The Arnelo Affair

I mentioned a few months back that I somehow wound up with a whole bunch of movies starring George Murphy on my DVR, not from a programming theme of his movies. Another of the movies was The Arnelo Affair, which I watched and wrote of this post that I could schedule at a suitable time after other posts on Murphy's movies.

Murphy is technically the second male lead here, and we don't see him at first. Instead, we see the female lead, Frances Gifford, who plays Ann Parkson. Ann is in a car with Tony Arnelo (John Hodiak), and in a voiceover talking about how much she regrets this. And how she wishes her husband had never brought this guy home. So, as you might be able to guess, we're about to get Yet Another Flashback, to the time when Ann's husband Ted (that's George Murphy) brought Tony Arnelo home.

Ted is a Chicago lawyer who's trying to advance his career, and one of his clients is nightclub owner Arnelo, whom Ted is representing in a bunch of tax-related stuff. Ann and Tony have a kid, Ricky (a young Dean Stockwell), and a seemingly wonderful life, except that Ted is spending a lot of time on his work, to the point that he can't take Ann out for a night out on the town with friends like upstairs neighbor and couturier Vivian Delwyn (Eve Arden). But Tony shows up, and he immediately starts telling Ann how striking she looks. When he learns that Ann has a hobby of interior decoration, Tony offers her the chance to make a bit of money by decorating some of his places.

Ann being a bored housewife, she decides to take Tony up on the offer. However, she quickly learns that Tony is really interested in her for other reasons, and that she's not the only woman he's interested in. He's also seeing a local actress named Claire Lorrison who shows up one afternoon when Ann thinks she's going to be alone with Tony. Worse, Tony starts smacking Claire around, leading Ann to want to break off the relationship with Tony. Tony, for his part, is rather persistent, constantly calling Ann up.

Things take an even worse turn when Claire winds up dead, clearly quite murdered. Ann is innocent of the murder, although not necessarily of adultery, which is still an issue under the Production Code. But Tony being a nasty piece of work, he's able to blackmail Ann by making certain that the dead Claire is found with a compact that has a big letter A that can likely be traced back to Ann. But of course, since there's that Production Code, we know that the real murderer has to be caught and get his just desserts.

I can see why all the people involved in The Arnelo Affair might want to be involved with it, but the final result is something that's rather a misfire. If I had to guess why, I think that it feels like it's devoid of emotion. George Murphy isn't a very charismatic actor at the best of times, and he's certainly very much a second banana here. Tony Arnelo may be a piece of work, but Hodiak doesn't give off that vibe. And Gifford is a bit of a cipher too. The Dean Stockwell character is somewhat superfluous. And, not that it has anything to do with the movie itself, the print TCM ran looked like one of those older 16mm prints that TV stations would run of old public-domain movies.

A Lady Without Passport

I didn't realize that I had a bunch of movies with second-tier actor James Craig on my DVR, largely I'd guess because he wasn't the memorable actor and for the most part didn't get to be the lead in bigger movies. Some months back, Noir Alley ran a film with him in it, which I recently got around to watching: A Lady Without Passport.

The movie starts off in New York, with a man named Ramon walking down a street and looking nervous. A car pulls up alongside ramon, with a man inside telling him that he can't get away with "it", whatever "it" is, and that Palinov wants his money. Ramon tries to get away, and gets run down for his troubles, much like "Christopher" at the beginning of The House on 92nd Street. The police investigate, and find half of a $1,000 bill in his pocket. More interestingly is the CSI-type examination that finds traces of sugar cane, and soil of a type most common to Cuba. This, they believe, is a case for Immigration and Naturalization.

Cut to the INS, where investigator Frank Westlake (that's James Craig) is responsible for the case. He knows that he's going to have to send one of his agents down to Havana. This being the early 1950s, it was a time when people could still travel easily between the US and Cuba, at least if they were citizens of one of the two countries. However, there are a lot of peopl from Europe who fled the continent after the war and got the idea that getting into the US via a third country might be a good idea. It isn't, but has resulted in a bunch of people flooding the American Embassy with their applications. And if they can't get in legally, perhaps they might get in illegally.

