THREE BLONDES IN HIS LIFE (1961)

This apparent single Golden Film Production—this poster is golden—surely struggled at the box office on its second weekend. The score is composed and conducted by Andre Brummer and His Dectet. A jazzy opening title song, written by him and Francis Turner, is performed by The Russo Brothers, giving an impression this is a lighthearted comedy. Tony Randall is not in this movie. Perhaps a fair warning the film should not be taken too seriously. Though overlong at eighty-six minutes, it seems longer.

Famous stuntman, Jock Mahoney, plays an insurance investigator, aka a private detective, who is hired to find out what happened to his company's missing detective and operative in Los Angeles. This is his film and he adds stability to the production. An airline ticket awaits from New York to Los Angeles aboard an American Airlines 707 Astrojet in classic red-orange lightning bolt livery: black and white film does not do it justice. According to his inner thought voice-overs, the only thing on the investigator's mind is the women he has encountered throughout his travels. Handsome Mahoney goes by the name of Duke. Naturally. He is not easily ruffled with the confidence and swagger to take on anything or anyone. He dominates any room he is in. He joins forces with his Los Angeles contact, cigar-chomping Jesse White. A guy with an apple fetish, always eating or offering one. By the same token, we learn Mahoney's favorite alcoholic drink because he is either ordering one or being offered one. There is good chemistry between them and White's distinct delivery and expressions help a very talkative script. Mahoney has been given the authority to fire White for his incompetency, yet he is still on the job by the film's end.

White picks up Mahoney at the airport in a convertible which becomes one of the most faked, budget-strained prop cars I have seen in a film. No suggested car, windshield frame, or dashboard. Just two guys sitting in front of a camera with a steering wheel in front of rear-projected highway traffic. While “traveling” on a 4-lane freeway at speed—in between the obligatory horn honks—listen closely for the sparrows chirping as if the two were sitting in a quiet city park. 

There is so much explanatory dialogue by screenwriter and director, Leon Chooluck, that your auditory senses may shut down completely. Time is spent filming the principal cast members reading lengthy accident reports related to the case. Unless you are taking dictation, you may not keep things straight. Three blondes were involved with the missing investigator. When his cold body turns up it becomes a murder case. Mahoney's first blonde interview, Elaine Edwards, the wife of the murdered detective, provides a backstory of major proportions. He is only able to stay awake by her seduction attempts—yet so distraught over her husband's recent demise. His second encounter, Valerie Porter, seems to have borrowed the same script. The silliest by far is Greta Thyssen (below) in an ostentatious, fire-retardant wig. The other identifying trademark is the use of Hollywood's stereotypical sultry saxophone every time she appears. She has a lot of “something more comfortable” to slip into with strategically placed mirrors in her bedroom.

Mahoney and White investigate the mountain cabin where Edward's husband was murdered, with assistance from a drowsy old sheriff and his Jeep. Back in town, adding the first bit of excitement is Mahoney's stunt work as he is "pushed" down a stairway head first by actor Anthony Dexter. Their later fight scene has Mahoney knocked to the floor on his back. As Dexter approaches, Mahoney sends him halfway across the room with his legs. Dexter is soon out of his element and his stand-in takes over. From one stuntman to another, the energetic fight is well choreographed and they destroy the apartment. Police are called to the scene in a 1950 Nash traveling so fast in time it transforms into a 1956 Ford at the scene. The film ends with another “exciting” reading of the official report in an attempt to put a wrap on the movie. 

Note: This appears to be a television pilot movie that every network rejected. Speaking of television, this film may be the only indirect reference to the then-popular, Gerald “Kookie” Kookson, III of “77 Sunset Strip” television fame. With a wry smile, Mahoney questions a young “cool cat” parking attendant if he ever watches television. The hipster's reply indicates he is familiar with the show.

PRIVATE HELL 36 (1954)

This eighty-one-minute noir centers on two detective pals coming to odds when one turns to the noir side. It is an independent film produced by The Filmakers Inc team of Ida Lupino and Collier Young. Directed by Don Siegel, do not expect anything ground-breaking but it will not disappoint, thanks to a competent cast. The opening, in particular, is excellent as it leads to an off-duty detective stumbling perilously upon a store robbery. Leith Stevens' score with muted trumpets at the beginning adds a jazzy, low-key element and never overpowers the scenes. Unfortunately his best bit, the bouncy, multi-faceted tune entitled, “Daddy Long Legs,” is hidden in barely audible background music a couple of times in the film, the last being the meeting of the detective pals at a diner near the ending. Revealed in the closing minutes, 36 refers to a trailer park address. 

