You can’t go wrong with any of these. One of them, in fact is among my top five favorite movies of all time, The Narrow Margin. If you haven’t seen it, don’t miss it if at all possible.

6:00 AM They Live by Night (1949)
After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape. Cast: Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell, Howard da Silva. Dir: Nicholas Ray. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC

7:45 AM Mystery Street (1950)
Criminal pathologists try to crack a case with nothing but the victim’s bones to go on. Cast: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Elsa Lanchester. Dir: John Sturges. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC

9:30 AM Tension (1950)
A man who had planned to murder his wife’s lover becomes the prime suspect when somebody beats him to it. Cast: Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan. Dir: John Berry. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, CC

11:15 AM Dial 1119 (1950)
A killer holds the customers at a bar hostage. Cast: Marshall Thompson, Virginia Field, Sam Levene. Dir: Gerald Mayer. BW-75 mins, TV-G

12:45 PM Cause For Alarm (1951)
A woman fights to intercept a letter in which her husband tries to prove her guilty of murder. Cast: Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling. Dir: Tay Garnett. BW-74 mins, TV-PG, CC

2:00 PM No Questions Asked (1951)
A young lawyer’s primrose path to success gets him framed for murder. Cast: Barry Sullivan, George Murphy, Arlene Dahl. Dir: Harold F. Kress. BW-81 mins, TV-PG

3:30 PM Narrow Margin, The (1952)
A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster’s moll on a tense train ride. Cast: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White. Dir: Richard Fleischer. BW-72 mins, TV-PG, CC

4:45 PM While The City Sleeps (1956)
Reporters compete to catch a serial killer. Cast: Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price. Dir: Fritz Lang. BW-100 mins, TV-PG, CC

6:30 PM Nowhere To Go (1958)
A burglar on the run holes up with an innocent English girl. Cast: George Nader, Maggie Smith, Bernard Lee. Dir: Seth Holt. BW-87 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

8:00 PM Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
A prizefighter who died before his time is reincarnated as a tycoon with a murderous wife. Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains. Dir: Alexander Hall. BW-94 mins, TV-G, CC

9:45 PM Angel On My Shoulder (1946)
The Devil sends a murdered gangster to Earth as a respected judge. Cast: Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, Claude Rains. Dir: Archie Mayo. BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC

TIME TO KILL. 20th Century Fox, 1942. Lloyd Nolan, Heather Angel, Doris Merrick, Ralph Byrd, Richard Lane, Sheila Bromley, Morris Ankrum, Ethel Griffies. Screenplay by Clarence Upson Young based upon Raymond Chandler’s The High Window and Brett Halliday’s character, Michael Shayne. Director: Herbert I. Leeds. Shown at Cinevent 41, Columbus OH, May 2009.

    Fox would remake The High Window as The Brasher Doubloon, with George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe, but although I must confess I have not seen that film or read the novel, I can’t imagine a more entertaining version — albeit performed at express train speed — than the sixty-one minute treatment in Time to Kill. Nor can I imagine a more effective and sympathetic protagonist than the always entertaining Shayne as incarnated by Lloyd Nolan.

    The plot is something of a mess, with enough characters and red herrings for two, maybe even three short films. For the life of me, I couldn’t give you a coherent summary of the film, but I can assure you that I wasn’t bored for a minute. It ends rather abruptly, but Nolan never msses a beat as he exits from the series, most appropriately in a taxi with his latest flame. Mike, we still miss you.

STREET OF SHADOWS. Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (UK) / Lippert Pictures (US), 1953. Released as The Shadow Man in the US. Cesar Romero, Kay Kendall, Edward Underdown, Victor Maddern, Simone Silva. Based on the novel The Creaking Chair by Laurence Meynell. Screenwriter & director: Richard Vernon.

