SLEEPERS WEST (1941)

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, this seventy-four-minute mystery sets a brisk pace with an energetic, Irish-tinted opening theme by Cyril Mockridge. It is adapted from the novel, Sleepers East (1933), and the 1934 film, about a ten-hour train trip from the Midwest to New York, not to be confused with Sleepers, Awake a Lutheran hymn by Philipp Nicolai, made famous by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1731. But I digress. The screenplay is full of dialogue: suspenseful, sometimes tedious, and amusing. Although the climax speeds things up, there is only an attempt at action for this entry.

Lloyd Nolan plays Michael Shayne, the fictional private detective created in the late 1930s by Brett Halliday. He rolls along as a cool, confident detective with a witty delivery in his occasional New England accent. Nolan is certainly likeable in the role. A character who would prefer to calm things down before things get violent. This is the second of seven Shayne mysteries for Nolan and overall, perhaps the most enjoyable.

Before boarding The Comanche from Denver to San Francisco, Nolan bumps into his ex-fiancė, Denver newspaper reporter, Lynn Bari. Their repartee and zingers are fun. Discovering that she will be on the same train, he gets excited, "It'll be like old times, traveling around together!" "Oh no," says Bari, " Traveling with you, I always wound up alone." The fun ends when both recall who left who at the altar. His assignment is to protect a surprise trial witness, Mary Beth Hughes, who sneaks aboard as a medical patient and serves as his cue to reestablish contact.

Hughes' testimony will free an innocent man accused of murder and throttle the chances of an unethical politician's advancement. The screenplay initiates an inconsequential subplot between her and Jean Louis Heydt. He is abandoning his family. Nice guy. Hughes eventually feels comfortable enough to share her slow, detailed backstory of why she is on the train. Once awake, I discover he proposes they get away to South America with his ten grand. She will be safe and not need to testify.

Bari's unethical fiancė, a lawyer and associate of the crooked politician, suggests she might have a big scoop if she locates the witness by using Nolan. She snoops around to find him in the train's drawing room, where he is lying low. He says she may be looking for a woman he saw with "fuller brush eyelashes." Their banter is clichéd and stretches too long, both trying to make the scene funnier than written.

Known for his comedic chops, Edward Brophy adds periodic comic relief as a railroad detective, dashing at the last moment to get on board. Self-conscious, he does his classic puzzled double-takes with wrinkled brow when he feels his appearance or character is subtly being insulted. To add embarrassment, he receives a telegram near the end of the film stating that the railroad accidentally sent him in pursuit of the wrong person.

Bari broke off her engagement to her duplicitous, self-serving fiancė somewhere through Nevada. The film ends on a happy note at a diner where Hughes is now a waitress. Nolan wants to rekindle his romance with Bari and vows to put a ring on her finger again. Putting him at bay, she ordered a sandwich with lots of onions, and he protests multiple times. Relenting, she changes the order from onions to garlic. The sandwich clinched their future. She never reprised her role in the series. Hughes, on the other hand, returned, each time as a different character.

Note: Ben Carter provides some humor as a porter welcoming Heydt aboard the train. Carter mathematically explains how long it will take to arrive at the next town, with eyes looking upward in thought and a confusing mixture of addition and subtraction. Heydt had transferred his cash to his suitcase. Carter later enters his cabin to straighten things, but he accidentally drops the suitcase to reveal the contents. He is dazzled by the amount of cash, then quickly says, "Get behind me, Satan, and tie my hands!"

TOWARD THE UNKNOWN (1956)

This is Warner Bros.' first attempt to cash in on Paramount’s superior Strategic Air Command, released the previous year. The film takes a serious look at the unknowns of supersonic flight research. Warner Color was back at it again the next year with a sudsier air force story, Bombers B-52, which was primarily a project for the rising star, Natalie Wood. Director Mervyn Leroy weaves this film dangerously close to a soap opera, where long-term personal commitments are harder to come by with someone in a very dangerous occupation. Assuming you like aircraft of this era, this film works well thanks to an intelligent script by Beirne Lay, Jr., who also penned the Paramount film as well as Above and Beyond, and Twelve O'Clock High. The accuracy of the Air Force lingo, flight gear, and location filming is spot on. Yet despite the famous lead actor, the casting mix places the film in the B-movie barracks. With the possible exception of Lloyd Nolan, the balance of the cast is a flight line of “Bs” from Virginia Leith, Charles McGraw, Paul Fix, Karen Steele, and a brief appearance by the ever-present Bartlett Robinson. William Holden's own production company, Toluca Productions, may have been responsible for a tight casting budget. Though viewers did not know it then, James Garner’s brief film debut would catapult him into a Hollywood "A-lister." Considering Holden's overall body of work, this film falls nearer the bottom...toward the unknown part.

With an enviable name for a legendary aviator or NFL quarterback, Holden is  Lincoln Bond. The Major's charm and self-deprecating wit make him quite likable. But he has psychological issues. Holden returns to Edwards Air Force Base in hopes of being selected for the test pilot program. The story takes a while to unfold, but we eventually learn Holden was a Korean prisoner of war. Holden has an impressive early scene when he enters the headquarters building. He walks over to a wall full of some real test pilot handprints. Among the likes of Chuck Yeager and Glenn Edwards, we see Bond’s handprint. Holden presses his hand firmly over the inked impression as a supporting musical chord solidifies the scene. It also reveals wrist scars from his attempted suicide under those unimaginable atrocities. His cracking under those conditions does not bode well for a living-on-the-edge test pilot. 

