For some values of "gangster"

One of the movies Eddie Muller selected for Noir Alley last summer that I hadn't heard of was The Gangster. Since I generally enjoy Noir Alley, and the synopsis sounded interesting enough, I decided to record it.

The reason I hadn't heard of this one, I guess, is because it was made by the King Brothers from Monogram, who in this case moved up a step or so when Monogram started Allied Artists to put out stuff that was intended to be more prestigious. Here the star is Barry Sullivan, playing a gangster named Shubunka. He wakes up in what looks like a pretty nice apartment, before he starts with a voiceover of the sort that sounds like we're about to get Yet Another Flashback. That at least would give him the opportunity to explain how he got that horrible scar on his face. And sure enough, the scene flashes back to some point in the past, although it's not quite mentioned how far....

Shubunka lives and works on Neptune Beach, which is one of the places New Yorkers go to get away from the big city in the summer when it gets hot. Now, there's a Neptune, New Jersey, but it's far enough away from the city that people wouldn't day trip there, and certainly wouldn't be taking public transportation in and out of Neptune to get to places in New York City. But that's the first of many things that utterly bend both reality and the coherence of the film's plot.

Shubunka works out of an ice cream parlor that seems to have only one soda jerk, Shorty (Harry Morgan when he was still being called Henry), one cashier Dorothy (Joan Lorring), and an owner Jammey (Akim Tamiroff) who is paying Shubunka some sort of protection money. A totally bizarre subplot involves Shorty's love life, or lack therof, and his attempt to woo another business owner in the area, the widow Ostroleng (Fifi D'Orsay). Shubunka has a girlfriend in the form of dancer Nancy Starr (Belita) who works out of the ballroom at the swanky hotel about a block away, which in real life wouldn't be near the sort of slums Shubunka works out of, or physically fit into the amount of space the set allows it.

Shubunka is jealous of Nancy, which is really only a plot point in that it allows him to accuse her of betraying him for what comes next, when bigger gangsters led by Cornell (Sheldon Leonard) show up. They want to horn in on Shubunka's territory, which shouldn't be so hard since Shubunka doesn't seem to have a gang at all! Cornell and one of his henchmen (Elisha Cook Jr. in another great small role) show up at an isolated part of the beach where Shubunka and Nancy are on a date to try to pressure him to leave town. They've already pressured Jammey, and Shubunka knows that they can kill Jammey and frame him.

Meanwhile, another subplot involves Karty (John Ireland). He's a bookkeeper for the garage his wife's brothers run, but he's embezzled from the company to gamble on the horses, having a scheme he's certain can win. (It's basically the Martingale, which in the real world is easily defeated by limiting the maximum wager along with payouts that offer a vigorish to the house.) He needs to pay back his loan or win more money with his wagering scheme, but Shubunka has no desire to lend him any money.

Objectively, The Gangster is an absolute mess of a movie with a bunch of disparate plot elements that shouldn't fit and all sorts of continuity issues. And yet, for some reason, The Gangster is an eminently interesting movie. Not in the "so bad it's good" sense, since it's not even bad. There's just something so off-kilter with the plot elements and the characters that you can't stop watching through to the end, as much of a mess as it is.

The Gangster is definitely another movie to watch if you can find it, although "gangster" is a common enough word in movie titles that you'll want to make certain you're getting the correct movie.

The Godless Girl

I had a fair number of silent movies sitting on my DVR in addition to some of the other genres that are disproportionately represented on the DVR. One of the movies that I had somewhat surprisingly not heard of before it got an airing on Silent Sunday Nights: The Godless Girl. But with it being a Cecil B. DeMille movie with an interesting synopsis, I recorded it in order to be able to finally watch it and put up a post on it.

The movie starts off in a high school with some interesting clubs. 21-year-old Lina Basquette stars as Judy Craig, aka The Girl. She's one of the prime movers of the school's Atheist Club, which seems like a rather odd thing for what I'd guess is a public school to have. Also, this being the 1920s, it's unsurprising that there are a lot more believers in God, and specifically, the Christian God since this is after all a DeMille movie and he certainly promoted his perception of Christianity in his films. The Boy, actual name Bob Hathaway and played by 32-year-old Tom Keene (credited as George Duryea), is the head of the Christian students' group, and boy is he irritated that atheists not only don't believe in his God, but that they might want to advertise their belief that there is no God. So he and his friends disrupt the Atheist Club meeting, leading to a riot that causes a banister to break and a female student to fall to her death.