   Laurence Meynell, to begin at what’s probably the wrong (but easiest) place to start, is in all likelihood unknown to all but the keenest of detective fiction fans, but he had one of the longest careers in the business, with his first mystery novel coming out in 1928 and his last in 1988 (when he was 89).

   He also wrote non-fiction, poetry, children’s books and more. For a short online tribute to him, should you be interested, go here.

   The book that Street of Shadows was based on, The Creaking Chair (1941), isn’t one I’ve happened to read, so whether the movie has any resemblance to it, I cannot tell you. It came to me (the film, that is) in DVD form, as part of a box set of Forgotten Noir films, not that in 1953 they had any idea that they were making noir films, only films with crime and lots of dark shadows, all the better to hide how few dollars (or pounds, rather) there were involved with the budget in making them.

   I will make no jokes about the movies in this set being “Forgotten.” I will point out that the version of Street of Shadows in this set is seven minutes longer than the one released in the US, so you will get your money’s worth that way, if nothing more. (And for the life of me, I cannot figure out what seven minutes might have been cut. The plot’s so compact that leaving anything out would leave the story line incomprehensible, or so it would seem to me.)

   All seriousness aside, there are a couple of reasons for watching this movie, and I’m going to tell you right away that the story line isn’t particularly one of its strong suits. But Cesar Romero, whether he was playing the Cisco Kid or The Joker on the Batman TV series, never turned in a bad performance. Larger than life, perhaps, as he is here as Luigi, owner of a pinball club in London’s Soho district, but as always, he is also as natural before the camera as any actor I can think of.

   In Street of Shadows he is attracted to Barbara Gale, the wife of a man who’s bored with her, a fact that I can neither understand nor explain to you, since she’s a second reason for watching this movie, the most exquisitely beautiful Kay Kendall, married later to Rex Harrison not long before her tragic death from leukemia at the age of only 33.

   Also notable in the cast is Victor Maddern as Luigi’s crippled pug-ugly janitor “Limpy,” who’s never had a real date with a woman, and Simone Silva (of Robert Mitchum fame) as Angele Abbé, the girl that Luigi has broken up with. When she’s found dead in Luigi’s penny arcade, the eyes of the police turn directly to him — and on the run he goes, in order to clear himself.

   Don’t go looking for a major detective story here, even though an inspector from Scotland Yard has a sizable role to play (Edward Underdown).

   Watch this instead for the almost incessantly dark settings, Cesar Romero’s strong performance, to see Kay Kendall at the height of her stylish beauty, and for several of the mechanical devices in Luigi’s arcade, including a head-bobbing, banjo-playing clown, the latter adding noisily to the atmosphere, along with a jukebox in grand 1950s style that I really wouldn’t mind having myself.

THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS. 1936. Carol Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Douglas Dumbrille, Alison Skipworth, William Frawley, Sig Ruman, Porter Hall, Misha Auer. Screen story: Philip MacDonald, based on the novel The Duchess by Louis Lucien Rogger. (The latter may not exist in book form.) Director: William K. Howard.

   Why they insisted on putting Carol Lombard in dramas is one of the great unexplained mysteries of Hollywood. She was born for screwball comedy, and graces some of the highpoints of the genre from Hawks’ Twentieth Century to Wellman’s Nothing Sacred, to the divine Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be.

   The Princess Comes Across isn’t quite in that illustrious company, but it’s close. The title alone is worth the price of admission.

   Lombard is a would-be actress, Wanda Nash of Brooklyn, who went to Europe and got nowhere. She plans to cash in and hit New York big, though, by pretending to be a mysterious princess, Olga of Sweden, a Garbo-like figure sure to have the press in a frenzy by the time she hits New York.

   What she hadn’t counted on was a romantic bandleader in the person of Fred MacMurray as King Mantell, and murder on the ship home. The result is a delightful comedy-mystery that sometimes gets lost among the surfeit of films in that genre from the same era.

