Forgotten Noir Fridays: Sky Liner (1949)

State Department official George Eakins (John McGuire), scheduled to leave for a conference in L.A., receives a sealed envelope containing his orders by courier.  Eakins will never get on that plane to the Coast, however; a shadowy figure enters the office and pistol whips him, rendering him quite dead.  His secretary, Amy Winthrop (Rochelle Hudson), immediately emerges as a “person of interest” because her seatmate (Steve Pendleton) on that plane—identified only as “Mr. Smith”—has told the airline people he’s Eakins.

"I...am The Whistler..."

Steven Geray

Smith has another confederate on the same flight—foreign agent Bokejian (Steven Geray), who trades the sealed envelope originally handed to the real Eakins for five large.  Opening the envelope, Bokejian finds its contents consist of several blank sheets of State Department stationery…and because he believes “caveat emptor” to be a steaming pile of bovine excrement, he dispatches his ex-friend Smith to The Happy Haunting Ground with curare concealed in his fountain pen.  (This is not spoiling anything, by the way.  It’s obvious Bokejian is the murderer.)  Fortunately for the remaining passengers, there’s a Fed on board—Steve Blair, who takes quick control of the situation even though he’s played by the same actor (Richard Travis) who was Inspector Bruger in last week’s movie, Roaring City (1951).

Where to begin with Sky Liner (1949)?  I’ll say this for it—it makes Motor Patrol (1950) look like La règle du jeu (1939).  The tagline for this programmer reads “a fast paced and different kind of mystery thriller,” but there’s nothing remotely “fast paced” about Liner, and as for “different”—well, it would be unfair of me to say, “What makes it ‘different’ is that there’s nothing ‘thrilling’ about it” because it wouldn’t be the first movie I’ve watched that promised excitement and suspense and delivered neither.  It’s a static, talky B that keeps an unblinking eye on a stopwatch until its 61 minutes is up, and then announces it’s time for the wrap party.

Even then, the version of Sky Liner on the Forgotten Noir & Crime Collection Vol. 4 set (available at The Sprocket Vault) is a truncated version of the film, running at 49 minutes (DVD Talk’s Stuart Galbraith IV speculates it might be either a shorter UK release version or a TV cut).  The info on the movie at the American Film Institute mentions there’s an “obnoxious child singer” among the passengers…so it sounds like I lucked out here, because the kid in the print I watched does no singing.  “Amazingly, Sid Melton isn’t in this one,” observes Galbraith…but I was so bored watching the thing I kept hoping Sid would emerge from the plane’s washroom at some point.  Speaking of which:

Richard Travis

That washroom is larger than one we have here at the house.  There a lot of familiar Lippert faces in Sky Liner—Travis, Pendleton, Pamela Blake (as the stewardess), Michael Whalen, etc. (Margia Dean must have been furious with her agent)—and Robert L. stalwart William Berke (or “Wm.,” as it says in the opening credits) handles the directing chores (with a screenplay by the ubiquitous Maurice Tombragel).  I can’t in good conscience recommend you stop what you’re doing to sit down with this one, but if you’re trapped in a waiting room with fifty minutes to kill…you could do worse.

Next week: the return of Crime Does Not Pay!

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Roaring City (1951)

“Murdered men flock to you like flies around a molasses jug, O’Brien,” observes San Francisco cop Inspector Bruger (Richard Travis), having discovered his nemesis, private shamus Dennis “Denny” O’Brien (Hugh Beaumont), lying beside a man who appears to be in the advanced stages of death.  “I could get all the killers in this town by just sticking to you and waiting for the bodies to drop into your lap.”

“You’d be one up on the way you do things now,” is O’Brien’s hardboiled reply…and we’re off to the races with Roaring City (1951)—a Robert L. Lippert-produced programmer whose title seems more fitting for a western than a crime picture.

Hugh Beaumont, Richard Travis

Roaring City is a B-quickie made up of two unaired television episodes from an attempt to bring the Jack Webb radio classics Pat Novak…for Hire/Johnny Madero, Pier 23 to the small screen.  The above dialogue exchange is from the second half of the film; Novak Madero O’Brien is hired by a damsel in distress (Joan Valerie) to pose as her stepdaughter Sylvia’s (Wanda McKay) spouse for a C-note.  It seems that Bill Rafferty (Anthony Warde), Sylvie’s old beau, is back in town and Syl is worried that Rafferty might do something terribly dangerous once he finds out about their marriage.  The unfortunate shmoe that winds up dead alongside the unconscious O’Brien was first introduced to Denny as her cousin Steve…but in his attempt to clear himself of a homicide rap, our hero learns that “Steve” is in actuality Sylvia’s husband.