It's not quite clear who should get the lion's share of the blame for what happened, although nobody intended for this thing to result in a death. But it did, and legally that's probably involuntary manslaughter. In any case, it's convenient for the justice system to declare it manslaughter and send both of the protagonists off to reform school, which is sex-segregated although the two halves of the reform school are right next to each other. At the school, Judy is roomed with The Other Girl, Mame (Marie Prevost), who shows Judy the ropes, and eventually becomes friends with Judy. Over on the boys' side, Bob meets Bozo (Eddie Quillan), and those two become friends as well.

Bob tries to make up with Judy, probably because he feels it his Christian duty, and tries to figure out a way to protect her, having fallen in love with her along the way. It also doesn't help that this is the sort of "reform" school that figures physical violence is the best way to reform the kids in the school. You'd think the kids might riot at some point the way they will in The Mayor of Hell some years later. And indeed, the climax is going to be set against a riot.

But first, Bob decides the best way to help Judy is to get her out of this place, which means effecting an escape. The two break out by commandeering a truck and eventually wind up on an abandoned farm, where life is idyllic for just long enough for Judy to conclude that perhaps there really is a God. But since there's that climax against a prison riot, you can guess that the young lovers are going to be caught and sent back to the reform school, which is only going to get more brutal than it was before the two escaped.

This being a Cecil B. DeMille movie, it's not exactly subtle in presenting DeMille's views and the triumph of Christian good over evil. but DeMille was a talented director and showman, and he's more than able to come up with a good story and compelling visuals to get his obvious points across, especially in the climactic prison riot complete with a fire and collapsing cell block. The print on The Godless Girl is also quite good. Unfortunately, by the time DeMille finished production sound movies, or part-sound movies, were becoming big, and the movie wasn't very successful, also being re-edited to include partial dialogue sequences. The version TCM ran, however, was silent. I don't have a copy of Kino Lorber's restoration release, so I'm not certain if both versions are available on it.

South Pacific

Tonight's lineup on TCM is a night of films dedicated to director Joshua Logan. Once again, I've got one of the movies on the schedule already on my DVR. That film is South Pacific, which kicks off the night at 8:00 PM.

This is based on the popular Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and I have to admit that I have not seen a stage version of the musical so I don't know how much was changed between the original stage show and this movie. It's 1943 or so in the south Pacific, which of course means the middle of the Pacific theater of World War II. Japan still holds a lot of the islands, although the action is mostly on an island the the US holds. There's a battalion of Seabees, headed by Luther Billis (Ray Walston) on the island. Being flown in to the island is marine Lt. Joseph Cable (John Kerr).

The Seabees are unsurprisingly frustrated, in the sense that there aren't many women around. A lot of them have been decamped to the neighboring island of Bali Hai, which is off limits to enlisted men, at leat unless they're accompanied by an officer, which Lt. Cable just so happens to be. This will give Billis the chance to get to the island. One Polynesian woman does show up on the island a lot, that being "Bloody Mary" Juanita Hall, who's the sort of opportunist businesswoman that Jane Russell's Mamie Stover was, minus the showgirl part. There's also a group of nurses, led by Ens. Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor), although they're rather off-limits too; no fraternization and all that.

Lt. Cable's real purpose in being parachuted onto the island is because there's another island not too far away that's held by the Japanese. The Americans want to know more about what's going on on that island because of how it controls shipping in the area. The only idea they have is to get someone to go behind enemy lines and radio from there, and Lt. Cable got the job. However, he doesn't know much about the island. The one person who might be able to help him is Emile de Becque (Rossano Brazzi), a Frenchman who moved to Polynesia decades ago because he had a past in France. Since then he wound up owning a plantation. Since he's a civilian, Nellie is able to start up a relationship with him.

Meanwhile, Lt. Cable is able to get over to Bali Hai, where he's introduced to the gorgeous Liat (France Nuyen), who happens to be Bloody Mary's daughter. He immediately falls in love with her, but isn't so certain he wants to marry her, because what will his family back in the States think? Far worse is Nellie's attitude. He finds out that Emile is actually a widower: he married a local Polynesian woman, and had two kids by her, whom he is raising. When Nellie learns he's got two mixed-race children, she's horrified for no particularly good reason, or at least no reason that anyone engaging in presentism would find acceptable. The movie, however (based on a work by Michener) is trying to make the point that this sort of blind prejudice is not particularly a good thing.