So Westlake finds an agent who can speak a suitable European language to be able to pose as a refugee. That man is Pete Karczag (John Hodiak), who speaks Hungarian and is sent down to Havana to get the dirt on the people responsible for trying to smuggle in people who can't get to America properly. They already have a good idea that that man is Palinov (George Macready), so Karczag goes there and immediately tried to befriend Palinov.

While at Palinov's bar, he also meets Marianne Lorress (Hedy Lamarr). She, like all of the others, is someone who fled the European troubles, and would like to get into America. Things get worse for her, however, when she tries to work at one of the nightclubs. She doesn't have a work permit, so Pete covers for her by claiming to be married to her. This is also a good way for him to try to get more information on the sly regarding Palinov. But of course, as Karczag walks around Havana (apparently, real location shooting was done), Karczag begins to fall in love with Lorress. Worse, Palinov figures out Karczag is an American agent.

But the real climax comes when some of the refugees finally get on a clandestine flight bound for Florida. The race is on to find these refugees, who are in danger because who knows what will happen to them if the Americans find them. I'm reminded of Secret Service of the Air, where the smugglers simply opened up the bomb bay and dropped the immigrants out of the plane to their deaths.

Unfortunately, A Lady Without Passport is little more than a programmer, with a worn out plot and longer sequences of not much happening. It's also not really a noir, but Eddie Muller keeps stretching the definition of noir.

The Harvey Girls

I generally try to avoid doing posts on multiple films with the same star in close succession. Every now and then, however, the films on my DVR that are showing up on TCM happen to include a pair with the same star. That happens again this week; a few days back I posted on The Pirate, and now The Harvey Girls is showing up on TCM tomorrow, June 10, at 3:15 PM as part of a birthday salute to Judy Garland.

Opening title cards inform us of what the Harvey Girls were, which is a good thing because while a few people still living in 1946 when the movie was released might have remembered Harvey Girls, audiences today wouldn't. Fred Harvey was a freight agent for one of the railroads back in the 1870s who had the idea of setting up a series of restaurants at those stations along the line where the trains stopped long enough for passengers to eat. The restaurants became known as Harvey Houses, and employed unmarried women who were required to fit a squeaky-clean image in exchange for good-for-the-era pay.

As the movie opens, Judy Garland is not one of the Harvey Girls, but instead a young woman named Susan Bradley who is traveling west to the town of Sandrock to meet the man she's going to marry, having corresponded with him by letter. Also on the train is a new set of Harvey Girls managed by Sonora Cassidy (Marjorie Main). Susan gets off at the same town where the new Harvey House is being built, and finds that the putative man of her dreams is no such thing, but a drinker and old coot named Hartsey (Chill Wills). She doesn't want to marry him now, and thankfully Hartsey is OK with that, telling Susan that the love letters were written as a sort of joke by Ned Trent (John Hodiak).

Ned Trent runs the local den of iniquity, a saloon with dancing girls called the Alhambra, and Susan is so pissed with him that she vows to become a Harvey Girl herself and help drive the Alhambra out of business by bringing Harvey House civilization to Sandrock. Ned and his friend Judge Purvis (Preston Foster) plot to put the Harvey House out of business, but of course Ned eventually finds himself falling in love with Susan. Complicating matters is the fact that the head of the Alhambra dancing girls, Em (Angela Lansbury), is in love with Ned.

It all leads to the predictable conclusion, but with a bunch of musical numbers along the way because audiences expected that from a Judy Garland movie. Indeed, when we first see Garland on board the train she's singing a song. The musical numbers are certainly well-done and lively, although as many of you may know I'm not the biggest fan of Judy Garland musicals. It's easy to see, though, why Garland fans and audiences of the day would enjoy The Harvey Girls.

