Sat 17 Jan 2015
THE MYSTERY MAN. Monogram, 1935. Robert Armstrong, Maxine Doyle, Henry Kolker, LeRoy Mason, James Burke, Guy Usher. Director: Ray McCarey.
I don’t know about you, but Robert Armstrong is the only name in the list of credits above that I recognized before watching this fairly mediocre crime drama — and even after watching it, for that matter. I didn’t recognize a single face, other than Armstrong’s.
He plays Larry Doyle in this one, one of those brash reporters always at odds with his managing editor, even when he’s given a $50 bonus for the help he gave the police in solving their last case for him. The $50 disappears on a bender with the boys, and he ends up on a train to St. Louis rather than Chicago.
In Chicago he befriends a young girl who is also out of funds, and together they scam a hotel, pawn a gun, watch a robbery taking place (committed by a notorious criminal know as “The Eel”), grab the loot, get blamed for the killing, go back to the pawnbroker who turned them in, and nab the Eel, making headline news. The end.
Problem is, Armstrong was 45 when he made this movie, with a receding hairline, and Maxine Doyle was a mere slip of a lass and only 20 years old, young enough to be his daughter. The romance between the two is as unlikely as the screwy crime story the perpetrators of this movie put together.
But what this still mildly amusing movie does do is remind you of the days (before my time) when a cup of coffee and three doughnuts would cost you 20 cents, and a young lady could have all of 10 cents on her and not be able to pay for it. This is where Larry Doyle comes in.
January 17th, 2015 at 7:56 am
Hmmmm…. The bit about the poor waif and Robert Armstrong in the Diner sounds like it may have been -um- “borrowed” from the early part of KING KONG.
January 17th, 2015 at 11:06 am
If you check, Henry Kolker was in dozens of big time films including, Thoroughbred Don’t Cry, Too Hot To Handle and perhaps best of all, Holiday. He died while making The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Leroy Mason was an attractive supporting in second features and bad guy in westerns until his untimely death. As for Robert Armstrong, my guess is that Monogram wanted a recognizable name to go along with some ability to drive the dopey narrative.
January 17th, 2015 at 11:09 am
Sorry about this, but both James Burke and Guy Usher, especially Burke, had significant careers in support. IMDB has plenty on these men. Burke is particularly memorable, for me at least, in Lone Star (MGM) 1950.
January 17th, 2015 at 1:09 pm
Dan
As a variation on a theme, I think you’re absolutely right. I think the people in charge at Monogram were not averse to swiping from anyone, especially the best.
January 17th, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Barry
It’s surprising — to me at least — how many credits some of these unknown names and faces had, mostly as you say in supporting roles, but some of them important ones.
Before IMDb came along, with all of its faults, it was nearly impossible to match names of the actors with the faces in the films you watched, much less discover how long and varied their careers were.
January 17th, 2015 at 2:08 pm
Leo McCarey, the director’s brother, won multiple Academy And and served as the inspiration for the Cary Grant-like protagonist, played by…Cary Grant, from The awful Truth forward. Ray did alright as a B-film director. Well enough for me to wonder why he is not a subject for re-evaluation, ala Mr. Lew Landers.
January 17th, 2015 at 4:56 pm
As Barry pointed out you would only need to see Burke or Usher’s face to recognize them, especially Burke who played cops — usually dumb detectives — more often than anyone but Edgar Kennedy and his brother. His voice was distinctive and you would recall that too.
I’m surprised more people didn’t catch Burke, he’s one of the most familiar character actors of his time. James Burke is in that list of easily recognizable character actors like Walter Connally, Ian Wolfe, Edgar Kennedy, Barton MacLane, Roy Barcroft, and the like if you watched movies from this era.
Armstrong headed quite a few B’s as I recall, usually about this quality. In bigger films like G-MAN he tended to get smaller but significant roles — even in KING KONG he isn’t really the lead (that’s Bruce Cabot)but in a character role.
And since when did Hollywood ever slight overweight and or aging leading men with thinning hair who weren’t your standard hero figure? Lyle Talbot, Rod LaRocque (at least a younger silent lead), Wallace Ford, Regis Toomey, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster in the 40’s, William Gargan … Armstrong isn’t that surprising in that company.
He was the leading man though in THE SON OF KONG.
January 17th, 2015 at 7:45 pm
Re The Virginian and James Burke
He has a scene with Barbara Britton while driving via stagecoach away from Wyoming that is just about as good as one can get. For whatever reason he is unbilled in that film.
January 18th, 2015 at 3:29 am
I totally agree that in that era, older men were (both in real life and in movies) often paired with younger women without startling anyone. Really, its not even just that era but even more common the farther you extend back through recorded history. Simply due to patriarchal society, economics, and the way hormones work–power dynamics–it was only cause for surprise when the man was grossly disparate in age from his companion. Otherwise, pretty routine. Even in today’s image-conscious society, the forces which bring about these pairings are still at work. Especially when there’s lots of money or status involved. ‘Gold-diggers’–bless their conniving little hearts–are probably more rampant today than ever. “There’ll always be a man to slide a chair in beneath a soft bottom,” …as the saying goes. Ha!
January 18th, 2015 at 10:30 am
The only name in the cast that I didn’t recognize immediately was Henry Kolker; Maxine Doyle is familiar to me as the leading lady in the serial SOS Coast Guard, and as director William Witney’s real-life wife. LeRoy Mason actually had some leads and co-starring roles in silent films (among others, he played a major part in the silent Technicolor epic The Viking), and later became one of the premiere B-western and serial villains of the sound era. Usher and Burke have already been more than adequately identified.
January 18th, 2015 at 1:37 pm
To everyone who recognized one or more of the names and faces in this movie, you guys are good. I’m pleased to have you all as readers of this blog. Take a bow!