THE INSIDE STORY (1948)

This eight-seven-minute comedy begins in 1948 with a voice-over about a small town's Uncle Ed, played by Charles Winninger, who suggests every town has one—a lovable but absent-minded inn clerk possessed by “knock-knock” jokes. He has a habit of wearing his eyeglasses on the top of his head, with consistent reminders of where to locate them. The live-action has Winninger entering a bank to place government bonds into his safe deposit box. Accessing funds is a friend. Both men have different views about hoarding or spending money. Winninger tries to persuade him to invest in government bonds and circulate his money. The balance of the film flashes back to 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression as Winninger recalls the "inside story" about one confusing day due to his error handling a thousand dollars.

The story is by Ernest Lehman and Geza Herczeg and the snappy screenplay by the team of Mary Loos and Richard Sale. It is a Depression-era story written when President Roosevelt declared an eight-day "bank holiday" (closings) with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 to avoid customer withdrawals. In the case of this film, however, it involves the circulation of a thousand dollars that solves and creates problems.

William Lundigan plays a struggling artist (cliché intended). He is stressed about a decent living for supporting his fiancée, Marsha Hunt. He owes a thousand dollars to her father, Gene Lockhart, owner of a local inn. Lockhart loathes the artist's feast-or-famine career pursuit. It initiates his overstepping the bounds of character exaggeration. The frequency becomes a bit out of place in a film of subtle humor, not in keeping with a screwball comedy.

While attending to an inn guest, Roscoe Karns, Winninger mindlessly puts his thousand dollars in the wrong envelope—addressed to Lundigan—into the safe. Karn's insurance money is meant for a local farmer, Tom Fadden, when he arrives. Karns uses his typical rapid-fire delivery as a wisecracking womanizer with a trademark double-take after a verbal smackdown. He is frightened by the mere mention of conflict. Lockhart later finds the money in the safe and mistakenly thinks it was payment for Lundigan's paintings. He quickly changes his tune toward Lundigan in absurd fashion. He claims the cash to pay off his debt to local merchant, Will Wright, who in turn pays what he owes the building's owner, Florence Bates. The head-strong Bates in turn gives the money to an attorney, Robert Shayne, to cover waning legal fees. 

Speaking of over-the-top, Shayne is so distraught over not being able to make a living for his wife, Gail Patrick, he considers suicide. Bates prevents this with her visit to his office. Suddenly Shayne is beside himself with joy. I suspect he is bipolar. Patrick then uses the money to pay Lundigan for her portrait she's gifting her husband. So, amusingly, the money goes full circle, ending up with the artist, who then pays Lockhart, who gives it to Winninger to place in the safe. Perfect timing for Karns to pay farmer Fadden. Into the mix is are bootleggers, Allen Jenkins, and his dim-witted partner, William Haad, was tempted to steal the dough in the safe. But unknown to them, the safe is empty!

Note: The film has its implausibilities with the aforementioned over-the-top emotional swings and the fact that all six people owe or are paid exactly one thousand dollars. Winninger is the spark of the film. In true form is both lovable and exasperating. Hunt, Lundigan, and Shayne never looked better.

FOLLOW ME QUIETLY (1949)

GULLIBILITY OF A DUMMY

This RKO Pictures semi-documentary noir, directed by Richard Fleischer, is a tidy sixty minutes' worth of crime-solving with a couple of questionable twists. Fellow director, Anthony Mann, shared story credit with Francis Rosenwald. Lillie Hayward provided the screenplay, which, in a couple of scenes, packs an emotional punch. There is hardly a dull movement thanks to the pacing. I find no fault with the well-cast lineup of actors or the wonderful moods set by the shadowy cinematography. The story centers around a serial killer, known only as "The Judge," and his stereotypical messages of individually clipped letters pasted on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. He is also an avid reader. He is both judge and jury as to who is evil, murdering them whenever it rains after the sun's setting. Alas, there would be fewer murders if he lived in Tucson.

A police Lieutenant, handsome William Lundigan, is assigned to track down the killer with the help of his partner, the less handsome Jeff Corey. In the mix is a persistent young reporter, Dorothy Patrick, who works for a tabloid magazine with a sensationalistic reputation. Lundigan is not a fan. Patrick, at times a facial mix of the more famous Ginger Rogers, Priscilla Lane and Eve Arden, is pressing him for a scoop on the killings, much to his annoyance.

The most implausible element in the film starts with a detailed, full-body sketch to identify the killer by his suit. Finally, some real progress. The film breaks with police routine—and reason—when Lundigan goes to great lengths to create a faceless manikin based on the sketch, blowing the police department's entire Christmas budget. Lundigan then has the manikin face the wall in their lineup—its back facing the policemen—as Corey bizarrely questions it with the dummy’s “answers” prerecorded, based on clues obtained about the killer to that point. The forty-five-second presentation is a real eye-opener. Somehow. Suspects are rounded up based on rear views and placed beside the manikin. Lundigan becomes the judge as to whether or not a suspect might be the killer. The department is only missing a face to go with the suit.

Wait. This is the most implausible element in the film. The blank-faced manikin's photograph is distributed to neighborhood bookstores—on Patrick's advice—in the hope that the manikin might be recognized as a recent customer. Understandably, the face is rather vague, but one shop owner says this customer wore glasses. Lundigan draws round eyeglass frames on the blank face. Nailed it. This narrows their search to any male approached from behind of average height with round-framed glasses.

Wait. Wait. Lest I forget an earlier scene. Alone in his unlit, dark office, Lundigan audibly questions the seated dummy from behind, trying to work through his toughest case, mentally. It is raining as the camera zooms in on his face, suggesting he is at a breaking point. In walks Corey telling him to ease up. 'If you want to talk to a dummy, talk to me.' After both detectives leave the office, the “dummy” pivots, then rises, still faceless to the audience, pushing the gullibility envelope in a preposterously risky move by “The Judge.” Obviously, he is not a heavy breather or wearing smoke-infused clothing. A slick scene with a believability factor at absolute zero.

Lundigan and Corey stake out the murderer’s apartment building from an empty room. When we first see the face of the serial killer, Edwin Max, he cautiously approaches the building. This skittish guy does not fit the profile of one who would mockingly toy with Lundigan in his office. With the neighborhood eerily vacant and silent, he dashes off with both detectives in pursuit. The climax is a foot chase in an oil refinery among giant pipes, catwalks, and stairways to clichėd heights. Leonid Raab’s score cranks up to a crescendo as the police arrive and take aim at Max with a machine gun, bursting water pipes left and right. Totally spent from running and with no place to go, Max is cornered by Lundigan. He puts one end of the handcuffs on the killer but fails to attach the other end to himself. The following scene would not work if he had. He instructs him, 'Follow me, quietly.' When Max attempts to walk under the leaking pipes, however, the pouring water sends him into a violent rage and he viciously tries to escape, compromising Lundigan’s grip on the handcuffs. The police chalk up Max's fall—and his body outline—to water torture.