TCM's Summer Under the Stars for 2024 concludes with a day of the films of Tony Curtis. The day includes a film or two that I haven't seen before and so am intending to record. However, there's a movie of his that's on my DVR but isn't airing today, so that's the movie I'm blogging about for today: The Rat Race.
Curtis plays Pete Hammond Jr. As the movie opens, Pete is in his home town of Milwaukee, getting on a bus to head to New York City. Pete plays the saxohphone and is into jazz, so heads to New York in the hopes of making it big in jazz. You'd think he could do better performing around Wisconsin with a combo of his own, but some people get stars in their eyes. The movie spends several minutes on a montage of Curtis heading east on the Greyhound bus before finally arriving in New York City. And then when he gets off the bus, he's ridiculously naïve. First he walks to Times Square with all his luggage in hand, and then heads to a hotel only to find that there's no way he can afford the daily rates there. So he inquires about rooming houses, which were still a thing in those days.
Cut to the other main character in the story, Peggy Brown (Debbie Reynolds. She's one of the people who lives in the roooming house. And she seems well enough off that she's able to have her own phone, something in the old rooming house movies from before the war wouldn't have had. Except that she's not so well off, as a man from the phone company (Norman Fell) knocks on her door with the intention of disconnecting the phone for non-payment. Peggy convinces him to give her another two weeks to collect the bill, with the implication being that the repairman thinks he's going to get "something" in return. Worse, Peggy hasn't been able to pay her rent, so the owner of the house is about to throw her out.
It's to this house that Pete shows up, and since the owner is evicting Peggy, there's a free room to let, one which Pete is immediately able to take. But as I said a few paragraphs above, he's impossibly credulous for a newcomer to the city, even by the standards of Hollywood movies that have dumb yokels making their way to New York. He hears Peggy's sob story and lets her stay, which I'd have though would be a serious violation of the Production Code. Worse, Peggy doesn't let on about her full story.
Peggy is a taxi dancer working at the dance hall run by Nellie Miller (Don Rickles, really cast against type here), and she's already asked Nellie for quite a few advances on her income. He's to the point where he's about to expect something more in return for all the money he's lent Peggy that she'll never be able to pay back. And she's about to ask Nellie for even more money.
Pete is so stupid that he gets caught out by a scam involving some musicians about to form a combo, only for them to ask him to go out and get beers for everybody. He goes out, and they take the opportunity to run off with his valuable musical instruments. He thinks he can just go to the police and of course they'll solve the case lickety-split, but Peggy, having been in New York for five years, knows much better. She turns to Nellie for the money to buy Pete new instruments, with serious consequences.
I can understand why the stars of The Rat Race would have wanted to be involved, as everyone was known more for fairly light movies. (Admittedly, Curtis had done more serious drama up to this point like The Defiant Ones.) The material here seems like a good opportunity for all involved to show off serious acting chops. Don Rickles takes that chance, and is surprisingly good playing a part that's totally unexpected for him. Tony Curtis, however, isn't so good. I think, however, that's more down to the script, which gives him the thankless task of playing a person you just want to shake some sense into. The movie also feels stagy at times, which is in no small part because it is indeed based on a stage play.
Still, I think The Rat Race deserves a watch, in no small part because of that performance from Don Rickles.
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