Stanley Price

The first story in City finds O’Brien hired by skeevy fight manager Harry Barton (Stanley Price) to lay down several $1000 bets on a pugilist named Ham Harper—who’s going to win a fight against Barton’s fighter, Vic Lundy (Greg McClure), because Lundy is going to take a dive in the first round.  Things do not go as planned; Lundy ends up winning the bout (Harper was not in fighting trim…and he had a blood clot near his brain) and is rewarded by being murdered not long afterward.  Like bad Kabuki theater, Bruger is convinced O’Brien is responsible, necessitating that Denny follow the clues pointing to a gambler named Ed Gannon (William Tannen).

Hugh Beaumont is not going to play the sap for Rebel Randall; he's slipped some incriminating evidence into her pocket.

DVD Talk’s Stuart Galbraith IV believes Roaring City is the worst film in the Forgotten Noir & Crime Collection Vol. 4 set (available from The Sprocket Vault), forgetting that it has formidable competition with Radar Secret Service (1950) and Motor Patrol (1950), both in the same compendium.  I’m able to cut City a little more slack because I’m so familiar with its source material…while in the same breath recognizing that a TV show based on Jack Webb’s waterfront creations probably wouldn’t have had much success.  The dialogue on Novak/Madero is a hilarious parody of hardboiled detectives…and while City faithfully reproduces this (leafing through a drawer, Beaumont’s O’Brien finds a calendar featuring models “who posed without telling their mothers”), visually there’s very little director William Berke can add to the proceedings.  Seriously, you could close your eyes while this movie is on and miss very little of the action…particularly since O’Brien’s voice-over narration tells you all you need to know (and in more than one instance, is repeated again in dialogue with other characters).

Hugh Beaumont is roughed up by henchman Abner Biberman and serials hoodlum Anthony Warde (the poor man's Ted de Corsia).

Ed Brophy has been given his bottle, and he's ready for bed.

Galbraith disses my man Ed Brophy, whom I have applauded in previous reviews for Danger Zone (1951) and Pier 23 (1951) for attempting to do something out of his wheelhouse in his portrayal of “Professor” Frederick Simpson Schicker, O’Brien’s frequently inebriated confidant:

Brophy's character is a real oddity. The actor had a thick Brooklynese accent that was instantly recognizable; he was short, bald, and bug-eyed - ideally suited for none-too-bright comic henchmen parts. But here someone got the bright idea to cast him as an erudite (if alcoholic) British professor (Red Flag! Red Flag!) who speaks floridly, gesturing like John Barrymore. Brophy plays it with an English accent, but some of the woids don't quite come out right. The effect is bizarre: it's like when Stan Laurel bonked his head in A Chump at Oxford and started talking like C. Aubrey Smith.

Hey…I’ll admit Brophy is no Tudor Owen—but give the man props for not being afraid to experiment.  Next week on the blog: I’ll wrap up the “Forgotten Noir” series with Sky Liner (1949).  When that’s finished—TDOY will resurrect the long-dormant feature “Crime Does Not Pay (As Well as It Used To).”

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Treasure of Monte Cristo (1949)

Edmund Dantes (Glenn Langan) has no sooner stepped off a boat (on which he’s employed as a second mate) docked along San Francisco’s waterfront when he must come to the rescue of a woman being attacked by a pair of goon-like gentlemen.  The female in question is Jean Turner (Adele Jergens), an heiress who’s currently receiving mail at a sanitarium (or “nuthouse,” as Dantes colorfully refers to it) because her guardian has placed her there to keep her from receiving the substantial fortune left to her by her father.  Jean cashes in when she’s either married or reaches the age of twenty-five; she mentions to Edmund that she’s nearly there, age-wise (yes, I knew Jergens was in her early thirties when this film was produced), but if the two of them were to tie the knot she could defeat her custodian’s eevill scheme.  (It would be a temporary business arrangement.  A three-month merger.)