In and along the way, we get a whole bunch of songs. The songs themselves are of the Rodgers and Hammerstein sort that have in somce cases become standards, so lovers of musicals will certainly enjoy them. However, the way they're presented in the movie is something that might be a problem for a lot of viewers. All of the musical numbers are tinted much the way that old silent movies had scenes tinted in various colors. This is something that to me came across as stilted and artificial and didn't really work.

On the plus side, the movie was done if not quite on location at least in Hawaii, which isn't the south Pacific but close enough to substitute adequately as well as be physically beautiful, especially in wide-screen. I can only imagine how it would have looked back in 1958 on the big screen. Fans of musicals will probably like South Pacific; non-fans (and I'd include myself here) I think will at least not actively dislike it.

The Keyhole

George Brent was TCM's Star of the Month last month, and one of the movies that they ran is showing up on TCM again, although this time it's as part of a night of movies starring Brent's co-star in tonight's movie, that star being Kay Francis. The movie in question is The Keyhole, which comes up overnight tonight, or in the wee hours of tomorrow, at 3:15 AM.

Kay Francis plays Anne Brooks, née Vallee. As the movie opens up, she's reading a note from a man named Maurice (Monroe Owsley) that is a suicide letter. Anne is married to a wealthy man, so she has her chauffeur drive her over to the apartment where Maurice is staying. It turns out that Maurice and Anne danced together in Europe as one of those Vernon and Irene Castle-like couples who demonstrated new dances in the ballrooms of nightspots where the wealthy gathered. Anne was young and naïve, stupid enough to marry Maurice, and when she learned what a jerk he really was, she left for America leaving Maurice to complete the no-fault divorce proceedings since he was intending to marry another woman. However, Maurice never married that other woman and never got the divorce. Anne married her second husband Schuyler Brooks (Henry Kolker) thinking it was a valid marriage and that she'd never need to tell Schuyler about her past. But it's not a valid marriage, and Maurice is blackmailing Anne over it because she's got money, or at least assets that theoretically can be converted to money although Schuyler is bound to start noticing at some point.

Schuyler has kinda-sorta noticed in that Anne comes home at odd hours, and doesn't seem to wear some of her jewelry any more. But the servants have no idea what's really going on. The one person who does know what's going on is Schuyler's sister Portia (Helen Ware), who is good at discreetly breaking up such unwanted relationships. She learns from Anne that Maurice is not an American citizen. So Anne should take a cruise somehwere to the Carribean, like Havana. Maurice is certain to follow her, and Portia can use her influence to get Maurice's visa cancelled. Voilà: Maurice won't be able to blackmail Anne in the US anymore, and Schuyler need not learn anything about what went on between Anne and Maurice.

However, since Schuyler knows nothing of this, he has some reason to worry that Anne might be up to no good when she suddenly declares that she'd like to go to Havana. So he goes to a detective agency to have one of their discreet, high-class private eyes get on the same boat and see if he can find out who Anne is seeing on the sly. That man is Neil Davis (George Brent), who is accompanied by a second detective, Hank (Allen Jenkins), who will be traveling under the guise of being Neil's valet.

Neil and Anne meet, and the two eventually become friends, although Neil notes that Anne seems to be a more or less perfect wife, never looking for another man and trying to get away from Maurice who, sure enough, has followed Anne on the boat. The things Neil and Anne do together are completely platonic, although eventually Neil finds himself beginning to fall in love with Anne. This presents problems when Schuyler learns the truth from his siter and goes down to Havana himself so that Anne should not find out that her husband has been spying on her.

The Keyhole is an entertaining enough movie, although I have to wonder how much bearing to reality it bears. One plus is that the conflict is set up in a good enough way that it makes Anne's reasoning for why she did the things she did believable. She was on a separate continent in the early 1930s, and expected the divorce was going to go through, so what resaon is there to tell any of this stuff to her second husband? And she's acting mysteriously enough, in part to protect her husband, so he has a logical reason to suspect something is wrong. I do have to say, on the other hand, that the resolution of the film's conflict doesn't quite work for me.

One other fun thing to mention is the subplot. Glenda Farrell is inserted into the movie as Dot, a gold-digger who is clearly looking for a rich guy to fleece. She falls for Hank, not realizing he's not what he's presenting himself as, while Hank is blowing through all the expense money to keep Dot in the lifestyle she's become accustomed to. They both handle their roles well and provide a bit of needed comic relief.

