I Walk Alone

Once again, I was looking through the offerings on the various streaming services, and found that one of the PlutoTV channels (which, being owned by one division of Paramount, has the rights disporportionately to Paramount stuff). A movie that was already halfway through where I'd probably heard the title but had never seen it was I Walk Alone. Thankfully, Pluto is one of the services where you can tune in to something already on and watch from the beginning, so that's what I did in order to be able to do a review of it.

As the movie begins, Frankie Madison (a very young Burt Lancaster) is walking into Grand Central, having just gotten off a train. Calling out for him to pick him up is an old friend, Dave (Wendell Corey). As a nice lighting trick puts the shadows from the grille of one of the ticket agents' windows on the floor, Frankie realizes he's never going to escape such bars: it's a sign that he's just gotten out of prison after 14 long years.

As Dave takes Frankie to his new digs at one of those long-stay hotels that populated movies up through the 70s, Frankie asks about a mutual friend, Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas). They were all friends before Frankie went off to prison, and in the meantime Turner has made a name for himself, opening up a swanky nightclub and taking on a nightclub singer Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott) who's getting her picture in the press. Frankie wonders why Noll never showed up to see him in prison, and would desperately like to see Noll again.

Cut to the business office of Noll's nightclub. Dave works as Noll's accountant, figuring out how to keep the books balanced while paying as little tax as legally possible. Noll, for his part, has been expecting Frankie, as he knows Frankie is going to be ticked off. He knows that Frankie will believe he's entitled to something after 14 years in prison, and Noll gives off vibes that he's going to try to get away with giving Frankie as little as possible. To that end, he employs the assistance of Kay to try to pump Frankie for information.

This is important not just for Noll, who wants to find out what Frankie is planning, but also for the viewer, as it's an effective way to put in the flashback necessary to show the characters' back story and give motivation to all the characters. Fourteen years earlier, before Frankie went off to prison, was the late stages of Prohibition. Frankie and Noll were running liquor over the Canadian border into the US, when a rival gang decided to try to hijack the load. It led to a murder and the two splitting up, before making a handshake agreement to share everything 50-50. As we already know, Frankie took the rap for the death of the rival gangster, and now he wants his 50 percent.

Except that Noll has been very shrewd in his business dealings. With the end of Prohibition, the old club they had run together fell on hard times, so Noll dissolved it and set up a new club, the one he currently owns. And he got Dave to push some papers in front of Frankie so that he wouldn't have a share of the new organizations Noll founds after the old club folded. Dave has also been exceedingly good at setting up all the finances so that there's no way Frankie can get back into the club. And Noll is more than willing to use violence if Frankie pushes too far.

Meanwhile, Kay had been thinking Noll had the hots for her, only to have her hopes crushed when she learns he's after another woman. So she's willing to get closer to Frankie. This is important because one Frankie does start pushing to far and Noll has his underlings beat the crap out of him, Dave, who was also there, gets shot. Frankie, with his history, is an obvious suspect....

I Walk Alone makes me think a bit about Johnny O'Clock, which I blogged about back in November, as the two movies have some thematic similarities in the idea of a business partnership gone wrong. The both also have a lot of style covering up what isn't really a lack of substance so much as it is that the formula we're given is really nothing new. That is, I think, part of why I Walk Alone got mixed reviews when it was originally released. All three leads show a lot of potential, but this was before Douglas and Lancaster became big stars and legends. Contemporary critics wouldn't have known what the future held for the two actors, of course.

The result is that I Walk Alone is a movie that's eminently watchable, but decidedly not in the class of some of the great movies of the noir cycle, and with reason. It's also a film that would fit right in on Noir Alley, although as far as I am aware Eddie Muller has never shown it.

The File on Thelma Jordon

Many years back -- I think it was just before I started blogging, because I remember making a post briefly mentioning the Burt Lancaster movie Atlantic City in conjunction with it -- TCM and Paramount signed an agreement on TCM getting the broadcast rights to a handful of the post-1949 Paramount films. One that aired as part of it and then didn't show up for a long time was The File on Thelma Jordon. Recently, the movie showed up again as part of Eddie Muller's Noir Alley series, so this gave me another chance to watch it and do a post on it.