Glenn Langan, Robert (Bobby) Jordan

So they’re off to “The Biggest Little City in the World” (Reno), and the morning after, Jean is having second thoughts.  When Ed ventures out to get her some cigarettes, he discovers upon his return that she’s vanished…but the address of the sanitarium has been scrawled on the mirror in lipstick.  (If Jean was abducted…wouldn’t the people putting the snatch on her notice something like this?)  Arriving at Casa del Cuckoo, Dantes hides in an upstairs room in the asylum when a man enters…and is shot by an unseen assailant.  This makes Ed The Amazing Colossal Patsy (actor Langan is known for his starring role in the 1957 cult sci-fi film The Amazing Colossal Man), as he’s arrested, tried, and sentenced for the murder of a man he’s never even met!  (Worst.  Honeymoon.  Ever.)

Adele Jergens

Despite its clunky title, which would be more fitting for a swashbuckling epic, Treasure of Monte Cristo (1949) is a decent noir whose only deficits are flabby pacing (I was kind of disappointed in director William Berke, who can usually make these little programmers hum) and uneven performances.  Far be it from me to want to deny actor Glenn Langan a career in show business…but the guy is in dire need of a charisma transplant (I know, he did quite a few biggies at Fox, like Forever Amber [1947] and The Snake Pit [1948]); a better leading man would have improved this picture enormously, and I’m only saying this because I have a thing for Adele Jergens.  (Adele and Glenn have zero chemistry.  Zip.  Nada.)

Margia, Margia, Margia! (Dean, that is.)

“If you love or live in San Francisco, this movie's like a time machine back to 1949,” observes Stuart Galbraith IV in his review at DVD Talk…and I think that’s another deficit in Treasure—it’s more of a travelogue at times than movie thriller.  (A narrator at the beginning even regales us with some Frisco stats before the story gets underway.)  Shooting on location is always nice in a film, but it shouldn’t overshadow the plot…which is conventional to the point of cliché from the get-go.  (There’s even a scene with a paralyzed victim who must communicate by moving his eyeballs.)  I wasn’t quite as taken with the suspense as Galbraith; truth be told, I had a little trouble staying awake at several points in the film.  (You could argue that the suspense is generated by “will he be able to keep from nodding off?”)

Steve Brodie

Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys fans will be amused at the presence of Bobby Jordan (billed here as Robert), portraying the friend who helps Langan crash out on his way to San Quentin—I’ve seen Jordan in a couple of Tales of Wells Fargo episodes of late, and can’t help but be a little wistful at how his adult life turned out (I think Leo Gorcey once remarked that his friend “didn’t have a guardian angel”).  Familiar movie heavy Steve Brodie plays the bad guy (pro-tip: never hire an attorney sporting a pencil-thin moustache) and member-of-the-TDOY-faithful b piper will be overjoyed to see Lippert “good luck charm” Sid Melton (billed as Sidney) as a henchman (thankfully, he keeps the shtick to a bare minimum).

Heeeeeeeeeeere's Sidney!

There’s a DVD disclaimer at the beginning of this film that reads: “The original nitrate negative to this picture had decomposed, but fortunately a master positive survived.  Even after restoration the sound track is not perfect.  We hope this imperfection will not affect your enjoyment of this rare film.”  It did not (though the part about the sound concerned me to where I waited until the cleaning ladies finished vacuuming), and it just reinforces what has become a mantra here on the blog: film preservation is most important, because nitrate won’t wait.  You can purchase a copy of Treasure of Monte Cristo on the Forgotten Noir & Crime Collector’s Set Vol. 4, available at The Sprocket Vault.

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Highway 13 (1949)

The Norris Trucking Company has been the focus of several unfortunate accidents, thanks to some generous use of stock footage from Republic serials.  But when Henrietta Norris, heiress to the Norris fortune, meets her demise in an automobile wreck along the same stretch of California highway that’s claimed so many gearjammers, her father (Tom Chatterton) and husband Frank Denton (Michael Whalen) sit up and take notice.  (Ms. Denton and the drivers all perished along Highway 13.  Get it?  Because “13” is an unlucky number.  Hello?  Bueller?)