Nolan (with Holden below) is always ideally cast when carrying a good deal of authority. Here, as a commanding officer who is so wrapped up in first-hand test piloting, he does not know when to move on. McGraw is Holden's good friend and biggest supporter, and pleads with Nolan to give him a second chance. A second chance is needed with Leith, also. I have mentioned the occasionally strange vocal quality of this attractive actress before. Considering the era, one might think the studio would have provided voice training to eliminate her dark, goofy vocal moments. Today, this training would never be considered: the stranger, the better. She is feminine enough in a soft voice. But her voice placement retreats to the back of her throat when emoting or speaking while smiling. A distracting sound, even on an Air Force base. But I digress. She seems to be attached, off-hours, with her boss, Nolan, whose age gap could pass him off as her uncle. She and Holden were an item before the war—speaking of niece and uncle—but she is reluctant to make any commitment. Her character is a bit puzzling. She would seem to be happy enough with Nolan unless Holden is around. Maybe any dependable guy. 

Given a number of second thoughts, Nolan cautiously eases Holden in on some testing. He gets his chance at the Martin XB-51, masquerading in this film as the Gilbert X-120. It is featured in an impressive flying sequence in a unique head-on takeoff view alongside its chase plane. Taken from a third plane already in the air, we watch both planes accelerate upward toward the unknown, zooming over the camera aircraft. Character actor Ralph Moody plays H.G. Gilbert, who assumes his plane is perfect and is arrogantly opposed to Holden's blunt assessment of a specific design flaw. When Garner loses his life because of this flaw, Moody is sheepishly humbled. Off-camera. In private. We assume. 

Nolan expects to pilot a research rocket plane, the real-life Bell X-2. It is his baby. But unknown to Nolan, Holden witnessed his dizzy spell after an earlier test flight. Holden, being about a decade too old himself for this kind of thing, bluntly tells him, off the record, that he would risk his life if he goes through with it. Reluctantly, he lets Holden pilot the flight. It becomes a troubled test with a necessary bailout. Holden's role during these scenes is based on the actual testing by Lieutenant Colonel Frank Kendall in the Bell X-1D. Holden met Kendall during filming, who gave an account of his experiences. The hard parachute landing bangs Holden up with needed physical therapy. Reporting on Holden's progress, the base doctor also informs Nolan that he would not have survived that high-altitude bailout. Nolan gallantly takes a position in Washington, DC, with McGraw filling the base commander’s shoes.

Notes: Paul Baron provided an appropriately sensitive background score. He also weaves in the opening bars of “The U.S. Air Force” song with interesting arrangements. There are two instances, though, when he or the studio creates a slightly humorous and startling “electronic” sound during two scenes of aircraft soaring high in the sky. A sound not unlike a Hawaiian slide guitar whose pitch gradually gets higher during take-off. It is more appropriate for a Warner Bros. cartoon than a dangerous saga about test pilots.

For aviation historians, the Martin XB-51 and the other aircraft or stock footage are the main draw of this movie. Never chosen for production, there were only two XB-51s built, both destroyed in crashes. The last XB-51 featured in this film crashed shortly after the filming was completed. Lincoln Bond mentioned its design flaw.

THE STREET WITH NO NAME (1948)

This notable and hardly unknown film from Twentieth Century Fox was adapted from actual FBI files. Though you may never notice, some roles were played by the actual personnel involved. It was photographed in the original locale whenever possible, albeit in fictitious “Center City.” The documentary style is typical of the era, with amazing revelations of the highly technical procedures used to catch criminals. An oft-parodied melodramatic narrator keeps us informed in case we cannot fully grasp what we are seeing. Yes, it was a long time ago.

Though Mark Stevens gets top billing, it is Richard Widmark's film. Stevens is excellent and believable, but Widmark extinguishes any flame that might have been erupting from the former. Widmark plays an underworld kingpin with an addiction, of sorts, to nasal inhalers and suspicion of drafts from open windows. Only bad guys have nasal congestion, apparently. Add Lloyd Nolan, John McIntire, and Ed Begley into the mix, and you have a solid acting troupe. The screenplay includes no lulls in the action and the film is satisfying from beginning to end. A ninety-minute lesson on how to do film noir, thanks in big part to William Keighley's direction.

After a holdup at a nightclub ends in a murder, the FBI, headed by Inspector Nolan, meets with the Police Chief, Begley, and Police Commissioner, Howard Smith, to put a stop to the current crime wave. Nolan is introduced to an undercover agent, Stevens, whose assignment is to infiltrate the gang responsible. He is set up in a hotel room across the street from a fellow agent, McIntire, who will be his eyes and ears. Using an alias, Stevens causes enough prearranged trouble to get the attention of Widmark, who subsequently has Stevens' social security card stolen. With the aid of a corrupt official, it is his system to uncover someone's background. Widmark likes what he finds and enlists Stevens for his next big heist. Right before the heist is to take place, however, Widmark gets a call from his informant that the FBI knows all about it. 

It is a pretty exciting ending after fingerprints from Widmark's gun are identified and his FBI informant spills the beans. On Widmark's plan, the police arrive at a prearranged warehouse robbery with instructions to kill the identified Stevens. A case of mistaken identity kills one gang member, and to the kingpin's surprise, all guns are instructed to fire in his direction. The dirty police official feels pretty smug, assuming he has tied up all loose ends. The truth shall not set him free. 

Note: There is a great scene done without a stitch of supporting music. Stevens needs evidence from Widmark's gun to help convict him. Under noir, he returns to the gang's hideout, the basement over Widmark's boxer training gym. Widmark arrives and is suspicious of light in the lower level. In his retreat, Stevens glances against a boxer's punching bag, and the chain creaking is the only sound heard as Widmark silently investigates.