PAROLE, INC. (1948)

Equity Pictures present this uninteresting film about a federal agent's undercover mission. The Orbit Production is split between studio sets and location shooting with the obligatory train steam whistle soundtrack in the distance. The opening title credits are accompanied by an Alexander Lazlo score, a B-movie composer and music director for NBC Radio at the time. The music has slight documentary angst about it and the opening roll of the introductory text seems to support this. Yet the score could be used for many dramas with a burlap background behind the titles. l cannot imagine many talked about the film after its initial run, although Michael O'Shea was popular. This movie lacks suspense, action, or any surprises, making for a long seventy-five minutes, including the minimum fist-a-cuffs action.

The film opens from O'Shea's hospital bed as we see him verbally, still gasping for air, transcribe his thoughts over a Dictaphone about his recent investigation. His head appears bandaged by "Miss Winthrop's third-grade class" using masking tape indiscriminately. While his character sets up the film's premise through flashbacks, each time cutting back to his hospital bed, O'Shea's bandages begin to look a tad more medically approved. The nurses got a real chuckle with those third-graders!

As O'Shea recalls, he went undercover to flesh out the gang responsible for buying paroles for convicted criminals. His lackluster voice-over narration has all the raw toughness of Danny Kaye. Evelyn Ankers, the owner of a dinner club, employs several of her “boys” to do her bidding. The film plays out in slow motion as it cuts between informative scenes and the lull of O'Shea's narration. The Police Commissioner, Lyle Talbot, looking particularly oily in a pencil-thin mustache, arranges a fake news headline that reassures the gang about O'Shea's supposed criminal history. Soon enough we are back in the hospital and by now, bedsores are probably O'Shea's biggest concern.

Turhan Bey plays the gang's attorney—the hunk of Ankers—who is the kingpin of buying paroles with inside help from two crooked parole board members. In a pinstriped suit and dark Vitalis hair, Bey looks every bit the matinee idol and stands out from all the other average-looking people in the film. Harry Lauter, always on hand for a supporting role plays a board member whose well-reasoned votes are constantly ignored by the overriding liberal committee.

The excitement nearly crescendos, but the ending is the least imaginative as we finally learn how O'Shea ended up in the hospital in the first place. It also supplies the moviegoer with his current status. He is finally out of that “Craftmatic” bed with dreams of going dancing again.