   Lombard made several films with MacMurray, and allegedly complained she wasn’t getting bigger stars as leading men, but the two are a good team, and if Fred was still a fairly minor leading man at this time, he wasn’t that far off from the films that would propel his career to major star status.

   He has an easy-to-take quality that made him ideal for these roles that could have been either dull or strident in lesser hands. MacMurray manages to hit all the right notes, and compliments Lombard as well as bigger name leads like Cary Grant, John Barrymore, or her husband Clark Gable. He was one if the stalwarts of the screwball comedy genre in his own light.

   The voyage is a hardly a vacation for anyone. There’s a blackmailer on board targeting Wanda and others, a killer who has taken the identity of one of the other passengers, and to add insult to injury, a convention of international detectives headed for New York.

   Poor Wanda couldn’t have picked a worst boat for her trip. Then too she is falling for bandleader MacMurray, the last thing she needs in her life — a musician.

   Of course with a mix like that, it’s only a matter of time until a body shows up and sets those nosy professional sleuths to sleuthing, and when their attention turns to Princess Wanda and King Mantell, they have no choice but to turn detective themselves to unveil the real blackmailer and killer.

   Dumbrille and Ruman are among the police officers, Inspector Lorel and Steindorf. The set-up reminded me a little of C. Daly King’s novel Obelists at Sea, in which a convention of psychiatrists on a cruise all play detective while New York police Captain Michael Lord keeps his silence and tracks down the killer.

   Like all good screwball comedies, the lines flow fast and furious, and the mystery is played for laughs, but with some genuinely spooky moments at night in the inevitable fog as Lombard tries to elude the killer.

   Everyone is at the top of their form, and despite all a list of six screenwriters (four credited, two not, including J. B. Priestley), the script holds together extremely well, thanks to Philip MacDonald’s succinct adaptation of Rogger’s novel. (If you ever wondered exactly what the screen story was in relation to the screenplay, this is a good example where a strong story holds together all the disparate contributions of an army of screenwriters.)

   We can be fairy certain it is MacDonald who keeps the mystery element in focus, while the comedy spins off of it. That said, I’d love to know what British novelist J. B. Priestley’s contribution was. He was no stranger to mystery and suspense or comedy in books or plays.

   The comedy mystery was a specialty of this era: The Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, The Mad Miss Manton, Arsenic and Old Lace, Whistling in the Dark, Slightly Larcenous, Grand Central Murder to name just a few, and it mixes well with the screwball school.

   The high point was likely W. S. Van Dyke’s It’s A Wonderful World and George Marshall’s antic Murder, He Says, but Princess is no slouch, and Lombard and MacMurray are both genuinely attractive and believable.

   Somehow this one has been neglected, but it doesn’t deserve that fate. It’s one of the brightest moments of the comedy mystery film at a time when these were being made with all the skills the studio system could bring to bear. The Princess Comes Across, and delivers, a jewel of a comedy mystery.

      

    Peeking ahead at next November’s schedule, I found a bonanza of “Falcon” movies coming up on Turner Classic Movies. Synchronize your calendars!

      Friday November 20

6:00 AM Gay Falcon, The (1942)
   A society sleuth tries to break up an insurance scam. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Gladys Cooper. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC

7:15 AM Date With The Falcon, A (1941)
   The gentleman detective postpones his wedding to find a cache of stolen diamonds. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, James Gleason. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-63 mins, TV-G

8:30 AM Falcon Takes Over, The (1942)
   A society sleuth and a lady reporter try to track down a murderous thug’s lost girlfriend. Cast: George Sanders, Lynn Bari, Ward Bond. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-63 mins, TV-G

9:45 AM Falcon’s Brother, The (1942)
   A gentlemanly detective calls on his brother to help him stop the Nazis from assassinating a key diplomat. Cast: George Sanders, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph. Dir: Stanley Logan. BW-63 mins, TV-G. [Screenplay by Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer.]

