Lippert Pictures Series

Robert L. Lippert controlled a successful low-budget American film production and distribution company from 1948 to 1956, producing short, fast-paced westerns and crime films with a penchant for obligatory humor and the occasional jarring edits. This is my fourth of seven Lippert films.

TREASURE OF MONTE CRISTO (1949)

Though the opening narration tries to justify why this movie has "Monte Cristo" in the title, there is no mention of swords or high-waist tights. Well-directed by William Berke, and distributed by Screen Guild Productions, it attempts to bring Alexandre Dumas to modern-day San Francisco, complete with a prison escape of sorts. It is another fast-paced Lippert Pictures production making a likable film from a constrained budget. And it only removes a mere seventy-eight minutes from your life. One of the better Lippert productions, the film is centered around a descendant of the Count and his sizable fortune. As expected, some would like to intercept that treasure. The duped descendant tries to unravel reality during one of his most improbable weeks. The location cinematography by Benjamin Kline puts the viewer on the streets. He even uses a "gun cam" behind the gun's barrel of one detective firing bullets. A competent score by Albert "B-movie" Glasser is well-utilized.

Dashing Glenn Langan is the descendant, a Second Mate on the shipping freighter, Pacific Queen. After dropping anchor, he rescues an assumed damsel in distress, Adele Jergens—the real-life wife of Langan. He and Jergens never looked better than in this film. I doubt anyone in the theater believed her backstory about her mental hospital stay, so her guardian could control her wealth. But Langan does. Jergens wants an "arranged" marriage to deflect her pursuers. So it is off to Reno. He becomes the latest Hollywood simpleton completely unglued by a female's lying lips.

In the captivating opening scene, the Cristo fortune liaison is knocked unconscious while recovering in the hospital. Paralyzed, except for the ability to move his eyes, Langan visits him in hopes of discovering his point in the film. It sets up an unintended funny moment. Needing yes or no answers, he suggests the patient move his eyes back and forth, left to right, for the appropriate reply. But it appears he is simply looking at one side of the room, then the other, in terror of the strange noise of an attacker. Blinking would have had a less humorous outcome. While Langan leaves the hospital, the liaison is permanently silenced, with Langan set up to take the fall. The traditional flashing newspaper headlines inform the viewer of his sentencing to die quicker than his marriage ceremony.

It is rare to find Steve Brodie in an educated professional role, yet true to form, he is a crooked underworld lawyer with a studio caterpillar mustache passing himself off as Langan's best defense. But his scheme already included Jergens, and he plans to throw the case, removing Langan from any inheritance. Despite his limited screen time, he provides the only spark in the film. Something he often did.

From a story by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, the screenplay is intelligent enough, once it gets past Dumas' original intention. In keeping with a number of Lippert productions, a bit of amusing obligatory dialogue is sliced in late in this film. Sid Melton, the weasel working on Brodie's behalf, abducts Jergens, ushering her into a waiting car. Rising above his comical looks, he assumes he might be worthy of her attention. "You know I'm single?" Her deadpan reply is, "I can understand that." She gets shuttled around again by Brodie, and she frightfully asks, "What are you going to do?!" He replies, "Two things, and you're the second."

Note: Langan's character was taken in as a young child by an Italian family. His “Papa” and two sons visit him behind bars on more than one occasion. Papa is played by Michael Vallon “witha-the-worsta” stereotypical Italian accent. In keeping with their criminal heritage, the two sons later spring Langan during a prison transfer, shooting out a tire on the police vehicle and arranging for his change of clothes from a well-planted panel truck.

THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949)

This film is based on A. I. Bezzerides novel, Thieves' Market. Who better to write the screenplay. Directed by Jules Dassin and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it includes stunning cinematography by Norbert Brodine in and around San Francisco. Without a doubt, the most enduring element of the film is Dassin's directing, capturing the wholesale produce world. I had no idea fruit delivery could be so cut-throat. He also subjects the viewer to the realism of an unreliable delivery truck with a drive-train held together by sweat and blood from the owner's knuckles. Not far behind on the enduring scale is the cast of Richard Conte, Millard Mitchell, Lee J. Cobb, Valentina Cortese, and Barbara Lawrence.

Fans could not get enough of Conte, yet he is nearly typecast as another optimistic WWII veteran returning home to disappointment. The role is tailor-made for him as he seeks justice and revenge—not necessarily in that order—for his father's debilitating trucking accident. Conte spends the film trying to settle the score with Lee J. Cobb in a "plastic toupée." He is a swindling produce racketeer responsible for the “accident” and stealing his father's shipment. His trademarked angry frown is enough to sell his character. He is the classic bully who lacks any real courage and is ultimately downsized by Conte's tenacious pursuit—speaking of bleeding knuckles.

The aforementioned rickety, decades-old delivery truck owned by Conte's father is now in the greasy hands of his partner, Millard Mitchell, who consistently comes across as the most average soul one could encounter. The viewer is never aware he is acting. A character not loaded with book learning but is in command of an abundance of common sense. He is so genuine here, that one believes he really can repair the heap of abuse he is driving. On Conte's first meeting with him, they bump heads about money owed his father but Mitchell stands his ground on principle. This appeals to Conte's ethics. Mitchell is all too familiar with Cobb's tactics, and after their verbal sparring, they agree to exact revenge on him.