People who want a look at early 1930s values will probably enjoy The Keyhole, as will the fans of the movie's stars, although there are better films out there for all of them.

The supporting player witness

It wasn't uncommon for studios to remake their B movies back in the day. After all, since there wasn't yet television to show the movies again, the B stuff would likely have fallen out of the consciousness of most of the viewing public. So when I saw the plot synopsis for the 1939 movie The Man Who Dared, I was pretty certain -- correctly, as it turns out -- that this was a remake of a really entertaining little movie called The Star Witness. Still, I watched it anyway.

Once again, the backdrop for the movie is corruption in some unnamed medium-sized city, with newspaper headlines being a good way to have plot exposition. But fortunately, the DA has somebody who's willing to testify against the corrupt mayor. The bad news is that the mayor, being corrupt and powerful, is able to figure out who this witness is, and get some of his goons to put a bomb on the guy's car to kill him.

The dead witness lived in one of those middle class residential districts with detached garages and picket fences, and living in the next house over is the Carter family, led by patriarch Matthew (Henry O'Neill). They see the people who placed the car bomb acting furtively, and trying to escape before the bomb goes off. However, one of the bombers is dressed as a policeman, so when the Carters mention what happened to the police, the bad guys already know what happened.

The Carters are a pretty big family, with the parents (Mom being played by Elisabeth Risdon); adult daughter Madge (Jane Russell); three sons including football-playing Bill (Dickie Jones); and their grandfather, Ulysses (Charley Grapewin), who fought in the Spanish-American War. (The original had Grandpa as a Civil War veteran, but by now that would put Grandpa close to 90.) So there are a lot of people to testify. Except that the bad guys start threatening the Carters, and suddenly they clam up, suddenly doubting whether they really saw what they saw. Meanwhile, the poor family are pretty much prisoners in their own home what with the police protection they're getting

And just to drive the point home, the bad guys take Dad someplace where they can beat the crap out of him before bringing him back home, simply because they can and it will encourage the Carters to keep their mouths shut. Grandpa, as the old fart and war veteran, is the one person who doesn't seem to care what happens to him since he's going to be dead soon anyway. But his intransigence only results in little Bill getting kidnapped on the way to a football game. It's up to Grandpa to save him and, by extension, save the whole city from corruption....

The Man Who Dared is a competently made B movie, although it's still decidedly a B movie. I'd also say that it's not quite as good as The Star Witness, in part because it feels a bit more rushed, and in part because The Star Witness has a bit better of a crew: Walter Huston is the DA, Grant Mitchell the father, and William Wellman is the director.

Portrait in Black

A genre that's often fun even if the movies aren't necessarily very good is the potboiler of the 1950s and 1960s. Recently, I had the opportunity to see another of those movies: Portrait in Black.

Lana Turner is the star here, and she plays Sheila Cabot, the second wife of shipping magnate Matthew Cabot (Lloyd Nolan). Matthew is an extremely tough businessman, and that toughness is driving him to an early grave as he seems to need a series of injections from his doctor, Dr. David Rivera (Anthony Quinn). However, Matthew is tough in his personal life as well as his business life; as one example he seems quite ticked that Sheila has decided to get a learner's permit to be able to drive for herself. This, after, would mean she'd no longer be forced to use the chauffeur Cobb (Ray Walston) to go anywhere.

And goodness knows she's got places to go. She's secretly carrying on an affair with Dr. Rivera! Both of them have had the thought that they could hasten Matthew's death through an air-bubble induced embolism, although that would of course be unethical malpractice, and there's a reasonable chance somebody might figure things out since there are signs that Sheila is less than fully honest about where she's taking the car. Cathy (Sandra Dee), Matthew's adult daughter from his first marriage, notices that Sheila often goes "shopping" but comes home having bought nothing.

Of course, Cathy's relationship with her dad isn't much better. Cathy's boyfriend is Blake Richards (John Saxon), who runs one of the tugboat concessions in the San Francisco harbor. But, thanks in part to Dad, as well as Dad's second-in-commmand Howard Mason (Richard Basehart), Blake's dad was driven out of business, giving Blake good reason to hate Mr. Cabot. Worse, Mr. Cabot and Mason screw Blake over in awarding the new contract to deal with the Cabot Line.