We don't see Thelma Jordon at first even though she's the title character and in many ways the main character. Instead, we meet Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey), walking into the office of his boss, Miles Scott (Paul Kelly), late one evening. Cleve is an assistant DA and part of the investigative unit of the DA's office. Anyhow, Cleve goes to the office because he doesn't want to be at home. It's his anniversary, but his wife (Joan Tetzel) has invited her side of the family to a party and they make Cleve feel inadequate and smothered as though he has no say in anything that goes on in his life. Additionally, all that has led him to drink heavily, with his wife calling up all the drinking locations Cleve frequents.

Miles leaves the office and Cleve stays to keep drinking, which is when Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck) comes in. Apparently she's recently moved in with her elderly Aunt Vera, who is also fairly wealthy but doesn't have any family apart from Thelma. Vera has been getting harassed and is a bit eccentric, so Thelma wants plainclothes investigators not from the police to check up on Aunt Vera and make certain everything is OK.

The two walk out of the building, whereupon Thelma finds she's been ticketed for parking right in front of the building. But Cleve works for the DA's office, so he can get the traffic ticket "fixed", for which Thelma will be eternally grateful. She drives him around to his favorite joints, since he's clearly drunk and needs a designated driver, not that they used the term back in the day. But it leads Cleve to think fall in love with Thelma, since his own marriage is loveless. Thelma seems willing to have Cleve in her life.

But there are some big problems, one of them being that Thelma has to lie to everyone around her about what's going on and only see Cleve in clandestine situations. She's also being less than honest about her own life, as Cleve learns that she was married to a man named "Tony" -- and may still be, as it seems Tony has come out west from Florida looking for Thelma. Perhaps it's Tony who has been harassing Aunt Vera, as he could be looking for some of Vera's money in exchange for getting a divorce from Thelma.

Eventually Aunt Vera has enough of all this, and when she thinks she's heard another intruder, she picks up a gun and goes looking for the intruder herself, at which point we hear a gunshot that kills poor old Aunt Vera. Thelma finds Aunt Vera dead, and calls up Cleve. But Thelma wants Cleve to help her cover up any evidence that might lead police to question whether Thelma was the one to kill Aunt Vera! That, and there might also be evidence that Cleve was having an affair with her!

Things get worse when the DA recuses himself from the case, leading to Cleve having to be the one to prosecute it! Not that he can reveal anything of the affair, because that would also reveal he was in on the cover-up, and that would be a serious ethical no-no.

Unfortunately, there's still the Hollywood Production Code, so we know that Cleve is going to have to pay for what he did wrong. Thelma doing so is one thing; it's not that difficult to compare her to a less blatantly sexual version of Lana Turner's character from The Postman Always Rings Twice. But there would be more suspense if there were the possibility of Cleve being able to get away with the things he did in covering up Aunt Vera's shooting death.

The result is that we get a movie that's competently made, and features reasonably good performances, even if Wendell Corey isn't really anybody's idea of a hot romantic lead. But the Production Code really hamstrings the movie, right down to the ending that makes everybody pay, but only in a way that Hollywood and not real life could provide.

So The File on Thelma Jordon is definitely worth a watch, but be aware that it's a frustrating watch at times.

The Wild North

Another of those movies available from the Warner Archive collection that I recorded off of TCM some time back is The Wild North. As always, I recently sat down to watch it in order to be able to do a post on it here.

Stewart Granger stars as Jules Vincent, a French-Canadian trapper who has wound up much farther west in Canada instead of northern Quebec. (Granger, unsurprisingly, is about as convincing a Québecois as Laurence Olivier was in 49th Parallel a decade earlier.) Vincent lives in a cabin that's really in the wilderness, but he's in one of those trading post villages that's just accessible enough that one of MGM's Old West towns on the backlot could be repurposed for it.

While in town, Jules meets an unnamed native girl (Cyd Charisse; don't ask about the ethnic casting) who is being accosted by another trapper, Max Brody (Howard Petrie). Jules rescues the young woman and heads out for her home village, which is on the way to Jules' cabin, taking her in tow. However, Brody is also on the trip because there's not much way to get around the wilderness and leaving Brody to walk would probably kill Brody. It's not an optimal solution, and when Brody creates a dangerous situation, Jules acts in such a way that accidentally leads to the death of Brody.

Enter Constable Pedley (virile, sexy action hero Wendell Corey), serving for one of the forerunners of the Mounties. He gets wind of the death of Brody, and he obviously believes that it's murder. Or at least, it's a situation that's going to require a summary trial to prove that Jules was acting in self-defense. So he heads farther into the wilderness, to get to Jules' cabin. Once he gets there, he plans to arrest Jules and bring him back to civilization for the trial.

