Saturday, January 15, 2011

About last night

I hadn't seen the movies in last night's John Payne lineup. I am sorry to see that 99 River Street does not appear to be available on DVD. It's fun but a bit over the top. One of the howlers comes when Payne, tracks a man down to a dive bar by the docks in Jersey City, where he goes with Evelyn Keyes. She goes into the bar, and in an attempt to flush the bad guy out, she puts a coin in the jukebox and starts dancing. She doesn't get the bad guy at first, but another man, with the following ripe dialogue:

She: This place is dead;
He: Revive me, baby!

The man happens to be married, and his wife was in the bathroom. What this guy wsa doing at a dive bar with his wife is never explained, but you're not always looking for continuity in lower-budget movies.

Kansas City Confidential is available on DVD, and is well worth a look. The only real problem is the ending, which it seems to me really had to be contrived in order to get around the problems the filmmakers would have had with the Production Code, crime not being allowed to pay and all that.

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