ABANDONED (1949)

When I began my selected movie reviews in 2015, I never imagined I would comment on eight films starring the same actor. A record. Dennis O'Keefe had an authentic acting style and a knack for delivering charm and witty quips like few others. Using a few pseudonyms, he was also an under-the-radar screenwriter. From my perspective, O'Keefe hits all the right buttons in my B-movie world.

Distributed by Universal Pictures, this seventy-nine-minute film is a police versus crime melodrama like many others. But the subject matter sets this film apart. William Daniels' cinematography raises the bar, as does Joseph Newman's rapid pace directing. As per the era, camera filters transform daylight into nighttime. The film stars Dennis O'Keefe, Gale Storm and Jeff Chandler. O'Keefe appears to extend his character from the film Cover Up, of the same year, with his oft-used charming, witty characters. I would have liked more of a balance between this and his previous T-Men role. Storm restrains her typical bubbly light performances, while Chandler's periodic appearance as a no-nonsense police chief fits him. He also provides opening and periodic voice-over narration for a pseudo-documentary style as if ripped from actual cases. 

Storm inquires about her lost sister at the missing person's bureau at the city hall. Happening upon the scene is crack news reporter, O'Keefe, who overhears the conversation and charmingly offers his services to help her locate her sister, sensing a headline story or maybe hoping for a date. William Bowers' snappy dialogue has several characters delivering witty quips, but none more often or naturally than O'Keefe. He and Storm team up—after a fashion—and he is compelled to test some witty quips out on her. Expect an eventual "get to know each other" moment with small talk as they stake out a residence inside his sedan. Oh yeah...they like each other. 

Someone is tracking them and it sets up another set of clever dialogue. Raymond Burr is yanked from behind and the reporter lifts a revolver from Burr's coat and sarcastically states, "I know. You couldn't sleep so you just decided to take your gun out for a walk." The private eye's client has him also trying to find the sister's whereabouts. The three head for the city morgue and discover the sister is no longer missing, an assumed suicide victim. The sister's out-of-wedlock baby establishes the controversial crux of the film, a baby black market of illegal adoptions. Burr's client is society matron, Marjorie Rambeau, the despicable ring leader of a criminal crew, led by the menacing Will Kuluva. 

Under assumed names as a married couple, O'Keefe and Storm arrange the adoption of her niece with the two-faced Rambeau—suddenly all sweetness. She spends her off-hours distributing Bibles as cover for her operation. The anticipation of leaving the racket and a large payoff, Burr intercepts the transfer and Storm is given the baby and instructed to wait at the house until further notice. Burr is now up to his neck in Kuluva. Not being a very stealthy private detective, he is apprehended by the gangster and undergoes matchbook armpit torture to extract facts. A first (and last?) in film torture to my knowledge. Burr quickly becomes useless to Rambeau. With a knock at the room's door, Storm just opens it without asking who it is, assuming it is O'Keefe. Thus begins the climax, the only tense action in the film, with an implausible car crash and Universal International's gunshot sound effects. Narration closes the story with, "...This did happen in the city which may be your home."

Note: Some who discover this film more recently tend to be cynical about the production, impatiently finding it boring. Interestingly, the reviews closer to the release date are generally more favorable. Though mid-century film aspects are dated today, the acting and character development can stand the test of time. One should understand the historical era to give a fair assessment. 

GUN CRAZY (1950)

This movie fits into the “human-noir” category where childhood can be a dark affair affected by circumstances, psychological issues or the influence of others. Any number of B-movie actors would have brought justice to each character, yet it turned out to be the defining film for both John Dall and Peggy Cummins. A superstar couple may have clouded the natural interpretation of the script by these two. Though well-acted, it is the cinematography that stands the test of time, however. The film's premise could be used in any decade and to support my theory, this film is based on a 1940 story of the same name from The Saturday Evening Post by MacKinlay Kantor. He also wrote the screenplay along with Dalton Trumbo. The film features a gun-shooting husband and wife on their short crime spree honeymoon. It never consistently hits the bull's eye but it still racks up some points.

I found the opening backstory about Dall's childhood obsession with guns drawn out more than necessary when narration over key filmed segments would have sufficed. Victor Young's opening score fits these scenes which may be the only rushes the prolific composer ever saw. His music seems absent during the balance of the film. The opening does make it clear Dall is crazy about shooting guns. Peggy Cummins, on the other hand, is just plain crazy. Her first scene in this film—clad in Spandex-like pants borrowed from television's Longer Ranger—she appears to be far more dangerous without a gun. She is a crack shot in a traveling carnival and Dall is enthralled. He has found his shooting-mate for life. His psyche is triggered then betters her in an on-stage challenge, using a gun he has never fired before. He is that good. Dall's future is in her hands—though he tries to reign her in—they are both on an anticipated downward spiral. Her character flits from charming to disturbed in the midst of a robbery. What he does not know about her past—she occasionally has to shoot somebody—the FBI is well informed. Their “undying” love will have them running until death do them part.

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Frank and Maurice King of King Brothers Productions, the eighty-seven-minute film took thirty days and 400 grand to make. It was released by United Artists. Without a doubt, the most engaging element of the film is the periodically astounding cinematography by Russell Harlan. His extraordinarily realistic in-car camera work has the viewer riding in the back seat on a typical day of robbery as Dall and Cummins seem to be unscripted as their dialogue fades in and out as if they were ad-libbing. Harlan's famous one-shot bank robbery sequence from a car's back seat is another trend-setting example. These scenes appear out of place among other routine scenes seemingly shot by another cinematographer. Yet his camera placement under the dash—shooting through the steering wheel spokes—appears likely to be a wacky experiment that actually worked. Also of startling note are the extreme close-ups near the end as we watch the quivering lips of the sweaty couple. As to be expected during the first century of film, the editing by Harry Gerstad slips in a “chase” with a studio prop police car that should have been left on the editing room floor.

At least three things are a puzzlement. When the gun-crazy couple is being tailed by the police, Dall shoots the patrol car's front tire cleanly through their own rear window with nothing to suggest he broke out the backlight before shooting. For another, I found the drive to the top of the mountains strange—where Dall spent time as a youth. Not so much the drive as the foggy swamp at the summit. I had no idea there were swamps on California's mountaintops. Finally, seventy-year-old forgettable films may garner new fans when dissected through Twenty-First Century thinking. The cheap or implausible scenes are invisible to these commentators, preferring to zero in on content that was not appropriate to comment on in 1950. By this measure, some of today's forgettable films may one day be considered great by the hindsight of the more enlightened.

Note: Dall's movie career and his life were short. His only other notable films before settling into television were Alfred Hitchcock's, Rope, two years prior to this film and a significant role in Spartacus (1960). He died at the age of fifty. This is Irish-born Cummins best known and last American film. Her film career ended in 1961 but she lived a long life with personal involvement in other ventures. She died at age ninety-two in London.