Sun 30 Dec 2018
Archived Movie Review: MANHANDLED (1949).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[2] Comments
MANHANDLED. Paramount Pictures, 1949. Dorothy Lamour, Sterling Hayden, Dan Duryea, Irene Hervey. Director: Lewis R. Foster.
I started writing this review by running through the basic plot, but after writing three or four lines, I gave up, realizing how dumb it all was. Let’s boil it down to this: crooked private eye frames psychiatrist’s secretary for murder.
Dan Duryea plays the aforementioned PI in a manner that’ll curl your teeth — and I mean that in a good way. No one was better than he in roles like this. This is one he was meant to play.
In an early role for him, Sterling Hayden plays a sympathetic insurance guy who’s nowhere to be seen when Miss Lamour needs him most, and the guys on the police force should be in the movies — as comedians. There will be times when I swear you will say that any resemblance to real life is totally coincidental.
I enjoyed the movie anyway. It isn’t much of a detective or mystery story, but there are enough suspects involved for there to be a surprise or two, and if you can put up with the comedy bits, there are enough of the grimmer elements of the noir school of movie-making to make this a film worth watching out for.
December 30th, 2018 at 7:56 am
Steve, you put it perfectly. I’ve tried to come to some critical understanding of MANHANDLED since I saw it in the late 60s, and it always seemed to fall somewhere between Nightmare and Farce.
December 30th, 2018 at 9:55 pm
It’s a bit of an oddity, but Duryea is his usual great creep and Lamour and Hayden good. Doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be, but it is more interesting than annoying in what it does.