The partners cross paths with two wholesale scavengers competing for a profit, a rotund Jack Oakie—aka Slob—and his driver. Oakie provides subtle comic relief with a jolly nature but a shady approach whose primary purpose is to finagle a way to deliver produce with as little work as possible. Noting the heap Mitchell is piloting, it becomes routine to follow the truck in the hope it will die a quick death, inherit his load, then split the profits. But Oakie's underlying good nature grows on his competition.

Cobb's deeds continue by crippling a tire on Conte's truck. After the blowout, he pulls over onto the roadside bank of sand or loose dirt, his truck listing to one side. Why anyone would try to jack up a truck under these dangerous conditions makes little sense, nor is it a surprise something bad will probably happen. When the ancient jack collapses under the sandy soil, it provides the film with its first tense moment. But you cannot crush a lead actor at this point in a movie. Following not far behind is his lifesaver, Mitchell, who later discovers way too late about his cut brake lines during a clichéd downhill mountainous route. The scavengers witnessed the crash and the sabotage is all too familiar to Conte. To keep him at a distance, Cobb arranges a “girl for hire,” Valentina Cortese, to distract him. Her sensitive performance relaxes the film's middle and she is wise beyond his understanding, even suggesting his fiancée, Barbara Lawrence, is not as true to him as he thinks.

Thieves' Highway is a film noir that has plenty of content to pace it yet its ninety minutes plus seems a tad long. It is a satisfying film for the most part, yet not the first film noir that comes to mind about truck drivers. Except for the fruit angle, this melodrama seems all too familiar. Still, given the competent cast with Conte in another signature role, I imagine moviegoers were not disappointed.

Note: Considering Conte's cool projection of warmth, it is difficult to picture either Dana Andrews or Victor Mature in the lead role. Both were bandied around as the lead during the film's development. Mature had his own decent trucking film eight years later, The Long Haul.

CHINATOWN AT MIDNIGHT (1949)

Hurd Hatfield is a thief in San Francisco's Chinatown with murder as a resumé enhancer. His current partner in crime is an unethical interior decorator who employs him to steal artifacts she has her eye on, selling each for profit. Somewhat like buying multiple items from a discount store and reselling them on eBay at a markup. They have been through this many times and his cool, aloof demeanor assumes she had better not ever cross him. In pursuit of her next possession, he kindly asks one shop attendant to wrap it. For his own anonymity, he coldly shoots and kills both store workers. And he is just getting started. Using his best Chinese, he calls the police about the robbery, going through a central switchboard operator for the connection. A major oversight. But he becomes even less clever as the film progresses. He ditches his overcoat in a trash bin to throw off the police search. The coat is tracked to where it was last cleaned and before long they have Hatfield on the run.

A lieutenant investigates Hatfield’s apartment and discovers his record collection. Among them is a Chinese language tutorial and the Top 10 hit, “I Think I’m Turning Chinese.” A unique element in the film is the use of a wire recorder to press additional records of Hatfield’s practice sessions. A big stack of records is distributed to anyone with possible contact with him. The switchboard operator taking that earlier robbery call recognizes Hatfield’s voice. 

Hatfield, now complete with a Western Union-type uniform, poses as a bicycling telegram deliverer with a wire for one resident, his landlady. The police officer stationed outside the apartment unknowingly lets him pass. To keep her from phoning the police, he muzzles and ties her up, grabs a few items, including his prescription, then pedals off with a smirk. He stops to wipe his brow with a handkerchief. Out pops the prescription bottle for malaria but he does not hear the thick glass bottle hit the pavement even though the sound department makes it quite clear. At a nearby drug store he seeks a new prescription but the pharmacist, Byron Foulger, says it must be authorized by a physician. Hatfield immediately calls from the phone booth inside the pharmacy, picks a doctor at random and calls Foulger a few feet away. “Dr. Hatfield,” says his patient was just in to fill his prescription. Testing its credulity, the script never justifies the quickness of Hatfield calling a doctor or how suspiciously quick he returns for the medicine. Foulger is completely oblivious.

Now knowing of his medical condition, the police figure how far a guy like Hatfield could walk with malaria. Assuming he does not use a taxi. It narrows their search area to another apartment complex. A savvy undercover policewoman poses as a census taker. Hatfield provides phony information. For all his assumed smarts, pretty dumb to even answer the door. He is suspicious, of course, and watches her pause by a phone in the hallway. But she covers her exit by knocking on one of the apartments she nearly “forgot” about. With the police surrounding his apartment, Hatfield exits in a panic for another Hollywood rooftop chase routine, done the same since the previous decade began. The police provide a permanent remedy for malaria.

Sam Katzman produced this sixty-seven-minute noir with the era’s oft-used voice-over narration to keep the viewer abreast of the story as it unfolds over twenty midnights—as if ripped from the headlines There is no lack of suspense or intrigue but the implausibilities start to stack up. A couple of real head-scratchers by the time it is all over—the pharmacy scene being one. Hurd Hatfield, perhaps best known to television viewers, is good at playing arrogant, devious or diabolical characters. His captivating performance keeps this formulaic Columbia Pictures’ boredom at bay. Jean Willes, who would become a television staple, has an early credited role—insignificant in the grand scheme.

Note: Amid the seriousness of the investigation, a bit of levity lightens the mood throughout the film. The police captain, played seriously by Tom Powers, keeps sending the lieutenant mentioned above out on the case. The hapless lieutenant also keeps reminding Powers he has time off coming and expects to use this time once his assignment is completed. But Powers repeatedly ignores his pleas and sends him out about three or four more times. Indeed, a final humorous exchange ends the film as Powers tells the lieutenant he can now take that vacation...unless he needs him for something important.