The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- “The Black Glove” (1954)

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- “The Black Glove” (1954)

DVD Review

By Film Editor Emeritus Sam Lowell

The Black Glove, starring Alex Nichol, Hammer Productions, 1954

Recently in a review of the British film Terror Street (distributed in Britain as 36 Hours) I noted that long time readers of this space know, or should be presumed to know, of my long-standing love affair with film noir. I went on to mention my introduction to the classic age of film noir in this country in the age of black and white film in the 1940s and 1950s when I would sneak over to the now long gone and replaced by condos Strand Theater in growing up town North Adamsville and spent a long double feature Saturday afternoon watching some then current production from Hollywood or some throwback from the 1940s which Mister Cadger, the affable owner who would let me sneak in for kid’s ticket prices long after I reached the adult price stage at twelve I think it was, would show in retrospective to cut down on expenses in tough times by avoiding having to pay for first –run movies all the time. I further mentioned that on infrequent occasions would attend a nighttime showing (paying full price after age twelve since parents were presumed to have the money to spring  for full prices) with my parents if my strict Irish Catholic mother (strict on the mortal sin punishment for what turned out to have been minor or venial sins) thought the film passed the Legion of Decency standard that we had to stand up and take a yearly vow to uphold and I could under the plotline without fainting (or getting “aroused” by the fetching femmes).

What I did not mention although long time readers should be aware of this as well was that when I found some run of films that had a similar background I would “run the table” on the efforts. That is the case with a recently obtained cache of British-centered 1950s film noirs put out by the Hammer Production Company as they tried to cash in on the popularity of the genre for the British market (and the relatively cheap price of production in England). Terror Street had been the first review in this series (each DVD by the way contains two films the second Danger On The Wings in that DVD not worthy of review) and the film under review the ominously titled The Black Glove (released in England as Face The Music) the second such effort. On the basis of these three viewings I will have to admit they are clearly B-productions none of them would make anything but a second or third tier rating.         

After all as mentioned before in that first review look what they were up against. For example who could forget up on that big screen for all the candid world to see a sadder but wiser seen it all, heard it all Humphrey Bogart at the end of the Maltese Falcon telling all who would listen that he, he Sam Spade no stranger to the seamy side and cutting corners, had had to send femme fatale Mary Astor his snow white flame over once she spilled too much blood, left a trail of corpses, for the stuff of dreams over some damn bird. Or cleft-chinned barrel-chested Robert Mitchum keeping himself out of trouble in some dink town as a respectable citizen but knowing he was doomed and out of luck for his seedy past taking a few odd bullets from his former femme fatale trigger-happy girlfriend Jane Greer once she knew he had double-crossed her to the coppers in Out Of The Past. Ditto watching the horror on smart guy gangster Eddie Mars face after being outsmarted because he had sent a small time grafter to his doom when prime private detective Phillip Marlowe, spending the whole film trying to do the right thing for an old man with a couple of wild daughters, ordered him out the door to face the rooty-toot-toot of his own gunsels who expected Marlowe to be coming out in The Big Sleep. Those were some of the beautiful and still beautiful classics whose lines you can almost hear anytime you mention the words film noir.

In the old days before I retired I always liked to sketch out a film’s plotline to give the reader the “skinny” on what the action was so that he or she could see where I was leading them. I will continue that old tradition here (as I did with Terror Street and will do in future Hammer Production vehicles to be reviewed over the coming period) to make my point about the lesser production values of the Hammer products. A saving grace of The Black Glove is that the lead guy, the guy whose task it is to solve the mystery of the murder of a London torch-singer whom he barely had known but who had the come hither look that might have played out in pillow talk if she had been not killed with a couple of unexplained slugs is that the “private eye” double-downs as a big time American in London trumpet-player. Yeah, a guy who despite his off-hand detective work is searching for the high white note every jazz guy, hell, maybe everybody involved with music, is looking to corral and sent out into the streets. To make aficionados and amateurs remember his calling card.         