Robert Lowery and Dan Seymour

Driver Hank Wilson (Robert Lowery) witnessed Henrietta’s accident, and he’s soon paired up with apprentice trucker George Montgomery (Steve Pendleton, billed as “Gaylord”)—who’s really a private investigator looking into the matter at Denton’s request.  Montgomery is killed in a suspicious truck accident not long after, and Hank is immediately fingered for the crime.  But Wilson is a right guy; it’s hard to believe he could be capable of such mayhem; suffice it to say, there’s no shortage of suspects including Norris personnel manager Mary Hadley (Maris Wrixon) and cantankerous garage/café owner Bill “Pops” Lacy (Clem Bevans).

No one was more surprised than I when I watched Highway 13 (1949) because this makes the second “Forgotten Noir” in a row that’s actually a fairly decent little B-picture.  Tooling along at a crisp, economical 58 minutes, Highway has a very good cast and was directed by journeyman William Berke (Shoot to Kill), who demonstrates with confidence that he knows his way around a programmer (this puppy was shot in three-and-a-half days).  Maurice Tombragel (whose contributions include the serials The Great Alaskan Mystery [1944] and Mystery of the Riverboat [1944]) gets the credit for the screenplay, from a story by John Wilste.

In his write-up for Highway 13 at DVD Talk, Stuart Galbraith IV is most laudatory—labeling the film “a genuinely baffling mystery that keeps viewers guessing.”  Steve at the Mystery File blog has a dissenting opinion: “Most other reviewers of this film rate it a whole lot higher than I do, but personally I don’t care for crime films in which the culprit(s) is/are obvious…”  I kind of have to throw in with Steve on this one; the individual(s) responsible does stick out like a sore thumb (when one of your suspects resembles the Gavin Elster character from Vertigo—not an encouraging sign) but despite this (and a finale that’s a teensy bit contrived) I’d still give the movie high marks (sometimes getting there is half the fun…even if you have predicted the outcome).

Mary Gordon and Clem Bevans

Most of the time when I’m watching Robert Lowery in a movie I’m trying to figure out why so many people thought he looked like Clark Gable.  (Lowery was in last week’s “Forgotten Noir,” Western Pacific Agent [1950]—though he didn’t make it past the first reel.)  But props to Bob—he’s very effective in Highway 13 (I also liked him in another Robert L. Lippert production reviewed on the blog, Arson, Inc. [1949]) and his chemistry with Monogram pin-up girl Pamela Blake (she plays his love interest, a waitress named Doris) is astoundingly good.  (Galbraith observes that Lowery resembles Victor Mature more—I’m with him on this.)  The casting in Highway is one of its major strengths; it’s filled with old pros like Clem Bevans, Mary Gordon (“Mrs. Hudson!”), and Lyle Talbot.  Talbot must have had one hell of an agent—he’s barely in the film and yet he’s mentioned in the opening credits; character veteran Dan Seymour (as an insurance agent named Kelleher) gets more screen time yet goes unbilled.

Pamela Blake and Robert Lowery

The short running time of Highway 13 is also a plus—it zips by so fast you aren’t afforded the opportunity to see where the seams show.  Galbraith also notes that “Lippert must have gotten access to the big diner set from some other movie; it's too elaborate to imagine that it was constructed for this film.”  (I concur, and thought the “Clover Café” background was very impressive for a programmer.)  Highway 13 has resurfaced on DVD as part of the Forgotten Noir series now available at The Sprocket Vault and can also be rented from the new ClassicFlix Underground.  (As to its noir bona fides—DVD Talk says yay, Mystery File says nay…proving it to be one of the most elastic of movie definitions.)

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Western Pacific Agent (1950)

Bindlestiff.  It’s a slangy word for a hobo or tramp, and apparently, it’s been out of usage for so long Microsoft Word is asking me “What the hell, Ivan?”  Be that as it may, the expression gets quite a workout in Western Pacific Agent (1950); as a train passenger (Jason Robards, Sr.) explains to his lady friend (Vera Marshe), most bindlestiffs are merely migrant workers…but some of them, to borrow the nomenclature of our orange Commander-in-Chief, are “bad hombres.”  The gentleman proceeds to tell the woman (and the movie audience) of one such wicked transient.