Now, I don't think James Stewart had made The Naked Spur yet, so perhaps Constable Pedley didn't realize just how dangerous it was going to be to be alone on a long journey with a man who might well want to kill Pedley to maintain his freedom. After all, there was no form of communication so it could have been made to appear that Pedley died before getting to Jules' cabin. Worse, by the time Pedley starts out to bring Jules back from the cabin, it's already the dead of winter, but surprisingly bright outside for someplace that far north. The pair sets off by dogsled to get to town, but who knows whether they'll make it there, and how the writers are going to be able to stay within the Production Code to produce a satisfying ending.

The premise of The Wild North is a reasonably good one, although it does have the problems of having to deal with the Production Code. However, the bigger problem is that the movie is never anything more than a by-the-numbers adventure film seemingly best suited for a Saturday matinee demographic that's made with the production values of a movie with greater pretensions. It also doesn't help that some of the shots are obviously backlot shots and don't fit in with the location shooting. There's also a relatively slow pace since there are a lot of tracking shots of people crossing snowy landscapes filmed in medium-to-long shots.

Younger viewers of the early 1950s might have been thrilled by The Wild North. I have a feeling grown-ups would have been more likely to see through the film's flaws, and also wonder whether the movie holds up for younger viewers of today.

The Rainmaker (1956)

Katharine Hepburn had a day in Summer Under the Stars last August, which gave me the chance to record one of her movies I hadn't blogged about before, The Rainmaker. Recently, I finally got around to watching it.

Although Hepburn is one of the stars, it's the other one that we see first. That would be Burt Lancaster, playing "Tornado" Bill. Bill is one of those itinerant carnival con-artist types, going around places in the Great Plains around 1930 selling what he claims is a device that will stop tornadoes from destroying the local small towns where he stops. (The movie doesn't specify when it's set, although Bill has a horse-drawn cart while several characters have cars, with the newest according to IMDb being a 1930 model.) Bill has also developed a fairly obvious reputation as a con artist, and somebody in town recognizes him, forcing him to beat a hasty retreat. (Amazingly, the police don't impound his cart.)

Cut to a town in the west half of the Kansas prairie where the welcome sign has been edited to say it used to be a bustling place until the drought came. They're holding a charity dance to raise money for the farmers affected by the drought; outside the building is the car of one Snookie Maguire (Yvonne Lime), who is apparently from a wealthy family if she can afford such a car. She's pursued by young Jim Curry (Earl Holliman), youngest kid in a family that has a farmhouse just outside of town, with older brother Noah (Lloyd Bridges), father H.C. (Cameron Prud'homme), and much older sister Lizzie (that's Katharine Hepburn, as if you couldn't tell).

Lizzie isn't home when we first meet the family. That's becaue they sent her away to visit relatives. Of course, the real reason was the hope that perhaps one of the cousins, or perhaps somebody in their town, would take a liking to Lizzie and ask her to marry him. She's getting up there in years (Hepburn was 49 when she made the movie, although I don't think Lizzie was supposed to be quite that old), and worried about becoming a spinster. And what is the rest of the family going to do with her if she does become a spinster aunt?

Meanwhile, Dad is also thinking that perhaps Lizzie could be married off to sheriff's deputy File (Wendell Corey), who is at first thought to be a widow although he is in fact a divorcé. It's one of the few times in the movies that Wendell Corey would actually be the right romantic partner for the lead actress, although it does seem clear that this would be a marriage of convenience at first and the two would have to learn to love each other. But Lizzie and File both seem like the sort of people who could ultimately learn that. Noah, however, is nasty enough that he suggests to Dad that nobody would ever marry Lizzie.

Enter Bill, now calling himself Bill Starbuck. Seeing that this town is suffering through a drought, he styles himself as a rainmaker, whose devices can bring rain if only you follow his convoluted method that he really just made up on the spot. For some inexplicable reason, Lizzie falls in love with the excitement that Starbuck brings -- she seems smart enough that she should see right through Starbuck's con-artist bluster. Maybe it's just that she's so desparate. Starbuck doesn't dislike Lizzie at all; in fact he seems to like someone so smart. But he's also one of those people who just can't settle down, and you know Lizzie wouldn't really belong with him. Never mind that the law in other states wants to find and prosecute Starbuck.