And then Matthew dies suddenly, although it's not because of any untoward doings on anybody's part. However, a few days letter Sheila receives an hand-printed letter with no return address but a postmark from Carmel congratulating her on doing away with her husband! Sheila and David are convinced that somebody knows about their affair and is going to try to blackmail them. Suspicion eventually falls on Howard Mason's shoulders, and Dr. Rivera comes up with a ridiculous plan to bump off Howard in a shooting that could easily be blamed on a disgruntled longshoreman since there a labor dispute brewing. Except that the killing doesn't quite go to plan. Oh, Howard gets killed all right, but it takes two attempts and then Cathy starts trying to put two and two together....

Portrait in Black got scathing reviews at the time of its release in 1960, and it's not hard to see why. However, 65-plus years on, it's easier to sit back and have fun at how delightfully overwrought and bad this one is. It goes from one ridiculously over-the-top scene to the next, leading up the a climax where you know Anthony Quinn's character is going to get it if only because the Production Code was still in effect and demanded it. But the movie generally swims in a sea of hatred that's brewing just under the surface, with all the characters delivering bad dialogue.

Portrait in Black is definitely recommended, but not for the reasons the filmmakers at the time would have wanted you to see it.

Mike's Murder

I've mentioned on several occasions how there are quite a few 1980s movies that I had heard about growing up, but didn't get the chance to see when they came out because of my being too young. And then there are movies I never even heard about because they didn't get much of a release. A good example from that latter category is Mike's Murder. Since the synopsis sounded interesting, I recorded it when it showed up on TCM and once again eventually got around to watching it and doing this post on the movie.

Debra Winger is the star here, although she clearly doesn't play Mike. Instead, she's Betty Parrish, a bank teller in Los Angeles who likes to play tennis, taking lessons from Mike (Mark Keyloun). They're also flirtatious, with some embraces that lead to the two of them going up to Betty's apartment and making sweet, sweet love.

On another night some time later, Mike meets up at a lower-class hash joint with his friend Pete (Darrell Larson). This scene is filmed in a way that gives one the distinct impression that something untoward is going on. That impression turns out to be right, as when Mike and Pete leave the place, they're intercepted by a couple of guys who are clearly higher up in the world of 1980s drug distributon, and that Mike and Pete shouldn't be trying to horn in on other people's territory. Worse, they say they know where Mike lives, forcing him to seek refuge with Sam (Robert Crosson), a photographer he knows.

Not long after that, Betty is driving along when whom should she meet but Mike! He wants to get in the car and have Betty drive him somewhere. It's clear again from his demeanor that something's wrong. We the viewers already know this, but Betty picks up on it too, with Mike finally explaining what's going on before having Betty drop him off at the driveway of one of those Sunset Blvd. style mansions. Not that Mike is moving in with Norma Desmond or getting the swimming pool he always wanted, the dope.

Mike and Betty play phone tag while Mike lays low. When he finally thinks the heat is off, he and Pete start getting involved with drug deals again. But Pete is stupid enough to try to skim some of other people's drugs off the top, and surely the bigwigs are going to discover this. They do, and kill Mike for the trouble. Of course, with a title like Mike's Murder, you knew this was going to happen.

Betty gets the phone call that Mike was killed, and she's distraught. She starts poking around herself, even showing up when the crime scene technicians are going through the murder, with blood still on the walls and all that. (This seems like a plot hole, since you'd think there would be police tape and that Betty wouldn't have learned of the murder until after the detectives got done with the crime scene.) Betty goes to the house where she dropped Mike off, finding out that it's owned by a gay sugar daddy Philip (Paul Winfield) who let Mike stay there basically in exchange for favors, although Mike was only at most gay for pay. She also begins to learn what a nasty character Pete is, although it's not as though he's got any of the power in the drug world.

Having seen Mike's Murder, I can see why it's one of those movies that I'd never heard of. Apparently it was butchered by the studio before release, changing the story structure significantly. That having been said, it's really not that bad of a movie despite some of the plot holes. It's slow going for the first two thirds of the movie, but the finale is pretty darn suspenseful. If you're willing to put up with that sort of structure, Mike's Murder is definitely worth a watch.

The Hanging Tree

I didn't expect to do reviews of a couple of movies directed by Delmer Daves in rapid succession, but I'm far enough ahead in my scheduling of reviews that I don't get to see everything that's coming up and is on my DVR until after I've already scheduled other stuff. That, and I don't quite pay as close attention to who directs the movies that I post about, more the genres and stars. With that in mind, the Delmer Daves movie in question is The Hanging Tree, which is getting that TCM airing tomorrow, April 18, at 6:00 PM.