Though he’s recognized by his fellow rail-riders under his nom de hobo “The West Coast Kid,” the Kid is better known to his friends and family in Chester, California as Frank Wicken (Mickey Knox) …and he’s returned to his hometown to put the bite on his old man (Morris Carnovsky), who owns and operates the town’s general store.  No dice, Papa Joe tells his son—not one thin dime until Frank agrees to straighten up and get a J-O-B.  The ambitious Frank decides to take a shortcut and rob railroad agent Bill Stuart (Robert Lowery) of a $50,000 fruit pickers payroll; in doing so Wicken not only clubs Bill until his brains turn to guacamole but sticks a shiv in the stationmaster (Anthony Jochim) for good measure.  Fleeing with the cash, Frank leaves the murder weapon behind…because he isn’t very bright.  (I’m no lawyer…but I think Wicken just might swing for those killings.)

Stuart Galbraith IV at DVD Talk says of the ubiquitous Sid Melton: "He grows on you." (So does kudzu.)

To solve the murders, a special railroad agent named Rod Kendall (Kent Taylor) is brought in…and you’d think if he was that much of a big deal this movie would have been titled Western Pacific Special Agent.  Kendall, with the help of the local sheriff (Dick Elliott) and a stooge played by Sid Melton (because this is a Lippert film, after all) gets down to cases; the company has had the foresight to pass out a list of the serial numbers on the bills to local business so that Frank is unable to spend any of his ill-gotten gains.  Oh, the irony!  (All we need now is Bill Forman chortling about how terribly Wicken screwed up like a classic broadcast of The Whistler.)  Frank is ultimately unable to outrun the long arm of the law because…well, you know the drill—weed of crime, bitter fruit, yada yada yada.

Unlike a lot of the programmers on these Forgotten Noir DVDs (available for purchase at The Sprocket Vault or to rent from the new ClassicFlix Underground), Western Pacific Agent is a dandy little B-noir (yes, I think this one qualifies) from director Sam Newfield (and his producer, brother Sigmund Neufeld) that’s a hell of an entertaining movie to watch.  No less than an authority than the late John Cocchi—author of one of my favorite film reference books, Second Feature—spoke most highly of the film: “One of the brothers’ very best is this crime drama in which the heroes become secondary to the villain.”  I think he pretty much nails it; the top cop is played by Kent Taylor who, despite his lengthy movie resume, I can never think beyond TV’s Boston Blackie.  Taylor’s Randall is competent but uninspiring—he seems annoyed by Melton’s comic relief (I’d gamble he’s not the only one) and his “romance” with Martha Stuart (Sheila Ryan)—yes, that is the character’s name—is dull stuff.

The top performances in Agent go to Mickey Knox, who would later enjoy great success in Italian films in the 1960s/1970s (he was a favorite of director Sergio Leone), and Morris Carnovsky, a respected stage actor whose movie career was cut off at the knees by the blacklist.  Knox is so convincing as an amoral drifter it’s scary (Stuart Galbraith IV at DVD Talk notes that Woody Harrelson’s character in Natural Born Killers [1994] is named “Mickey Knox” and wonders if Oliver Stone ever saw Agent—I’ll bet this was Quentin Tarantino’s contribution) and the cruel twist of Fred Myton’s screenplay (from a story by Milton Raison) kind of makes you feel a little sorry for the little jerk.  Carnovsky proves to be the consummate pro in that he demonstrates despite having to be in this B-picture he’s going to give 100%.

Dick Elliott is always a welcome presence, and vets like Frank Richards and Ted Jacques turn in solid performances as two “bindlestiffs” who become hoboes of interest in Randall’s investigation.  (Look quickly and you’ll see our old buddy, B-western heavy Charles King, with a bindle as well.)  I’ll slip into a Stanley R. Sogg impression and let you know “the ever popular Margia Dean!” has a brief bit as a female hobo…proving that riding the rails was an equal opportunity occupation.  Why Jason Robards, Sr. goes unmentioned while his female companion gets a nod in the opening credits is a question I can’t answer…though the cynic in me speculates the actress in question might have been a friend of the producer, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Western Pacific Agent wraps things up with exciting shootouts at an old shack and a bascule bridge that per the {always reliable) IMDb is the Henry Ford Bridge on Terminal Island (Long Beach) where Knox’s Wicken meets a memorable end.  I only wish they had made a little more use of the Western Pacific streamliner the Zephyr Vista Dome, which was introduced in this picture (some of the scenes were shot on the train’s Frisco-to-Chicago run).  Other portions of Agent were lensed at Oroville (their dam has been in the news lately) in the Feather River country of Northern California.  Great little B-picture, and one of the stand-outs in the Forgotten Noir collections.

