A few lists available in cyberspace attach the noir label to as many as 1,000 movies. Hollywood Story appears on most of these lists — but it isn’t an especially strong film noir.

Cashing in on the renewed interest in the silent film era generated by Sunset Blvd., Hollywood Story, released by Universal in 1951 and helmed by William Castle, stars Richard Conte as a filmmaker lured west after a successful career in New York City. Conte’s Larry O’Brien is such a hot commodity that his deal gives him the juice to greenlight any picture on any subject he wants. Larry’s introduction to the sights and sounds of L.A. comes from agent / war buddy Mitch Davis (Jim Backus), who takes him to scout a decrepit silent film studio. Larry’s engine starts purring when he learns of a sordid killing, still unsolved, that took place on the lot way back in 1929. He decides the story of a murdered silent film director would be big box office and wants it to be his first picture. Over the next few weeks he researches the details around the crime and begins to develop the project. But as he learns more and more about the killing, various people in his life try to dissuade him from making the film — it seems everyone he knows in Hollywood is somehow connected. Eventually Larry’s prying reveals the killer’s identity and the case is finally put to rest.


Hollywood Story is pure whodunit hokum, with a story better suited for any one of the endless Perry Mason-style television dramas of the period. There’s little action, and the dialog simply pushes the complicated plot towards an obvious and inexorable conclusion. Missing is tension, character development, and pace. Nothing builds. What we have is a routine mystery that solves itself, and by the time the killer is revealed most viewers will have stopped caring.

There are a few redemptive qualities worth mentioning. First, it’s a movie about movies and consequently promises a peek into the secret inner workings of the industry. Second is man-around-town location shooting which provides plenty of shots mid-century L.A. and various Hollywood landmarks. The only problem is that most of these glimpses are second-unit shots that accompany the opening titles. And finally there’s Richard Conte, absolutely one of the greatest film actors of the fifties not accorded the respect he deserves by contemporary audiences — so consistently enjoyable he could do the actor’s equivalent of “singing the phone book.”

Yet Richard Conte is miscast in Hollywood Story. Besides being wrong for the part, he’s just too good for it — and consequently sticks out like a sore thumb. That’s not to suggest that the other cast members were second rate, but Conte is the only above the title performer in the cast. Some of the actors, Jim Backus and Fred Clark in particular, are simply using Hollywood Story as an excuse to chew scenery. The female lead is Julia Adams, and although the camera winces at her — especially in tight — she does well alongside Conte, and her performance improves a little with time. Adams has had a long film and television career, and at the time of this writing is still banging away at it, having appeared recently in episodes of Lost and CSI. The rest of the cast is unremarkable, though it does include a few moments with stars of the silent period and one with the relatively contemporaneous Joel McCrea. After all Sunset Blvd. features the famous “waxworks” scene with Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner, so Hollywood Story just had to respond with Francis Bushman and William Farnum.

As for film noir, I didn’t find much. There are one or two dark visuals, including a dramatically lit confrontation in a flop house and a well-conceived (given the rest of the film) cat-and-mouse at the close, but that’s it — and a few nods to a popular style does not a film noir make. Conte’s character doesn’t internalize any of the film’s drama, and neither do any of the others. There’s no cynicism, no obsession, no neurosis. As a matter of fact, Conte is so controlled, self-assured, and infallible that he epitomizes everything the noir protagonist is not. Frankly, he’s less a Hollywood player in this film than he is a pre-war private detective. He does all of his investigative work under the auspices of research for his movie — but he never actually loads a camera, and the movie doesn’t otherwise feature any scenes showing the nitty-gritty of movie making. Nothing is done to establish Larry’s Hollywood credibility, but he is made out to be one hell of a private eye. As for the girl — no dice. Adams’ Sally Rousseau enters the film bitterly, but she warms into the proper fifties sweetheart so fast your head’ll spin. The rest of the cast members are cardboard cutouts.

The film frustratingly introduces a few cynical notions that might have inched it closer to film noir, but it fails to capitalize on them. Coming back to the exteriors that frame the opening titles, it’s interesting to note that many of the shots depict television studios like CBS and NBC — odd because the film was made during the early days of Hollywood’s war with television, and espouses those values. In an early scene where a few characters are reminiscing about the early days of the movie business an ancient studio guard says,” You don’t see pictures like that anymore.” to which Fred Clark responds “Sure you do Pop, every night on television.” Yet the movie decides to drop it and never returns to the subject. Given the prominent placement of TV production facilities in the first few images of the film I expected TV or those working in it to play some part in the drama, yet it isn’t so. It’s bewildering, unless we consider that the opening footage may have been poorly-chosen stock. Another notion in play is that of the incompetent police force. Familiar-faced Richard Egan plays the cop, and despite the fact that Richard Conte is an East Coast movie maker he’s able to unravel a generation-old unsolved murder despite no personal connections and only a neophyte’s sense of L.A. culture. As Conte digs deeper into the case the police glom on to his efforts, but he stays a step ahead of them, eventually leading Egan’s Lt. Lennox around by the nose. Yet again the film fails to follow through: there’s no hardboiled rivalry between Conte and Egan, rather an almost a healthy respect; and by the end of the film Conte has to count on Egan to save his life.

Hollywood Story is a mediocre mystery made watchable because of Richard Conte. It doesn’t rate as a film noir, and in spite of its self-referential themes, nostalgia for the good ole days and lofty title — it would have made better fodder for hated television.



Hollywood Story (1951)
Directed by William Castle
Cinematography by Carl Guthrie
Story and Screenplay by Frederick Kohner and Fred Brady
Produced by Leonard Goldstein
Starring: Richard Conte, Julia Adams, Jim Backus, Fred Clark, and Richard Egan
Released by Universal International
Running time: 76 minutes