Famous trumpeter James Bradley, known as Brad, played by Alex Nichol, by happenstance hears some torch-singer on his way back to his hotel after a well-received concert in some London large venue. He takes the leap and goes into the place where the music comes from and sees this dishy dame singing torch stuff to beat the band. They meet and between one thing and another they wind up at her apartment although no sexual stuff happened as far as we know. That is when things go awry. That dishy dame torch singer is found dead by gunshot after Brad leaves. Naturally he is the number one suspect for the job, for the frame as could be expected of a guy leaving some dishy dames place late at night and no other candidates for the frame are around. Something about the whole thing didn’t sit right with him once the coppers let him go after they grilled and half-believed his story (although he no-no left his trumpet case in the dishy dames living room). So he began to see if the pieces could be fit together see who put the frame on him and why.         

As expected Brad figures it out. Seems that dishy dame had been part of an up and coming young women trio that never quite got off the ground. Reason, one reason anyway-tangled romances. Tangled romances involving a high-end jazz piano player who really just wanted to play his stuff, another well-known jazz piano player and a record company producer. One way or another they were all involved with that dead dame. Like I said Brad figured it out via his knowledge of music. Figured it out very much like Nick Charles did in The Thin Man series from the 1940s where he brought every possible suspect into a room with coppers at the ready to grab the villain. You know you can never trust a record producer who should have been the prime suspect from minute one. In the end our Brad though gives up the “tec” business and goes back to searching for that high white note every jazz guy is looking for. Better that Terror Street but can’t get pass that Blue Gardenia second tier in the film noir pantheon. Sorry Hammer.                 

On Childhood Memories-With The Somerville, Ma Honk! Parade In Mind

On Childhood Memories-With The Somerville, Ma Honk! Parade In Mind

By Frank Jackman

[I normally confine myself to current events political commentary or some especially significant anniversary or comment on some event of historical import from the distant past but the other night I ran into Fritz Taylor, a guy I have known for a number of years and a fellow Vietnam War veteran, at Jack’s over in Cambridge where I still like to grab a quick drink when I am in that town. He had just finished up marching in the annual Honk! Parade (that ! belongs there and is no typo) which starts in Somerville and ends in Harvard Square. While we were chatting about this and that he started talking about his childhood remembrances of parades down South in his hometown of Mill Ridge in Georgia. This piece is a short take on what he talked about which might interest those who have their own memories of childhood parades, of long ago parade traditions which attempted to unite communities and did on occasion. Frank Jackman]

*****

Fritz Taylor, was, is a man of institutional memories. Will tell you that using that exact term himself. By that he means that he has grown over the years to think more about certain critical events that formed his life ever since he was a small fry (his term) down in rural Georgia. And do it by comparisons on occasion. Fritz had recently participated in the annual Honk! Parade which is something of an alternative parade from the ones in his, my, maybe your childhood when some town volunteer association, or the town itself went all out on say Memorial Day, July 4^th, Christmas time for examples and gathered up various organizations, groups and clubs to form some sort of celebration for town folk, for the young really.         

The way Fritz put it (and I agreed and you would probably do so too) was that the organizers grabbed every viable civic organization, band and exotic float assemblage possible. So an average parade would have the local high school band (maybe college if one was nearby), the school glee club, the school majorette baton twirlers and cheerleaders, 4-H club if in a rural area like his Mill Ridge growing up home, the Elks, Masons, Lions and such, church bands, CYO, Demo-lay, choirs, and whatever other cheap transport musical organization available. Then a ton of automobile, open convertible types housing various public officials, fire engines, police cars, street sweepers, public works dump trucks and so on. Also assorted walkers carrying signs advertising some drugstore, pizza parlor or supermarket usually with some pretty girl leading the procession. Naturally as well floats sponsored by various organizations the most important one being the float carrying the Queen of the May, the town queen or event queen and her court of a bevy of young lovelies. Throw in a few clowns, geeks, nerds, hispsters and some misplaced derelicts and wanderers and you have pretty full picture. Oh yeah, and placed here at the end not by accident the local VFW, American Legion or specialized veterans organizations of specific wars like the Spanish- American War.          

That last category the Spanish-American War veterans (you know the guys who went up San Juan Hill with Teddy R. and hi-jacked Cuba for a few decades or hijacked the Philippines, Puerto Rico other such spots) is what fascinated Fritz when he was a small fry (remember his term), well, that and those wholesome well-shaped lovelies on those preposterous floats when he came of age to notice such things. He said he would always remember these ancient men walking, slowly walking mostly, some with canes some aided by comrades, with erect carriage usually wearing their Sunday best suit laden with medals on their lapels. (Probably when he first started to watch parades in the early 1950s these men were in there seventies and early eighties and so ancient to a young boy who probably thought twenty was ancient in the great scheme of things.) Would notice each year that there were maybe fewer marching, more with canes or being aided but always treated by the very patriotic crowds with much hand-clapping and salutes.      