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Mr. District Attorney (1941)

P(rince) Cadwallader Jones (Dennis O’Keefe), newly-minted Harvard Law graduate (summa cum laude!), is given an opportunity (thanks to some political pull from an uncle) for a job in District Attorney Thomas Winton’s (Stanley Ridges) office.  For an Ivy League graduate, Jones doesn’t seem too bright; in handling his first assignment in court, he inadvertently allows a mobster (Ben Welden) to go free by arguing a point of law that forces the judge (George Watts) to declare a mistrial.  This little clusterfudge hits the front page of the paper where ace reporter Terry Parker (Florence Rice) works—the same periodical that hopes to back Winton in a tough reelection race against criminal attorney (emphasis on criminal) Arthur Barret (Minor Watson).

As punishment for being such a doofus, Jones is given a busywork assignment: a closed case (complete with a mountain of paperwork) involving a crooked politico named Paul Hyde (Peter Lorre), who made off with a tidy sum “liberated” from a public fund several years earlier.  Hyde has disappeared and is presumed dead…but when four fifty-dollar bills from that fund turn up at a local racetrack there’s no question that Mr. Hyde is back in circulation; Winton, however, takes the case away from screw-up Jones and hands it off to a more experienced litigator.  Jonesy and Terry team up to investigate the case, which leads them to murder, money, and mayhem before the final fadeout.

Back in November of last year, one of the entries on the blog’s Forgotten Noir Fridays was Mr. District Attorney (1947), a B-picture inspired by the popular radio show of the same name (from 1939 to 1953).  The 1947 version of Attorney was actually the fourth time the movies tried to start a film franchise based on the radio program; this week’s Forgotten Noir entry is the first go-round for Mr. District Attorney, released by Republic in 1941.  The 1941 film was originally going to be just a run-of-the-mill programmer cranked out by the Republic folks, but studio head Herbert J. Yates liked what he watched in the rushes and decided to appropriate a little more fundage to make the picture a “special.” 

In From Radio to the Big Screen, Facebook chum Hal Erickson notes: “To that end, [Yates] hired playwright F. Hugh Herbert (Kiss and Tell, The Moon Is Blue) to contribute additional dialogue, which may explain why the witty badinage between O’Keefe and Rice is the best thing in the picture.”  Mr. District Attorney is a tol’able little feature, but I disagree with Hal about the screwball comedy aspect involving O’Keefe and Rice; I found their relationship forced, and really—if I wanted to watch an attorney and his romantical escapades I’d put on a rerun of Bachelor Father.  I do agree wholeheartedly with Hal when he compares the comedic shenanigans in Attorney to the treatment detective Ellery Queen was receiving at Columbia at that time (with Ralph Bellamy playing the great sleuth for laughs)—neither approach served those gumshoes well.

I will say this in Mr. District Attorney’s favor: as the movie heads toward the end of its 69-minute running time it puts a nice spin on the plot (unfortunately resolved with a comedic car chase involving the principals).  The supporting cast is also first-rate: Grady Sutton is uncredited as a haberdashery salesman who appears at the beginning and end of the movie (he’s in on the lighthearted wrap-up), and I also spotted TDOY faves like Vince “Elmo” Barnett, Billy Benedict, Tommy Cook, Dick Elliott, Fred Kelsey, and Dave Willock (he has no dialogue, but he’s easily recognized as a photographer seated beside Rice in a courtroom scene).  I thought Peter Lorre was a little subdued in his role of villain—otherwise the rest of the veterans turn in solid work.