Detectives Howard Duff and Steve Cochran are tasked with tracking down fake fifty-dollar bills from a three hundred grand robbery. The duo first encounters two famous character actors and one less famous. King Donovan is one of the robbers and a frequent guest of the police department. His face and torso hurt after a one-sided fight of realistic proportions with Cochran in that opening sequence. Dizzy Donovan has trouble keeping his aliases straight. Another stolen fifty ends up with a pharmacist, Richard Deacon, who is questioned about it. He is well cast in a meek, unassuming role. His prescription payment from a gall bladder patient leads them to one of the best character actors in the business, Dabbs “Marv” Greer. He is, as usual, one hundred percent believable. This time as a local bartender who thinks the cops are accusing him of a crime because he had one of the bills. He is quite defensive about it. Duff has a funny line here to reassure them they are just asking where he got the fifty. He tells Greer, “Uh-uh, mind your bladder, Marv.”

The duo turns next to money enthusiast, Lupino, a nightclub singer, questioning her at length about how she came upon her fifty. She delivers a few witty lines at the expense of the detectives which Cochran finds very appealing. Against her preferred judgment, she is convinced to go along with their plan and ultimately identifies the man with the phony bills. A realistic car chase ensues with automobiles racing to the edge of tire adhesion. The fleeing thief is killed in a crash, learning too late that the mountain's “Road Closed” sign was not a mere suggestion. You might say Cochran goes over his own cliff when he pockets part of the stolen loot at the crash site. Most of it, he hopes, going to keep Lupino happy. 

Police Captain, Dean Jagger, who also opens and closes the film with sonorous voice-overs, calmly asks the cops later about the shortfall from the thief's suitcase. Cochran concocts a likely scenario. Duff sits silently fuming over his partner's blatant dishonesty. Obviously, the partners have a falling out with Cochran taking his obsessive downward spiral even lower with murder not out of the equation. The final scene offers a twist, all explained by Jagger's script. 

Notes: Ida Lupino performs part of one number, “Didn't You Know?” yet she really does not sing it. She talk-sings it, never really zeroing in on any particular note. Unlike others who must talk their way through a song because they cannot carry a tune—Eva Gabor's “Green Acres” television theme is a prime example—she was musically talented. Her song interpretation simply was a bit humorous as Cochran goes off in dreamland listening to her “talk” while the piano plays.  

Seemingly in his element, Duff earlier played a U.S. Treasury agent in the lesser-known film, Johnny Stool Pigeon, and would star as a detective in his own 1960s television show, The Felony Squad. 

VICE SQUAD (1953)

United Artists distributed this Gramercy Pictures (II) production. Not a great film on the whole but the script has good pacing. Judging by the dynamic, dangerous opening score by Hershel Burke Gilbert one would get the idea you are about to watch a hardened crime story. But it is as lighthearted as it is gritty. And it is not gritty. Sterling Hayden is not in the cast. It portrays a busy day in the life of the police department with enough characters and sub-plots to suit a typical episodic television drama show some fifty years later.

The principal characters revealed in the film are related to one another in some way. The film lays all this out to resolve the main plot for the film, the murder of a police officer. Playing the police captain is Hollywood stalwart, Edward G. Robinson. It is a joy to watch him juggle the script's characters in and out of his precinct. The captain has experience on his side. Calm and compassionate, he can be tough if necessary, breaking with police protocol in order that justice is served. He deftly prioritizes the cases that arise and handles each with appropriate timing. Some encounters are rather humorous, especially the scenes with Percy Helton (below).

Known for his befuddled, confounded characters, Porter Hall (above) is simply exasperating here as a “respected” community businessman with no spine. His credentials usually can mask his illicit female encounters. He is not funny but his predicament is. He witnessed the murder of the police officer. His attorney, Barry Kelly, assures him of an early release from custody. Both get a few slick runarounds by Robinson with Kelly at his wits' end. Robinson is not letting Hall go until he gets the truth.

Jay Adler is perfect as the quintessential, nervous weasel with a season pass to the vice squad's interrogation room. Adler has information relevant to identifying the possible killers but his memory is foggy in fear of his own life. Robinson lets him sweat it out until his “fog” clears. With great reluctance he lets it slip about an upcoming bank robbery. Gilbert's pounding score is effective as the robbery is set to take place. Officers are positioned throughout the bank thanks to the Adler tip. This scene is fairly tense and exciting leading up to the attempted robbery. 

Paulette Goddard gets second billing here. I got the feeling she relished the part. The police captain and Goddard's character have a long mutual understanding. She runs a lady's escort “bureau” and has provided Robinson with valuable information over the years. Robinson gets the lead he needs to track down the laid-back lady's man, Adam Williams, the young buck in the gang with a thing for one of Goddard's ladies. This cool, quiet guy suddenly becomes a blue ribbon champion at a state fair's “Angry Yelling” contest once apprehended and questioned about who may have committed the policeman's murder. Perhaps he was bipolar all along.

The clichéd bank hostage gave Ed Binns a safer exit from the bank than his partners. There is wasted footage of him peering out his hideout window with a camera cut to the female hostage---each staring back at the other. No dialogue. Interspersed between other scenes, it repeats about three times. Silly with no added suspense. She comes up with a plan to distract him and thanks to a good bit of script timing, he leaves the warehouse silently horizontal.