11:00 AM Falcon Strikes Back, The (1943)
   A society sleuth is framed for murder by criminals running a war-bond racket. Cast: Tom Conway, Harriet Hilliard, Edgar Kennedy. Dir: Edward Dmytryk. BW-66 mins, TV-G

12:15 PM Falcon In Danger, The (1943)
   A society sleuth tracks a lost plane carrying $100,000. Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Elaine Shepard. Dir: William Clemens. BW-70 mins, TV-G

1:30 PM Falcon And The Co-Eds, The (1944)
   A society sleuth investigates murder at a girls’ school. Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell. Dir: William Clemens. BW-68 mins, TV-G

2:45 PM Falcon Out West, The (1944)
   A society sleuth turns cowboy to investigate a Texas murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Carole Gallagher, Barbara Hale. Dir: William Clemens. BW-64 mins.

4:00 PM Falcon In Mexico, The (1944)
   A society sleuth travels South of the border to investigate an art dealer’s murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Mona Maris, Martha MacVicar. Dir: William Berke. BW-70 mins, TV-G

5:15 PM Falcon In Hollywood, The (1944)
   A society sleuth tours the movie capital, where he uncovers an actor’s murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Sheldon Leonard. Dir: Gordon Douglas. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC

6:30 PM Falcon In San Francisco, The (1945)
   A society sleuth enlists a little girl’s help in nabbing a mob of silk smugglers. Cast: Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Sharyn Moffett. Dir: Joseph H. Lewis. BW-66 mins, TV-G.

             —

   These, of course, have played many times over on TCM, but if you’ve never seen or taped them before, here’s a great chance to obtain them all at once. There are two more in which Conway appeared, followed by three starring John Calvert. You may have to hunt a while on the collector’s market for some or all of these.

THE FALCON’S ALIBI. (1946, RKO) Tom Conway, Elisha Cook, Jr.

THE FALCON’S ADVENTURE. (1946, RKO) Tom Conway.

THE DEVIL’S CARGO. (1948, Film Classics) John Calvert, Rochelle Hudson, Roscoe Karns, Lyle Talbot, Tom Kennedy, Theodore Van Eltz, Paul Regan

APPOINTMENT WITH MURDER. (1948, Film Classics) John Calvert, Catherine Craig, Lyle Talbot, Jack Reitzzen, Peter Brocco

SEARCH FOR DANGER. (1949, Film Classics) John Calvert, Albert Dekker, Myrna Dell, Douglas Fowley, Ben Welden

BIG BROWN EYES. Paramount, 1936. Cary Grant, Joan Bennett, Walter Pidgeon, Lloyd Nolan, Alan Baxter. Screenplay: Bert Hanlon. Story: James Edward Grant. Director: Raoul Walsh

   This relatively short comedy mystery is as close to a B-programmer as Cary Grant ever made, and despite being a disposable example of the fast-paced fast-talking comedy mystery of the era, is well worth seeing.

   Mildly screwball and played much in the vein of the “Thin Man” films, this is a minor film, and until recently hard to find, but there are several points of interest.

   Grant is Danny Barr a detective sergeant whose girl friend Eve (Bennett) is a manicurist with a nose for news. As the movie opens Danny is in pursuit of gangster Russ Cortig (Nolan) who heads a gang of jewel thieves and who fired a stray shot in a police chase that killed an infant. A bit grim for one of these ‘light’ romantic crime comedies, but fortunately played for as little pathos as possible.

   Eve gets her dream job on a newspaper, Cortig gets off thanks to a slick lawyer, and Danny quits the force and turns private eye to get Cortig on his own.

   Meanwhile the wise cracks spark like fireworks and the pace and patter never falter long enough to ask any serious questions.

   Eve leaves her dream job when her paper turns on Danny and goes back to her manicurist job, and it’s there she stumbles on the clue that turns the whole thing upside down. We cut to the chase and Grant closes in on Cortig and his gang for the big finale and the final clench.