It's the Montana Territory in 1873, and coming into town, or not so much a town as the few buildings that serve a mining camp in gold rush country, is doctor Joseph Frail (Gary Cooper). He comes across a small cabin on a hill overlooking the buidlings and the river that the prospectors are panning, and makes a deal with the man who lives there to buy the place since it's for sale. Meanwhile, down at the river, a young man named Rune (Ben Piazza) tries to pilfer some of the gold dust from the sluice-box. He's spotted by Frenchy (Karl Malden), who tries to shoot at Rune and gets a posse of miners to go after Rune, although nobody gets a clear enough view of Rune's face to be able to identify him.

Rune, for his part gets away, but only as far as Dr. Frail's cabin. Frail extracts the bullet, which he knows is incriminating evidence although he throws it away without telling Rune. Rune can't pay for the medical services, so Frail blackmails Rune and make him serve as Frail's manservant. Unsurprisingly, Rune chafes at this, but it's basically this or the titular hanging tree since gold pilfering is seen as a capital offense around here. Frail and Rune go into town, where a bit of Frail's back-story is learned in a poker game where he wins a gold claim. Apparently, his wife and brother back east had an affair and killed themselves, so Frail burned down the house and headed west. But it shows his violent nature and gives him a reason to be a bit secretive.

Meanwhile, there's a stagecoach coming, except that it's intercepted, robbed, and the horses set free so that the coach goes careening off by itself and down a steep embankment, leaving only one possibled survivor. That survivor, the Swiss immigrant Elizabeth (Maria Schell), is found barely alive, and is taken eventually to Frail's cabin to recover. She's got serious burns and is temporarily blinded from exposure and the burns, although she does regain her vision. Elizabeth loves Frail although he doesn't reciprocate, while Frenchy has already made advances toward Elizabeth that pissed Frail off.

Frenchy and Elizabeth both want to make their own way in the world, and the best way to do so is to buy into that gold claim that Frail won in the poker game, bringing Rune along because they need more than one man to work it. They do eventually find gold, and this leeds to a drunken celebration that sets up the final conflict of the movie which also involves "Doctor" Grubb (George C. Scott). Grubb claims to be a doctor, but he's one of those phony preachers who uses the power of the Bible to treat people and tell their fortunes. He didn't like a real doctor showing up, and this is his chance to get rid of Frail once and for all.

The Hanging Tree is another of those competently made westerns that tells a reasonably good story and tells it well, although it doesn't feel like it's breaking any new ground. It's helped by a higher budget that enabled having a bunch of good actors, and a lot of location shooting. There's nothing terribly new here, but there definitely is a good deal of entertainment to be had.

Better than only being inhuman

There was a movie I saw many years ago that involved a particular plot point and, if memory served, starred Jane Wyatt. Not too long ago, the movie We're Only Human showed up on TCM, and the plot synopsis and presence of Jane Wyatt made it sound familiar. Sure enough, I had seen it an age ago and never blogged about it. So now that I've watched it again and it's fresh in my mind, I can give you a post on it.

Jane Wyatt plays lady reporter Sally Rogers, who would not go on to work on the Alan Brady Show, but that's another story. Rogers shows up outside a joint where policeman Pete McCaffrey (Preston Foster) is casing the joint across the street. A hearse shows up and carries up a wicker body bag, but McCaffrey knows this is a ruse, so when they come back out, he confronts them, finding out that Lefty Berger is in the not-a-coffin. Burger is a wanted gangster, so McCaffrey thinks he's done a great job. Sally is naïve, so she thinks Pete has done a great job, too, writing a glowing story about what she saw and even falling in love with Pete.

However, Pete's boss is ticked off, because the rest of the gang is going to be spooked, and the police department was doing a bigger investigation that was hopefully going to bring down the whole gang. Worse, Pete is the sort of police detective who insists on doing things his own way, because he just knows the rules as they currently stand aren't always right and need to be broken. Worse for him, however, is when he is given the assignment to take Lefty up to prison on the train, Lefty escapes! That, and Lefty starts taunting McCaffrey about his inability to bring Lefty back to justice.

Things get even worse for McCaffrey when his regular detective partner and housemate, Det. Walsh (James Gleason), radios for backup outside a bank. A subplot involves the fact that McCaffrey lives with Walsh and his wife (Jane Darwell), and Mrs. Walsh keeps trying to see that McCaffrey gets a suitable wife. Anyhow, when McCaffrey winds up at the bank, he and Walsh go in to try to catch the gangsters who go in, only for Walsh to be fatally shot. It's getting harder and harder to find Lefty.