Fast forward to Somerville Honk! Parade-2017

If the parades of Fritz’s youth were filled with civic pride and immense patriotic fervor the Honk! Parade is the antithesis. Started   

several years ago this parade features every type of odd-ball band which can put instruments and outlandish costume together each Columbus Day Sunday beginning at noon (also known as Indigenous Peoples Day among politically correct progressives in some quarters). Add in people on stilts, people riding bicycles, floats and whatever pleases them. Add in all kinds of progressive activist and peace groups and you get a feel for what is going on that day in Somerville as it wends its way to finish line Harvard Square a couple of miles down the road. A Very Blue occasion in a very blue state in a very blue town. Each year for the past few years, years in which Fritz has felt duty-bound to march, a contingent from Veterans for Peace his organization since after Vietnam War times when he finally got “religion” (my term) on the issue has participated in the extravaganza.     

Veterans for Peace has a great portion of its local membership culled from those who served in ancient times Vietnam War  (a war now being examined by Ken Burns/Lynn Novack in an eighteen hour ten part series on PBS). So come Columbus Day Sunday those who line up to march are very similar in age to those old days Spanish-American War veterans from Fritz’s Mill Ridge growing up days. Except they tend to be a rag-tag army of guys wearing anything from shorts to long pants along with an assortment of VFP tee-shirts of different colors and with different slogans embossed on the back). And of course the now very familiar and famous flags of white with a black dove embossed on them which stick out in an event thet participate in. As Fritz ambled along Massachusetts Avenue as it turned into Cambridge he wondered if the many small fry who lined the route with their parents were as fascinated with the ancient VFP contingent as he has been with those old men Spanish-American war veterans. He hoped so and hoped they got a very different message from than he had back in the day. Thanks Fritz                   

[I did not march that day since I have been recovering from knee replacement surgery but I expect to be back on the line next year to wonder Fritz’s wonder. Frank Jackman]  

He Could Have Been A Contender, Oops, Champion Of The World-Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart’s “Kid Galahad” (1937)- A Film Review

He Could Have Been A Contender, Oops, Champion Of The World-Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart’s “Kid Galahad” (1937)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Lance Lawrence

Kid Galahad, starring Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Warren Morris, Jane Bryan, 1937    

A guy I used to work for when I was a kid, when I was looking for a little spending money to escort whatever flame I was pursuing at the moment was fond of saying “some guys are born to be lovers, some fighters.” That comment directed at me since in those days I was as prone to fight somebody over some now misty and silly slight, maybe someone said something about some gal I was interested before I got wise to the fact that I wasn’t much of a fighter at a skinny 140 pounds taking on guys much bigger and stronger. That guy I worked for had me tagged though as a lover not a fighter if you had to choose between the two. Especially when at sixteen I mixed it up with a guy much bigger than I over a girl and got nothing but the worst of it. This cutting up old touches had resulted from viewing the film under review, Kid Galahad, where the fighter, a guy who would turn professional fighter before the film is half over, was both a lover and a fighter. Some mean feat which would have garnered much respect in the old neighborhood if such a person existed in those days. My growing up time employer would have gladly tipped his hat to that duel prowess. Would probably too note this big exception to the rule, and exception which would not have included me in any shape or form.

     

I can’t say that as a kid I was very interested in pugilism, the art of fighting, fighting in the ring although I never then had qualms about guys who did try for the brass ring. Guys who would start out young at the local police station gym, club fighters, and move up or out, mostly out. These were mostly “from hunger” Irish and Italian guys looking to break out of the heavy labor which would be their fate if they didn’t make it out. They were never a big part of the local scene and I don’t’ remember much talk about anybody but Irish Johnny Mangone (playing the Irish mother, Italian father card) who was some kind of Golden Gloves champion although how far up I don’t remember. I do know, because my father Boyo was a ringleader, that the fathers, uncles, older brothers used to populate the local gin mill, The Tam, every Friday night to watch, and presumably bet on the profession fights on television from maybe the old Madison Square Garden in New York City sponsored by Gillette Razor Company in those beardless days.