Republic followed Mr. District Attorney with Mr. District Attorney in the Carter Case (1941), described by Hal as “a notch better than its predecessor,” and a third entry in the franchise, Secrets of the Underground, was released in 1943—with D.A. “Winton” from the first two films shunted off to a bit role (and played by Pierre Watkin).  If you mosey over to The Sprocket Vault, you’ll find the 1941 movie and previous Forgotten Noir discs back in print—Richard M. Roberts will probably have more info on this but it looks as if Kit Parker Films has decided to release these little gems on their Vault label (which would explain their gradual fade-out from the VCI website).  While I didn’t care for the heavy comedy in Mr. District Attorney (Kit Parker calls it on their website a “whimsical filmization”), overall I found the picture to be a pleasant if unremarkable viewing experience.  (The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther had a dissenting opinion, calling it “the worst bad picture of the year.”  That had to have left a mark.)

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Motor Patrol (1950)

In last week’s review of Radar Secret Service (1950), I joked that the movie’s narrator was the third-place victor of a fictional “Reed Hadley Sound-a-Like Contest.”  This week—we get the genuine article!  Once several motorcycles are gunned during the opening credits of Motor Patrol (1950), we soon spot Mr. Hadley’s name nestled snugly among the names of the cast…and for me, there was much rejoicing.

Hadley plays Detective Robert Flynn in a not-even-remotely-noir tale of two motorcycle beat cops, Larry Collins (Bill Henry) and Tom Morgan (Lucio Fulci), who are first at the scene of an apparent hit-and-run.  The victim is a man named Richard Thompson, a used car salesman, and as Flynn and partner Bill Hartley (Richard Travis)—both of whom are with LAPD’s Traffic Division—conduct their investigation into Thompson’s death, the two men find themselves on the trail of a jamoke named Russ Garver (Charles Victor).  Garver is involved with a stolen automobile ring, and when Collins and Morgan recognize that Garver’s ride is a vehicle what’s been “liberated,” they take off after them on their sickles.  Garver deliberately slams his car into a tree, leading poor Larry to hit the wreck and wind up kilt when he’s thrown from his motorcycle.

Larry’s brother-in-law, Ken Foster (Don Castle), is enrolled at the Police Academy and hopes to follow in his bro-in-law’s kickstand by also taking up motorcycle policing once he graduates.  But all that must wait: he persuades Flynn to let him participate in the hunt for Collins’ murderer…which will necessitate his posing as a Chicago car thief to infiltrate the organization and expose the miscreants.  (Kind of like how Clarice Starling gets to work with the FBI in The Silence of the Lambs even though she’s still an agent-in-training.  Motor Patrol has considerably less cannibalism, though.)

My sentiments precisely.

I’m going to damn Motor Patrol with faint praise: it is not as terrible as Radar Secret Service.  But that doesn’t mean you need to rush out and snap this one up in a hurry—I fell sleep twice while watching it, much to my mother’s annoyance.  It’s your standard Lippert programmer, neither good nor bad, directed by B-movie maestro Sam Newfield (with his faithful sidekick Barney Sarecky producing), and dotted with the usual Lippert suspects in the cast: Richard Travis, Sid Melton, Margia Dean, etc.  Curiously, Melton isn’t a member of the auto theft gang (he’s usually the comic relief in the criminal contingent); instead, he’s a wisecracking bartender at a roadhouse café who identifies Thompson’s corpse as a goof who had a heated argument inside the jernt a few hours before his death.  Dean’s character actually gets bigger laughs (if I’m any judge) with her brief bit as a “model” giving Collins the lowdown as a witness at the scene of Thompson’s accident…while her “boyfriend” (Joseph J. Greene) ineffectively tries to conceal his impatience.  (Margia’s character is “Renee Roulette”—I guess that’s because so many johns have taken her out for a spin.  Try the veal!)  Onslow Stevens plays Hadley’s superior, and character fave Frank Jenks is on hand as “Mac.”  So…there’s that.

Like the proverbial bad penny, Sid Melton always turns up.  (He'll be in more "Forgotten Noirs" to come, too.)

When I wasn’t snoring through Motor Patrol, I had difficulty figuring out why a master auto theft ring would allow the vehicle that played a role in Collins’ death to be collected by the cops—wouldn’t it have made more sense to strip that baby and dispose of what couldn’t be sold as parts?  Be that as it may, Motor Patrol is over and done with at 65 minutes, and I’d recommend it only to those who aren’t particularly discriminating in their movie choices.  (I know—I have very little room to talk in this area.)  It’s available for rent at ClassicFlix.