Meanwhile, there's a lawyer inside Lefty's organization, Martin (Arthur Hohl), who is terribly displeased with the fact that Lefty has been escaped, the reasoning being that Lefty has to know somebody tipped off the police to the fact he was going to be in that coffin escorted out by the fake funeral workers. Martin not illogically expects that Berger will conclude it was he who fed information to the cops, and will want revenge. Sure enough, Martin gets shot in a drive-by shooting. But then, and this is the plot point I remember because of how unbelievably stupid it was, Sally is with McCaffrey at the shooting and, in getting the story, prints the address of a couple of eyewitnesses along with their picture.

So, of course, the eyewitnesses get harassed by Berger's men, and McCaffrey seems to be back to square one with Berger arrogantly taunting him. But, since this is a Code-era movie, you know that Berger is going to be caught, and that the cop and reporter are going to live happily ever after, more or less.

The big problem with We're Only Human is that the plot has the main characters be inordinately stupid, climaxing in that scene where Sally interviews the eyewitnesses. Indeed, none of this bears much resemblance to reality. To be fair, however, the movie was only intended to be a B movie, and another of those films where probably nobody expected viewers 90 years later to be watching and giving their critique. So sit back and watch just to see where all the faults are. And thankfully, it'll all be over fairly quickly.

Lovely views of Italy

A movie that I'd seen show up on TCM several times in the past but had never watched was The Battle of the Villa Fiorita. So as with a bunch of other movies, the last time it showed up on TCM, I decided I'd record it in order to be able to watch it and finally get it off my list of movies I hadn't seen before.

Maureen O'Hara stars as Moira, an upper-class British woman married to Darrell (Richard Todd) and with two youngish children Debbie and Michael who can afford to go to boarding school and even have a horse! But life for Moira is boring since Darrell isn't the most exciting person. So when the two go to a concert and Moira is introduced to to pianist Lorenzo (Rossanno Brazzi), she immediately falls for him and the two start an affair that results in Darrell basically kicking Moira out of the house and sending her to live with Lorenzo at his palatial estate near Lake Garda in northern Italy.

The two kids get back from school and find out that Mom has left them, and they're not very happy about it. So, like any good kids, the decide that they'd like to see Mom and convince her to come back home. Of course, there's the difficulty of just getting there, since this is the mid-1960s and they're young enough that independent international travel is a big deal, never mind the expense that results in them selling Debbie's horse which becomes a plot point later in the story.

But, the two kids are able to run away from home and somehow Dad never really seems to worry where they are since the trip is an overnight one. But in any case, the two kids are able to find the Villa Fiorita and see their mother again. Mom and her paramour put the kids up since it's not as if they can do anything else, at least not until they can contact Darrell who might be able to come and get the kids. In the meantime, the two British kids get to meet Lorenzo's daughter Donna (a young Olivia Hussey), and the kids all become friends of a sort.

Meanwhile, the kids have a plan to bring Debbie and Michael's parents back together, which basically involves going on a hunger strike, or at least not eating this newfangled Italian food that's totally alien to the two British kids. Debbie is too young to realize that this isn't a complete hunger strike in that the kids are supposed to be sneaking food in from elsewhere, and rather stupidly gets pissed when she catches Michael and Donna eating. Oh, and kissing, too. Debbie does get a local priest involved in things, though, even though the family is Protestant (a bit humorous, I found, considering Maureen O'Hara was fairly prominently Irish).

Things continue to escalate until Michael and Donna decide to run off and get in a small sailboat on Lake Garda just as a storm is about to come up. Michael may have learned the basics of sailing, but he's not that good a sailor.

For some reason, I went into The Battle of the Villa Fiorita expecting something like one of those light comedies of the 1930s where the kids of a widow(er) or divorced parent find another person who would make just the right partner for their parent, and work to bring the two leads together in the final reel. The only difference being that in this case the two right partners are supposed to be the original mother and father. However, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita is a straight-up drama, with some melodramatic elements in it. That drama doesn't really work for me, and the kids aren't all that appealing. Italy is lovely, however, even though the print TCM ran doesn't do it justice.

But maybe The Battle of the Villa Fiorita will work better for some of you than it did for me.