The Shot of Size

Another admission I ought to make is that as much TCM as I've watched over the course of the blog, there are still quite a few programmers and B movies that would be part of the old "Turner Library" of MGM, Warner Bros., and RKO movies that I've never heard of much less seen. Another example of this is a movie from the end of the time when Humphrey Bogart was still just a contract player and not the star of the lot: The Big Shot.

Bogart plays "Duke" Berne, and as the movie opens it looks as though he's dying on a hospital bed, and not terribly happy with the presence of a woman there. But this is a prison hospital, and the woman is Ruth (Susan Peters), girlfriend of George (Richard Travis), whom Duke does want there, for reasons that will become clear at the end of the movie. Because with an opening like this, the film just has to go into flashback, doesn't it.

Sure enough, we get a flashback to Duke recalling just how he ultimately wound up dying in that prison hospital. Duke at the start of the flashback is a career criminal, a three-time loser who knows that if he goes up again, it's going to be a life sentence. So he tries to go straight, but as in movies like Straight Is the Way or Invisible Stripes, he finds that it's tough to go straight because who wants to hire a repeat offender, and what other skills does he have anyway. So several members of a gang get Duke to see Martin Fleming (Stanley Ridges), a high-class lawyer on the outside who just happens to be the money man behind the gang. They all want Duke in on their next job.

So Duke goes to see Manning and is surprised by what he finds. Manning is married, which isn't a surprise, but it happens to be to Lorna (Irene Manning), a woman who just happened to be Duke's girlfriend from before the last time he went to prison. Lorna, having seen Duke again, immediately realizes that she really loves Duke, but is married to Manning because he's got money, which is something a woman like her wants.

Duke still kinda sorta wants to go straight, but can't make a living any other way. However, on the night of the planned robbery, Lorna shows up at Duke's apartment. If the movie had been made in the 1970s, there probably would have been a shot of the two of them together in bed implying they had sex, but a movie released in 1942 sure couldn't do that. But Lorna is able to convince Duke not to go in on the robbery. Unfortunately, another member of the gang happens to see a fur coat in Duke's apartment and realizes Duke was with a woman.

Duke is able to use his leverage to get Fleming to defend him at trial, with the aforementioned George being the made-up alibi. But the defense goes sour, both Duke and George end up in prison, and everybody wants to break out of prison, leading to the predictable ending....

The Big Shot is a programmer through and through, which means that while being predictable it's not exactly bad. It's a bit surprising that Warner Bros. would cast Bogart in a little project like this after the success of High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon in 1941, but they had their stars under contract. It's also interesting that the movie started filming after December 7, 1941. With the US now at war you'd think the tastes of the American viewing public would change and they'd want Humphrey Bogart in something other than another gangster movie.

Still, everybody here is professional, and if the movie had been made five years earlier, before Bogart really became a star, it's the sort of thing that would probably be more fondly remembered as a stepping stone in Bogart's career. So it's the sort of movie that's definitely worth a watch, but also the sort of movie that would have been better served being part of a box set as opposed to a MOD Warner Archive standalone.