I had some big problems with The Rainmaker, and in reading the IMDb reviews, I see that the issues I had are ones I'm not alone in having. One is that Hepburn is miscast, as she's clearly too old to be a sibling to Jim (Hepburn was 21 years older than Holliman and six older than Bridges). Then there's the way Starbuck is written. He's just so obnoxiously over the top in his cons that I wanted to see him get smacked. It works for some other roles, but not here.

The Rainmaker was based on a stage play, and that's extremely obvious from the direction that we get here. It also doesn't help that the outdoor scenes look to have been don on a soundstage. Maybe some of the town square scenes were done on the back lot, but that's about it. The staginess doesn't much help the movie. Perhaps the script would work better on the stage. That having been said, the actors all try their darndest with the material, and the color cinematography is nice for the soundstage.

So some people might like The Rainmaker, but I have to admit that if I were looking to introduce people to any of the actors in the movie, this isn't the film I'd pick.

My Man and I

I've commented in the past that I think the MGM programmers of the early 1950s are often just as interesting as the prestige movies (usually Freed Unit musicals) the studio was releasing. One with potential that turns out to be a misfire is My Man and I.

Ricardo Montalbán plays Chu Chu Ramirez, a Mexican-born man who has worked itinerant labor in California's agricultural sector together with his Mexican friends, rooming with them now somewhere in the northern half of the state. Chu Chu has become an American citizen and believes so much in the American dream that he wrote a letter to the White House on becoming a citizen and got a very nice form reply, something he insists on telling everybody around him. He's also bought a used set of encyclopedias to try to educate himself and advance his lot in life.

Chu Chu's latest job is working for Ansel Ames (Wendell Corey), using Ames' tractor to clear fields for a month and make the princely sum of $90 plus room and board. Ansel has a wife (Claire Trevor) and doesn't treat her particularly well; Mrs. Ames seems to want to be anywhere but on this god-forsaken farm in the middle of nowhere, especially when the dogs attack her beloved cat. One look at shirtless Chu Chu working the tractor, and you know she's in love with him.

Chu Chu plans to save the money he makes, but one night he goes into town. At a bar there, he meets Nancy (Shelley Winters), an alcoholic who prefers those awful sweet wines. She's got a bar bill she can't pay, and just as Mrs. Ames immediately fell for Chu Chu, so he immediately falls for Nancy, the big difference being that Chu Chu doesn't get to see Nancy' sweaty and topless. Still, he's going to do everything he can to keep seeing her, even after it's clear that her alcoholism is killing her.

Back to the Ameses, Ansel gives Chu Chu a check and, when Chu Chu goes to cash it, he's told that the check is bouncing, which displeases Chu Chu. He goes to see Ansel, who gives him a line about how the check is good and Chu Chu will get his money, while we viewers know that Ansel really hates Mexicans, considers them inferior, and fully plans on stiffing Chu Chu. After Chu Chu signs the check over to one of his friends and the friend tries to cash the rubber check, Chu Chu takes Ansel to small claims court and wins.

At this point, Ansel gets really pissed, to the point that he threatens to shoot Chu Chu. After Chu Chu leaves the property, Ansel and his wife get in an argument with him smacking her around, before the gun accidentally goes off and shoots Ansel in the shoulder. At this point, the movie takes a ridiculous turn, as Ansel somehow is able to convince his wife that they should both lie and say that Chu Chu shot him. Why a wife who's just been beaten and clearly doesn't like her husband should go along with this, I don't know. But they get Chu Chu arrested and put on trial, and even though the legal system is clearly stacked against him, he still has not just faith in the system, but an unrealistically Pollyannaish faith. Of course, this being MGM and with the Production Code still in effect, we know the movie is going to have a happy ending, but still....

The plot turn for the final act is one of the reasons I have a problem with the movie. The other big problem is that the characters are little more than cardboard cut-outs of character types rather than realistically drawn and complex characters. Chu Chu is way too happy all the time; Ansel is too mean and too much of a con artist; Mrs. Ames has no good motivation to stay with her husband; and the Mexicans are given cartoonish accents even if some of them were played by actual Mexicans. (Jack Elam was definitely not Mexican.)

If you want to see how a movie of an interesting time could go wrong, then My Man and I is a good example to watch. But if you want to watch a real quality movie, I could suggest other movies from any of the man actors.