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Radar Secret Service (1950)

As the third-place winner in the “Reed Hadley Sound-a-Like Contest” intones off-screen that we couldn’t have won the Second World War without RAdio Detection And Ranging (radar to you laypeople), we learn that the Radar Secret Service in the nation’s capital is doing swell things with the technology.  Why, RSS Agent Bill Travis (John Howard) and his sidekick Static (Ralph Byrd)—no, not the character on The Space Kiddettes—are able to close the unsolved Allen murder case by locating the missing gun!  (I wonder if the Radar Secret Service ever had cause to work alongside the United States Counterspies?)

But Bill and Static have bigger fish to fry: hoodlum Mickey Moran (Tom Neal) has received word of a valuable shipment of U-238 in transit…and his henchmen Blackie (Riley Hill) and Benson (Robert Kent) manage to “liberate” those goods before the uranium reaches its destination.  The Radar Secret Service swings into action with the help of a “Tele-Meter”—a surveillance device that acts like…well, if this motion picture is to be believed, like there’s a friggin’ camera on every street corner, triggered by the very presence of the U-238.  Moran certainly has his hands full staying one step ahead of the RSS…but the mobster has bigger problems: his moll Lila (Adele Jergens) is two-timing him with the real head of the ring, a sebaceous sort who answers to Michael (Tristram Coffin).

The working title of Radar Secret Service (1950) was Radar Patrol (the organization is repeatedly referred to by that name in the film), but I suspect they changed the name because of fears there’d be confusion with a Republic serial released a year earlier, Radar Patrol vs. Spy King.  With the supporting cast in Service, it could very well be a chapter play: Ralph Byrd, Tris Coffin (oddly, he’s in Radar Patrol vs. Spy King), Pierre Watkin (billed here as “Watkins”), Robert Kent, and Kenne Duncan—just to name a few.  Here’s what handicaps Service in the cliffhanger department: it is deadly dull to sit through, despite its 57-minute running time.  (Even the fistfights are uninspired.)

We can probably blame B-picture king Sam Newfield for the leaden pace of this one, since he sat in the director’s chair (his brother Sigmund was absent from this snooze fest—the producer on Radar Secret Service was the prolific Barney Sarecky) …but the sluggish screenplay by Beryl Sachs (an East Side Kids veteran) doesn’t do Service any favors, either.  Robert L. Lippert “good luck charm” Sid Melton is also around for this programmer (as a hypochrondriacal henchman named “Pill Box”), but when Ralph Byrd manages to get bigger laughs than Sid something has gone seriously awry.  (In fairness to Sid, I choked on my Crystal Light when Byrd’s character remarks about radar: “Dick Tracy used it years before it was invented.”  The in-joke, of course, is that Ralph played the legendary comic strip detective in four Republic serials, two entries in the brief RKO franchise, and on TV from 1950-52 [Byrd passed away at the age of 43 in 1952]).

Agents Byrd and Howard tool around in a vehicle that looks like they're delivering hair dryers.

It’s a shame that Radar Secret Service fails so miserably because it’s got a halfway decent cast: Tom “Detour” Neal is properly snarly, and my favorite B-movie bad blonde Adele Jergens is suitably slinky as the dame what double-crosses him.  Byrd provides scattered chuckles (his explanation of how he found the picture of Blackie’s girlfriend [Myrna Dell] is a hoot), and the always dependable Coffin and Watkin lend solid support.  If there’s a discordant note in this affair, it’s star John Howard…who may be the exception to my long-held theory that even bad actors can get better with age.  (I suspect my animosity towards Howard might have something to do with the fact that he’s the wanker who talks Ronald Colman into leaving Shangri-La in Lost Horizon [1937].)

I feel terrible that I’m going to beat my blogging compadre Scott Clevenger to the punch on this one…but, yes. Radar Secret Service received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment (in December 1993).  Paired with a railroad safety short, Last Clear Chance (1959), the MST3K sendup of Service has its mad scientists (Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff) boasting that the flick contains “Hypno-Helio Static Stasis (containing X-4)” (in layperson’s terms—this turkey is a cure for insomnia).  The MST3K version is available on YouTube, which I strongly endorse watching…but for the more masochistic among you, the director’s cut is available for rental from ClassicFlix.