A Bell for Adano

I think I've mentioned in passing a couple of times over the years about how I'd seen Fox's World War II movie A Bell for Adano, but it was long enough ago and didn't seem to be showing up anywhere to do a post on it. With the refreshing of the FXM rotation at the start of Octber, the movie is not back in the schedule, so I made a point of putting it on the DVR so that I could watch in anticipation of the next FXM showing. That next showing is finally here, tomorrow (October 27) at 9:35 AM.

The movie starts with a US Army jeep pulling up in what looks like a fairly deserted town that has a lot of rubble. That town is Adano, on the Italian island of Sicily, which was the starting point of the Allied invasion of Italy. In the jeep are Maj. Joppolo (John Hodiak), an Italian-American whose parents came from the northern part of Italy, along with Joppolo's two subordinates, Sgt. Borth (William Bendix) and Captain Purvis (Harry Morgan, in the early part of his career when he was still being credited as Henry). Maj. Joppolo is to be the temporary military governor of Adano, at least until the situation stabilizes and civilian rule can be brought back to places like Adano after 20 years of Fascist rule.

Joppolo is looking for somebody he can liaise with, but has a difficult time of it because all he gets is toadying and the same kind of guff John Wayne's character gets at the beginning of The Quiet Man. However, after quite a bit of discussion, he finds a couple of things. One is the sort of usual concerns about the people running low on food in part because the bakery is only open intermittently and in part because the fishermen can't go out to fish what with the war on and Mussolini having extorted them up to now. But a lot of the people also complain about the lack of a bell in the bell tower of the municipal hall. Everyone in town ran their day by that bell, at least until Mussolini ordered it removed and melted down to make more munitions for the war effort. Getting it back would be a sign of faith from the new authorities, as well as a signal that the rebuild is truly on.

Joppolo tries to do what he can, although getting a new bell seems like a bit of a fool's errand. After all, who has a spare bell lying around. And there are more practical concerns, like trying to get those fishermen back out to sea so that the town can eat better. Through the head of the fishermen Tommasino, Joppolo meets Tommasino's daughter Rosa (Gene Tierney with a horrendous and out-of-place blonde hairdo). They begin to develop feelings for each other, even though Joppolo has a wife back in the States and Rosa has a boyfriend who went off to fight.

Joppolo does the best he can for the locals, in part because it's a better way to gain their loyalty than trying to force them into submission. People higher up the chain of command, however, are unable to see (and in some ways need not to be focused on) the situation in a small town like this and how a general order might affect them. So when the distant General Marvin orders the Adano locals off the main road and to use side roads, there's a problem. The locals have no side roads, and need to use the main road to get to the water and fuel sources as well as the lands they farm. Joppolo wants to let them use the road, but countermanding a general's order is serious business.

On the bright side, when some naval officers stop in Adano, they inform Joppolo that they know a ship that carried off a bell that would be just the thing for Adano. They can probably even get it to Adano and installed, but will they be able to do that before Gen. Marvin figures out what's going on?

A Bell for Adano is one of those movies where you can see why audiences of 1945 would like it. It's mostly a feel-good story that the US needed even with the war winding down. It's also loosely based on a real story. On the minus side, nowadays you look at the depiction of the locals and somebody would be complaining about stereotypes. Overall, howeer, A Bell for Adano is a solid war movie effort and a movie that definitely deserves a watch. Definitely better than something like The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

The People Against O'Hara

Some weeks back, Noir Alley ran the movie The People Against O'Hara. I hadn't done a review of it before, so I decided to DVR it and watch it to do that review.

The movie starts off with a couple of people coming out of a diner one night, and on the steps of a house across the way they see a murder being committed! Police run the plates on the car, which belongs to one Johnny O'Har (James Arness), so he's the natural person to ask his whereabouts. The other is Johnny's erstwhile friend Frank Korvac (William Campbell), whose prints are found in the car. Johnny says the car was stolen, but Frank is willing to take a plea deal in exchange for putting the finger on Johnny.