Note: Percy Helton turns in a memorably humorous performance as one who is followed by shadows---television pictures all over him. Especially on Wednesdays. Because of more pressing issues, Robinson keeps Helton patiently waiting. He is aware of Helton's condition and compassionately states he simply needs a “witness” to legally have the police look into the matter. Helton sincerely has no clue how to find one. Robinson suggests someone, a local doctor of psychology. Helton is highly encouraged.

THE MIAMI STORY (1954)

Columbia Pictures distributed this Clover Production noir crime film. Directed by Fred Sears with a story and screenplay by Robert Kent, it features a less than convincing introduction by Florida's then-Senator, George Smathers. He assures us that Miami has finally cleaned out the mobsters. With the actual Kefauver Senate hearings as inspiration, these docu-style crime films, with melodramatic narration, typically tell of a crime wave in a big, out-of-control city and how the crime is throttled. There are not many surprises to this oft-told gangster tale, including the unlikely way this “clean-up” actually happens. There is a mix of studio sets and automobiles with some location filming for automobile buffs. You will need your suspended disbelief seat belt cinched tight, though. Fortunately, the cast saves this film from being a total disappointment. The film perks up with Barry Sullivan's first appearance.

A former Chicago gangster and now widower, Sullivan, has spent over a decade under an alias with his young son on a Midwest farm. Sullivan's former attorney, with the help of local businessmen, devises a plan to lure him out of hiding, as he is their only hope of putting the mob boss before a grand jury. Yes. He was quite a gangster. Sullivan is angry that a fake news headline purports he is back in Miami on “business.” He resists all pleas for his help until he learns that it was the mob boss, Luther Adler, who framed him for his prison term for murder. Sullivan is now committed to the plan, live or die, possibly leaving his son to review adoption papers. He is given unlimited resources and authority to do whatever it takes as local law enforcement awaits his every command in a far-fetched scenario. After twelve years of cultivating, he has not lost the gangster touch.

Not wasting any time, Sullivan confronts Adler's authority, threatening to shut him out with his own Cuban-enforced crime “family.” Adler is quite convincing in this role, uncompromising with a Teflon record. A bitter pawn of his and a wee past her prime is Adele Jergens who looks the clichéd part. Appearing to be carrying an extra fifteen puffy pounds, I think when she is angry—which is most of the time—she eats. Which she loathes. Which in turn makes her eat. John Baer is the handsome, cold-blooded killer and right-hand man to Adler. His opening scene is also far-fetched as he shoots, from a great distance, two rival Cubans exiting an airliner. The gun is hidden inside a piece of carry-on luggage and equipped with a pop-up sight. Suspended disbelief (SD) takes center stage as the crowd never hears the two shots. Some may have assumed it was coming from a grassy knoll. Previously exiting was Beverly Garland who now fears for her own life. The deceased were friends of hers.

In about the only real noir scene, Sullivan returns late to his apartment to find a seated female, whose face is in the shadows, pointing a gun in his direction. She seems cool. Calculating. Dangerous. How Garland got the gun or access to his apartment we do not know. But you know what is about to happen. Sullivan overpowers her with an authentic gangster backhand, enhanced by twelve years of doing the same to a stray cow. Garland's subsequent sobbing is a bit much as it drags on. She is not sobbing for the backhand so much as her frustration to find out what is going on and where her dear sister is. They become sort of a team to get Adler although she is not sure Sullivan is leveling with her. To his advantage, he finds out her sister is Jergens. When the sisters meet after a long absence, the hugs and kisses are soon replaced by Jergens' self-loathing and vile remarks to her baby sister. She wants something to eat. The dear rotten sister betrays her with Adler's muscle putting Garland in the hospital after a vicious beating.

Sullivan is about to put the screws to Adler when he spots an actual newspaper headline that his son has been kidnapped. It is Adler's retaliation for the authorities shutting down his illegal gambling house. Sullivan backs off the threats in order to save his son and agrees to reopen the casino. Speaking of far-fetched, he then orders the police to place forty-pound hidden cameras inside the casino before it reopens. Ironically hidden in the exact location of the film's studio cameras. Exactly where the action will take place. The clarity of the feed on the four-inch remote monitors in the nearby bushes is of extraordinary quality. Maybe give another tug on your SD seat belt.

After a slow-motion boat chase, of sorts, in a cove between the police and Adler's yacht, Senator Smathers is pleased with the film's outcome. Miami is finally safe for the whole family. He ain't seen nothin' yet. In a rather abrupt and slightly humorous narrated closing scene, father and son are duck hunting, reminiscent of their first scene. Our narrator wraps up the film like an old travelogue film as Garland is standing by her new stepson, each in matching plaid coats. Garland came to visit and never left. All part of Sullivan's master plan.