But enough of old touches and let’s get to why this Warren Gooseberry, played by Wayne Morris, or whatever his name was from down on the farm and nothing but a blonde hick and rube who would have lasted about two minutes in my neighborhood except he had a deadly right hook before somebody got wise and christened him Kid Galahad to make the women wet as a songwriter wrote about Elvis one time. This kid was trying to make his way, trying to make enough money in the big city to buy a farm and get married. This guy was strictly from nowhere because he believed he could make the nut on tips or whatever as a bellboy in an upscale hotel. Fat chance.       

Fat chance except as part of his duties the Kid (I refuse to further  use his given moniker) winds up serving them off the arm, serving drinks, hard liquor for a boxing promoter, Nick Donati, played by tough guy  gangster type Edward G. Robinson and his significant other (although no way they called such arrangements that back then in the time frame of this film the 1930s but more like mistress or kept woman, whore in some quarters), Fluff played by Bette Davis.

(By the way according to fellow reviewer Seth Garth the last time Robinson was seen in this space was as famous Chi town gangster Johnny Rocco, he of the tough guy racketeers who dominated urban life back then, maybe now too, bleeding like a sieve after a character played by Humphrey Bogart who will be mentioned below popped him full of lead for being ugly. No, for roughing up his flame down in the Keys in Key Largo. Come to think of it that was the last time Bogie made this space as well as a good guy (in the end) who after seeing hard service in the European Theater in World War II at first claimed that “one more Johnny Rocco, more or less, was not worth dying for.” Until Johnny roughed up his honey. To complete the triad the last time Bette Davis was seen in this space according to fellow reviewer Will Bradley she was being stalked by an enraged Pacific islander woman whose paramour had been murdered by an enraged Ms. Davis who thought she was his lover in The Letter.)  

Yeah you read it right Nick Donati, the famous fight manager who had many a contender but never seemed to have guy who could have or wanted to go all the way.  Nick a guy who worked the newspaper scribes like a violin whenever he had a prospect. Of course in those days the fight game, the way out for many a young guy who faced the soup kitchen or hard labor lugging stuff to and fro had many illustrious promoters ready to see what they were made of-contenders or tankers, mostly the latter. Like Nick’s nemesis Turkey Morgan, Bogie’s role, a gangster trying to get his cut in the fight racket who had through fair means or foul, mostly foul the hottest property in the game-the heavyweight champion of the world. The whole thing gathers steam when rube from nowhere Kid takes umbrage when that vaunted heavyweight champion of the world roughs up Fluff. Bang Nick Donati, how he did it nobody knows, had another fighter in his stable. And for playing Sir Galahad Fluff was ready to ditch sullen neglectful Nick for the young stud, for somebody who treated her like a lady. One conquest and the Kid hasn’t even gotten into the ring to make the Garden women audiences get funny thoughts. 

On the basis of knocking the champ for a loop Nick sent the Kid into the ring to get a little bloodied on his way up. Except to the chagrin of Nick and the deadly anger of Turkey the Kid bounces the prelim guy on the floor. The Kid had to blow town for a while so Fluff stashed him upstate at Nick’s mother’s farm. The Kid was right at home too just like he had left before seeking the bright lights of the city. Oh yeah except Ma was not alone for there is a virginal Nick younger sister, Marie, played by Jane Bryan, who winds up being crazy about the Kid-and he her. Problem, big problem, maybe two big problems really. That Fluff hunger for him and Nick’s fervent attempt to keep the mugs, the sawdust bums, the punching bag stiffs away from her. The Fluff part got taken care of by her taking a powder on Nick once she knew the freaking score with the Kid and Nick’s sister. She had been around enough to know things were hopeless especially when the Kid and Marie showed up at the nightclub where she was warbling, and Marie knew how she Fluff felt before all hell broke loose when Turkey and the champ tried to provoke the Kid.

Once Nick caught onto the romance between Marie and the Kid though he went wild, tried to do serious damage to the mug, to the Kid. Pushed the Kid into fighting the champ too soon and with the purposefully wrong strategy. Wrong approach, wrong once Fluff and Marie who were in attendance begged for mercy for the Kid. Bang-bang new strategy and the Kid takes the crown. Unfortunately, Nick, as was not usual for him, left a few loose ends like welshing on the underhanded deal he had made with gangster angry Turkey and as things worked out rather than a post-fight victory party there was a mutual shoot-out where both contestants were mortally wounded. Too bad. But good was the Kid winning the championship-and Marie. My employer would have scratched his head in approval.    