   This sort of thing lives or dies on the capability of the cast, and Grant and Bennett are more than capable of the kind of sparks needed to keep this going.

   This is a slight film, and Bert Hanlon’s script could be better, but the cast and director push through, and the result is worth 77 minutes of your time.

   It’s far from Walsh’s best work, but it’s interesting to see Grant more or less playing a private eye, especially considering Raymond Chandler once suggested he would have been the ideal screen Philip Marlowe. If nothing else it’s interesting to see an early version of Cary in the kind of role he played in films like Notorious and Charade.

   Bennett, Pidgeon, and Nolan are all old pros and a cast of familiar faces rounds out the rest.

   I suppose you could complain that with that cast it should be better, but instead just enjoy it for what it is, a painless little preview of better things everyone involved would do.

   Nolan in particular is an interesting case, as his career had an unusual arc, playing a mix of villains. heroes, sidekicks, and good cops, fathers, and doctors well into the television age, with hardly a break in his screen appearances.

   If you watch this or any Nolan performance a second time, you might take note of the fact he was profoundly deaf, and as a result pays particular attention to his fellow actors looking for the visual clues to when his character is to act or speak.

   His Michael Shayne series offers an early look at the classic private eye persona on the screen well before the noir era.

   Pidgeon’s notable career was just starting, having come from a major hit on Broadway in the production of Ayn Rand’s tricky Night of January 16th.

   At this point the studios didn’t quite know what to make of him and he was often cast as slick lawyers, reporters, or even gangsters (the role he played in the Rand play). His stalwart leading man stereotype was still a few years ahead of him.

   Bennett had been around since 1929’s Bulldog Drummond with Ronald Colman and would be one of the actresses considered to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, but her best work would come in film noir, notably in Fritz Lang’s Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street opposite Edward G. Robinson, as one of the screens most ruthless femme fatales. Later, of course, she ended her career with a continuing role on the cult soap opera Dark Shadows.

Note: The big brown eyes of the title are Grant’s, but it’s still an odd title for a mystery, even a comedy mystery.

THE WHOLE TRUTH. Columbia-UK, 1958. Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders, Gianna Maria Canale, Michael Shillo. Screenwriter: Jonathan Latimer, based on a play by Philip Mackie. Directors: Dan Cohen, John Guillermin.

   Whenever you see Jonathan Latimer’s name somewhere in the credits of a film, you know that movie lovers in general are going to have a good time with it, and mystery fans in particular. The Whole Truth, although 1958 was beginning to be a little late for a movie to be filmed in black-and-white, is no exception.

   And although Stewart Granger’s career was on the downswing by the time he made this film — besides North to Alaska and a lot of work on TV and Europe, I don’t see very much else in his later list of credits — he still does a good job playing a film director in Europe having problems controlling the temper of his Italian leading lady, played briefly but most effectively by Gianna Maria Canale, an Italian leading lady herself (in one of her few English language appearances).

   It also turns out that Granger, while now happily married to Donna Reed, once had a short affair with Miss Canale, and the latter is holding that over his head — give me my way, she says, or your wife? Behave, or I’ll tell her everything.

   I say “briefly” because, this being a murder mystery, Miss Canale’s death comes very early on in the movie. It is very tempting to tell you exactly what George Sanders’ role is in this picture, but suffice it to say that Granger’s character is suspected, and it is up to Donna Reed’s to put up a good front. It is obvious that she has doubts, however, when his story begins to be challenged from all directions.

   There are many twists and turns ahead, not all of them wholly believable, but with Latimer in charge, the characters are not idiots — far from it. Sanders, of course, out acts everyone on the set, as only he could whenever given half a chance. There is lots of fun in store if you watch this one — giving, as, I say your suspension of disbelief plenty of room to work, and even to wallow around in.