The O'Haras only know one lawyer, James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy). He used to be a big-time lawyer, but he turned to drink, and had to give up showy defense law in exchange for the sort of cheap transactional law that pays the bills. They turn to him for help, and he's reluctant because he doesn't think he's up to the stress any more, having given up alcohol. His adult daughter Ginny (Diana Lynn) also doesn't want him to take the case, because she knows he'll turn to drink if he does. As it is, she's put her life on hold for him, not marrying her fiancé (Richard Anderson), who is even more resentful of Dad than she is.

Still, Curtayne eventually does decide to take the case, realizing that perhaps he shouldn't have. He's got a particularly unhelpful client. Johnny claims that at the time of the alleged murder, he was checking up on some of the fish tanks at the fish market where he works for Knuckles (Eduardo Ciannelli), the Mob boss who runs the entire fish market. But a cursory inspection shows this to be complete balderdash. Obviously, Johnny is lying to protect somebody, but who?

If only he could find a witness. Ah, there is that witness mentioned at the beginning, who turns out to be a Swedish sailor, Sven Norson (Jay C. Flippen). Curtayne, in a profoundly stupid move, decides to bribe the guy to say he didn't see Johnny! Not only is it a bribe, but Curtayne leaves a paper trail by writing a check to a foreigner who probably doesn't even have a bank account in the States.

After some more investigation, Curtayne finally finds an angle to break the case open, and possibly redeem himself. But it's also going to put him at some personal danger....

Even though I know The People Against O'Hara wasn't the first noir the studio released -- and they actually did release a couple of good ones in Act of Violence and the slightly less noirish The Bribe and The Asphalt Jungle, this one plays out like you'd expect if MGM used all its glitz to make a noir. The idea is good, but everything seems a bit too neat and tidy. Tracy gives a very good performance as always; Pat O'Brien is underused as a police detective; and Arness and Campbell both show promise early in their careers. But the script feels a bit perfunctory and flat.

Overall, The People Against O'Hara isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that compared to other noirs, and other stuff Spencer Tracy did in his career, there's so much out that that's better. The People Against O'Hara is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive should you wish to watch it.

Somewhere in the Night

One of the movies in the current Fox Movie Channel rotation that I haven't recommended before is Somewhere in the Night, which is airing tomorrow morning at 10:30 AM ET.

John Hodiak stars as a World War II veteran who got injured pretty badly in the war, and is suffering a case of amnesia as a result. The only things he knows is that his girlfriend was going to leave him for some reason, and his friend Larry Cravat left him $5,000 in a bank in Los Angeles. So, he heads off to Los Angeles, only to find out that he's unable to see Mr. Cravat, despite the fact that a lot of people out there would like to see Larry. And being a friend of Larry Cravat's might not be such a good thing for him. The other people looking for Cravat send thugs after Hodiak, leading him to escape into the dressing room of nightclub singer Nancy Guild (an actress who never really made it to the big time). She might be willing to help him, and thinks that her boss, Richard Conte, can certainly help him. Even better for Hodiak is the fact that there's a kindly police detective (Lloyd Nolan) who also wants the goods on Cravat -- apparently, that $5,000 Cravat had promised is part of a cool million.

Thus begins our tale of mystery and murder. The bad news is, it's an extremely twisty tale, one that you have to pay close attention to if you don't want to get confused as to what's going on. Also, the cast is mostly people who are OK, but not great. That having been said, it's not notably bad, either. If you're willing to put in a little effort, it's more than entertaining enough. But if you're trying to interest somebody who isn't already a fan of 40s movies and noirs in either genre, there are a lot of better movies with which to start off.

Fox went through a phase of releasing a lot of their noirs to DVD, with the result that there are a lot of 40s films from them on DVD that you might not otherwise expect. Somewhere in the Night is one of them.