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir-Dan Duryea’s “Terror Street” (1953)

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir-Dan Duryea’s “Terror Street” (1953)

DVD Review

By Film Editor Emeritus Sam Lowell

Terror Street, starring Dan Duryea, Hammer Productions, 1953 

Long time readers of this space know, or should be presumed to know, of my long-standing love affair with film noir. The classic age of film noir in this country in the age of black and white film in the 1940s and 1950s when I would sneak over to the now long gone and replaced by condos Strand Theater in growing up town North Adamsville and spent a long double feature Saturday afternoon watching some then current production from Hollywood or some throwback from the 1940s which Mister Cadger would show in retrospective to cut down on expenses in tough times by avoiding having to pay for first –run movies all the time. I also on infrequent occasions would attend a nighttime showing with my parents if my strict Irish Catholic mother (strict on the mortal sin punishment for what turned out to have been minor or venial sins) thought the film passed the Legion of Decency standard that we had to stand up and take a yearly vow to uphold and I could under the plotline without fainting (or getting “aroused” by the fetching femmes). But mainly with me and five siblings they went to one of the three, count them three, movie theaters in small town North Adamsville by themselves to get away from our madness while Grandmother Riley tended to us with her no-nonsense regimen.

Yes, who could forget up on that big screen for all the candid world to see a sadder but wiser seen it all, heard it all Humphrey Bogart at the end of the Maltese Falcon telling all who would listen that he, he Sam Spade no stranger to the seamy side and cutting corners had had to send femme fatale Mary Astor his snow white flame over once she spilled too much blood for the stuff of dreams. Or cleft-chinned barrel-chested Robert Mitchum knowing he was doomed and out of luck taking a few odd bullets from his former femme fatale trigger –happy girlfriend Jane Greer once she knew he had double-crossed her to the coppers in Out Of The Past. Ditto watching the horror on smart guy gangster Eddie Mars face after being outsmarted after sending a small time grafter to his doom prime private detective Phillip Marlowe ordered him out the door to face the rooty-toot-toot of his own gunsels who expect Marlowe to be coming out in The Big Sleep. Those were some of the beautiful and still beautiful classics whose lines you can almost hear anytime you mention the words film noir.

But there were other lesser films that were produced in this country starring the likes of the queen bee of the B-film noir night Gloria Grahame and he-man Glenn Ford. And not just this country but in Great Britain (if that term still applies after empire lost and Scotland and Wales clamoring to go their own ways) where in the 1950s many minor Hollywood stars like Dan Duryea in this film under review Terror Street (in merry olde England released as 36 Hours got work when benighted England took on the film noir world. When an outfit called Hammer Productions produced a tonof such small epics none with the cinematography mood play, diologue or plotline of those classics mentioned above and among the best of them only running neck and neck with those quickly produced Hollywood B classics.        

In the old days before I retired I always liked to sketch out a film’s plotline to give the reader the “skinny” on what the action was so that he or she could see where I was leading them. I will continue that old tradition here (and in future Hammer Production vehicles to be reviewed over the coming period) to make my point about the lesser production values of the Hammer products. Thoughtful American military pilot Bill Rogers, the role played by minor Hollywood star Duryea, snuck out of America by a friendly fugitive military plane on a mission to find out why his good-looking Norwegian-born wife met during the war (you know what war if the film was made in 1953) in holding out against the Nazi scum in England hasn’t written, has flown the coop. 

No question war-time romances were not made in heaven and so that wife, Katie, after seeing Bill off for a long term flight school assignment in America got lonely, got antsy and struck up a bad relationship with a guy who promised her adventure and some much needed dough. Dough earned by being part of an international smuggling operation, mostly diamond. So once she had some serious dough and some serious wanting habits fulfilled like minks and high-end clothes she blew Bill off-headed uptown with the Mayfair swells. Leaving no forwarding address. Yeah, the vagaries of war. But intrepid Bill wasn’t buying that story and through musing up her girlfriend found out where she was hanging her hat. That is when all hell broke loose and maybe Bill should have just shaken it off and moved on.    

