In today’s episode of “Grainy Old movies I Find On YouTube”
Based on a radio show that was popular at the time, this was supposed to
be the first in a series; word has it the property was sunk when HUAC
went after Dashiell Hammett, who had his name on the credits as the
show’s creator even though he didn’t write the scripts. So we just have
this one movie, made by future cult-movie-director William Castle, with a
cast that includes Rock Hudson, Julie London and Marvin Kaplan, all
very early in their careers, and circus clown Emmett Kelly in his first
movie role (I’m pretty sure one of the clown masks in The Killing, which also appears in the opening sequence to The Dark Knight,
is based on Kelly’s face and make-up); and of course J. Scott Smart,
the star of the radio show, as private-eye Brad “The Fat Man” Runyon.
As always with a lot of these things I watch, I don’t know whether
it’s an objectively good film. It doesn’t seem to know if it’s a comedic
mystery or a film noir: it has too high a body count to be the former,
but it’s not quite gritty and subversive enough for the latter. I do
think it’s worth seeing. Some spoilers ahoy:
I’d say the
performances are good – even woebegone assistant/comedy sidekick Bill
isn’t too annoying. Anyone who thinks Brad Runyon and Bill are a simple
Nero Wolfe/Archie knockoff isn’t paying attention – Runyon is more like
Archie’s personality in Wolfe’s body: picture a slightly shorter
version of John Candy, with a rakish moustache, some pretty good dance
moves, a tendency to address everyone (including at least two of the
male characters) as “sweetheart,” and no particular qualms about
blackmailing a suspect’s philandering chauffeur for information.
Rock Hudson is pretty memorable considering his scenes are all
flashback. Jayne Meadows is good enough for me to feel annoyed that
her character disappears from the narrative, and then that the script
remembers her existence just long enough to get rid of her. As far as
Julie London’s character goes, my only quibble with the script is that I
can’t see a woman like that giving up hope and going home, not without
hard proof that her husband is dead, no matter how much she trusts
Runyon’s promise to keep her informed on the case. I do believe
that she trusts Runyon – London and Smart have very good non-romantic
chemistry, which is always an interesting thing to see between actors
who aren’t the same sex.
Kelly plays a clown with a past; it’s
probably not that much of a spoiler, given the genre, to note that the
narrative plays on his face being more familiar to audiences when
thickly covered in white paint. Out of make-up, he has a bit of an
Elisha Cook, Jr. vibe, though he’s a medium-size rather than a small
man. His gestures and body language show his training, whether we can
see his face or not, but he belongs to the noir rather than the comedy
side of the movie.
Mooncustafer 