   As for it being filmed in black-and-white, as pointed out in my first paragraph above, I really think the movie ought to have been made in color, even if a good portion of it takes place at night. It looks like a color film with the color turned off, if that makes sense, not a 1940s black-and-white film made by people who knew exactly how to make black-and-white films.

ONE MYSTERIOUS NIGHT. Columbia, 1944. Chester Morris (Boston Blackie), Janis Carter, Richard Lane, George E. Stone, William Wright, Robert Williams, Mark Roberts, Dorothy Malone (uncredited). Based on the character created by Jack Boyle. Director: Oscar [Budd] Boetticher Jr.

   If you were to go back to a review I did quite a while ago, that of Meet Boston Blackie, the first of the series, you’ll see that I wasn’t entirely impressed with it — or if I was, it wasn’t favorably.

   I’d happened to have taped a whole run of the Blackie movies at the time, and here it is, over two years later, and last night I finally watched another one, the seventh overall, just so you know where we stand when we start.

   And I might as well tell you this frankly. Not even the fact that this was famed Budd Boetticher’s first directorial effort, the first he was given credit for, can save this movie from itself. Bad? Well, maybe not, but let me tell you this, it sure isn’t good.

   Blackie in this one is called in by Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) to find a stolen diamond. Working on the side of the law, Blackie still finds the need for disguises and other funny stuff inorder to check out the scene of the crime, for example, as well as a couple of other instances.

   But even though he spots how the thief did it within five minutes (and I still don’t believe the guards on duty were really that stupid), he’s spotted so quickly in turn by a ubiquitous blonde reporter (the slim and stunning Janis Carter), that Blackie ought to turn in his license as an unlicensed (and no longer active) crook and go back to the amateur level himself.

   There are two things going for this movie, and Janis Carter is one of them, though how she manages to pop up every time the movie needs a boost in another direction, I’ll never know.

   The other is the non-stop action that leaves absolutely zero time for reflection on how or why, only ever onward to the next scene.

   Connoisseurs of sappy lunkhead comedy crime movies like this one should note that I am not including the so-called alleged humor as one of the positives. Picture this. The two main crooks are standing like dummies (no, I really mean dummies, or manikins, perhaps) in a pawnshop with the owner seriously wounded from a gunshot on the floor, while the two policemen they’re hiding from play cards in front of them while they’re waiting for the ambulance to come.

   Well, I suppose you could call it funny. And do you know what? Right now I’m sitting here grinning like a nine-year-old!

         Overnight, Tuesday, July 21 to Wednesday, July 22 —

8:00 PM Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
   An ambitious housemaid learns her employer murdered his wife. Cast: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Bill Travers. Dir: Arthur Lubin. C-90 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format
9:45 PM Secret Partner, The (1961)
   A shipping tycoon with a record becomes a suspect when money goes missing from the company vault. Cast: Stewart Granger, Bernard Lee, Haya Harareet. Dir: Basil Dearden. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
11:30 PM Light Touch, The (1952)
   An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss. Cast: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Pier Angeli. Dir: Richard Brooks. BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC
1:15 AM Whole Truth, The (1958)
   A woman tries to prove her cheating husband didn’t murder his mistress. Cast: Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders. Dir: Dan Cohen, John Guillerman. BW-84 mins, TV-PG
2:45 AM Secret Invasion, The (1964)
   Five criminals win early pardons to infiltrate a Nazi outpost. Cast: Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Mickey Rooney. Dir: Roger Corman. C-95 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

