Thu 20 Jan 2011
COVER UP. United Artists, 1949. William Bendix, Dennis O’Keefe, Barbara Britton, Art Baker, Ann E. Todd, Doro Merande. Screenplay: Jerome Odlum & Dennis O’Keefe. Director: Alfred E. Green.
Here’s a fine example of a case where the title of the movie is spot on accurate, so much so that you’re going to have to put it in the back of your head while you’re watching, or it will give the whole story away. (And forget I just said so, too, while you’re at it.)
Dennis O’Keefe, who gets second billing, even though it’s his actions (and reactions) we follow throughout the movie, plays an insurance investigator in Cover Up. In the unnamed small town somewhere in the Midwest (near Chicago, apparently) where he’s been sent to look into a reported case of suicide, he runs straight into a stone wall.
The local sheriff, played by a placid, pipe-smoking William Bendix, is friendly enough, but when asked about the gun, the bullet, anything at all, evades the answers. The coroner’s out of town, I don’t know where the gun is, I don’t know what type of gun it was, all the while puffing away, looking slyly upward to see how his act is going over.
No fool he, Sam Donovan (that’s O’Keefe) knows it’s an act, too, but he has no choice but to realize that any investigating he has to do, he’ll have to do on his own. Complicating matters is that he is falling for the girl he rode into town with on the bus (Barbara Britton).
Why complicated? Only that he comes to the conclusion that murder has been committed and the girl’s father, the town’s banker (Art Baker) is soon his number one suspect.
This is no film noir mystery, as I’ve seen it advertised online, in case you were wondering, not in my opinion. The story takes place at Christmas, there is a lighting of the town’s tree with all of the local folk in attendance, presents are exchanged, and soon the snow is starting to fall.
Very folksy and charming, in other words, but if pressed, I’d have to agree that there’s an edge to the plot — hidden right below the mistletoe — that keeps this movie moored as a mystery and not a just another soft-hearted romance.
And while Dennis O’Keefe as Sam Donovan may be the primary protagonist, it’s William Bendix, who does double duty as both the small town’s sheriff and its self-appointed guardian, if you will, who earns his top billing after all.
January 21st, 2011 at 9:04 pm
I saw this on its recent TCM run.. Had never heard of it before.
The first half is pretty good. But felt that the Christmas finale didn’t fit in real well with a detective story.
Still, it is something different.
Lots of interesting social detail, with bus travel, small town life, investigators.
Good cast, too!
January 21st, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Mike
I agree. There is a jumping off point about half way through where the movie could have gone two ways, the first a lot more hard-boiled and cynical, the other the way it did.
The movie’s enjoyable enough, with lots of the small things you point out, but unless it was released at Christmas time, I wonder if audiences didn’t get the same feeling about it as the both of us did.
Take another look at the poster. Doesn’t it make the movie look like one with lots of guns and a dead body? Not so at all.
— Steve
January 21st, 2011 at 11:57 pm
Dennis O’Keefe split about evenly between this kind of homey mystery and noir outings like RAW DEAL and T-MEN, with his natural comic abiity and timing and his easy to take personality able to switch convincingly from likable Joe to tough guy.
I can’t recall the name, but there is another something like this with O’Keefe as a reporter who uncovers the presence of a famous safe cracker in a small homey Norman Rockwell setting — it’s based on the O Henry story “The Return of Jimmy Valentine.”
His cop in LADY SCARFACE is played about as much for romantic comedy as drama in that film too.
O’Keefe was also Will Eisner’s professed model for the Spirit, though I never knew if he thought of him for the role before or after creating the character since O’Keefe only turned to acting around the time Eisner debuted the strip.
January 22nd, 2011 at 1:14 am
David
The O’Keefe film you’re referring to in paragraph two is The Affairs of Jimmy Valentine, from 1942. It’s also known as Unforgotten Crime, according to IMDB.
I thought it was going to be hard to find on DVD — only one comment has been left on IMDB and one external link — but not so. I have a copy on order and it’s on its way already.
— Steve
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:32 am
Steve
I need to update my copy since mine is soft to the point of being invisible, so let me know what yours is like. It’s no great shakes, but a nice small town movie with a little mystery, a little schmaltz, and the expected finale.
Years ago PBS aired a drama based on the O Henry story, which had William Henry Porter working in the infirmary at Ossining (Sing Sing) Prison during some sort of epidemic, and telling the story of Jimmy Valentine to a deathly ill inmate. I’m afraid that’s all I recall about it thought.
The story, one of O Henry’s most famous, was often adapted for television and radio.