         All day Wednesday, July 22 —

11:15 AM Saint In New York, The (1938)
   The Saint goes undercover to get the goods on New York’s mob kingpins. Cast: Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Ben Holmes. BW-72 mins, TV-G
12:30 PM Saint Strikes Back, The (1939)
   The Saint helps a young beauty take vengeance on the mobsters who ruined her father. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Barry Fitzgerald. Dir: John Farrow. BW-64 mins, TV-G
1:45 PM Saint In London, The (1939)
   The Saint’s investigation of a counterfeiting ring uncovers a nest of spies. Cast: George Sanders, David Burns, Sally Gray. Dir: John Paddy Carstairs. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
3:00 PM Saint’s Double Trouble, The (1940)
   Reformed jewel thief Simon Templer lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Bela Lugosi. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC
4:15 PM Saint Takes Over, The (1940)
   Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar tries to help a police inspector who’s been framed on bribery charges. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Wendy Barrie. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-70 mins, TV-G, CC
5:30 PM Saint In Palm Springs, The (1941)
   Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar’s efforts to deliver a fortune in rare stamps are complicated by murder. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-66 mins, TV-G
6:45 PM Saint Meets The Tiger, The (1943)
   The Saint infiltrates a small English village run by smugglers. Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Jean Gillie, Clifford Evans. Dir: Paul L. Stein. BW-69 mins, TV-G

[UPDATE] 07-22-09. The best laid plans and all that. Our cable, Internet and phone service all took short vacations this evening and early morning. The cable came back after only a 15 minute recess, but it still means there’s going to be a big, unfillable hole in The Light Touch. I haven’t seen any of these Stewart Granger films, so the loss of any of them qualifies as at least a minor catastrophe. Hopefully it’s going to be only the one.

   As for later today, I must have seen all but one or two of the Saint movies, and I probably have permanent copies of them all, but I’ll record them anyway, just in case I don’t.

TWO OF A KIND. Columbia Pictures, 1951. Edmond O’Brien, Lizabeth Scott, Terry Moore, Alexander Knox, Griff Barnett. Co-screenwriters: James Edward Grant, James Gunn, Lawrence Kimble. Director: Henry Levin.

   I can’t tell you why it took three writers to get this movie made, but I think the results show it. Or at least that was my opinion before I even knew who the screenwriters were, and how many. One of them is James Gunn, the hard-boiled mystery writer, by the way, not the science fiction writer James Gunn.

    “Our” James Gunn has only one major entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, that being Deadlier Than the Male (Duell, 1942), which was later the basis of the movie Born to Kill, the one with Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor — you know the one.

   In any case, this movie starts out like gangbusters, with the hauntingly beautiful Lizabeth Scott tracking down — for reasons unknown — an orphan born in the Chicago area by the name of Michael Farrell (Edmond O’Brien). It turns out that she has a pretty good swindle in mind, along with a steadily unscrupulous lawyer, played by Alexander Knox.

   It turns out that a wealthy couple have been trying to find their son who’s been missing since he was three years old. Farrell might be a very good match, except for one small detail. The boy, if he’s still alive, would lack the tip of the little finger on his left hand.

   Luckily they didn’t invent car doors for nothing.

   But if you’re looking for a good solid noir movie, it’s downhill from here. But don’t get me wrong. If you’re looking for a good solid crime story, albeit a semi-softhearted one, built around an even better con game, complicated by an attempted murder and other good features, waste no time in looking further.

   Edmond O’Brien’s easy mannerisms do him well in ingratiating himself with the missing boy’s parents, to the consternation of the lawyer, who also isn’t terribly pleased with how he also seems to get along very well with Brandy Kirby (the previously mentioned Lizabeth Scott).

   Did I mention that it took all of Brandy Kirby’s feminine wiles to convince Farrell that he really didn’t need that tip of his finger? I should have. The money, running to a share of millions of dollars, wouldn’t have done it, not by itself alone. Being a law-obeying kind of guy myself, I don’t know whether or not I’d go for the combo (Brandy plus the money), but it would be an awfully close call.

   And if you were wondering, the “two of a kind” in the title are Mike Farrell and Brandy Kirby. Terry Moore’s character comes into it for a while — she plays a semi-loopy teen-aged girl who falls for Farrell briefly herself — but this is Lizabeth Scott’s movie all the way, and when she wants something, look out.