But not intrepid Bill. He confronted Katie at those new digs but before he could either make his case or find out why she had cold-shouldered him he got conked on the head by a party or parties unknown. And Katie well Katie got dead, got very dead by a gun found in Katie’s old apartment by Bill but which wound up in his conked-out head hand. The frame is on and Mister Bill is made to fit it. Fit to take the big step-off, to meet his maker (via the bloody hangman) unless he can work out who the hell killed his beloved wife, and why, within 36 hours when he has to catch that fugitive plane back  to America-or else.     

Of course the thing he needed to do immediately was flee that uptown swell apartment so he could avoid the bloody coppers who wanted to make sure he met that maker. Of course as well not being English he needed some help once he made his getaway. In his dashing getaway he found himself in an apartment of a young woman, some Judy who had a heart of gold since she worked the mission racket down on cheap street. He charmed his way into her good graces and she got knee- deep into his plot. Things seem to begin to make sense once Bill got information that dear Katie was shilling for this con artist who was working the international smuggling racket and with a nefarious fence who didn’t care if school kept or not as long as the dough kept rolling in.    

Naturally that Salvation Annie had to be put in danger by Bill’s plan to smoke out this dastardly con man posing as a treasury inspector. But the thing about Salvation Annies is that they don’t wilt so easy and ours doesn’t either. When the deal went down Bill put the rooty-toot-toot to the con man and the fence took some heat from the cops. Our Bill made the 36 hour connection no swear as Annie left him off at the base nice as could be. So you can see no femme like Jane Greer, no smart guy like Eddie Mars with gunsels at his disposal and no dark scenes to make you hope old Bill doesn’t face that hangman’s noose. Now if a fox like Katie had been highlighted well maybe after she led Bill a merry chase we could have had a plotline worth talking about. Sorry Hammer.         

In The Thick Of The Great Depression-Daydreams Of Social Mobility-The Film Adaptation Of Booth Tarkington’s “Alice Adams” (1935)- A Review

In The Thick Of The Great Depression-Daydreams Of Social Mobility-The Film Adaptation Of Booth Tarkington’s “Alice Adams” (1935)- A Review    

DVD Review

Si Lannon

Alice Adams, starring Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, from a novel by Booth Tarkington, 1935   

Growing up poor is a tough dollar no doubt about it. Maybe that is why I was assigned this film Alice Adams (based on the Booth Tarkington novel) by site manager Greg Green although a number of other writers here have also grown up under those conditions. Perhaps Greg chose me because my family circumstances kind of mirror those of the main character Alice, played by Katharine Hepburn. I grew up in the working-class poor Acre neighborhood in North Adamsville south of Boston where we were kind of the “middle class” meaning nothing other than we had our own house, small and dingy but our own as my mother was always fond of saying until her dying breathe (to distinguish us from those who rented apartments in the array of triple-decker buildings that were peppered around the neighborhood). Which also meant that my father, Norman, always had steady if not well-paid work at the North Adamsville Gear Works which was a sub-contracting outfit for the shipbuilding operations which dominated the town’s economy and kept us going until that shipbuilding pulled out to off-shore locations well after I came of age in the 1950s. That steady work was an important difference in the area since many, mainly men in those days of male breadwinners and female housewives, like Peter Paul Markin’s father for one, were always last hired, first fired in the up and down shipbuilding economy. There was always a tension between those who looked like they had made and those who were going to be left behind-always left behind.

That though is where the similarities between Alice, once again played by severely beautiful Katharine Hepburn, in the film and I differ significantly. Alice was always “putting on airs,” always lying to herself and others about her class situation. Always doe-eyed daydreaming that she was someplace above her station only to be crushed more times than not-for a while. I, on the other hand unknowingly accepted that we were working poor and that I should stay with guys like Markin and some of the guys who work here who grew up in the same town or small circumstances. Maybe it was because the rich and poor classes in my town never mixed much, except maybe a little in school and that only in passing.  (The very rich or the strivers sent their kids to private schools to “escape” having to deal with the raucous public schoolers and gain some resume credentials-some sent their kids to Catholic parochial schools but they were poor as church mice too and just wanted their kids away from the heathens like me and my crowd.)      

It was almost painful to see Alice and her upward social mobility strivings at the cost of her dignity and her intelligence kowtowing to others in town who flouted their good fortune fortunes. Of course some of this is just the myth of the American dream come to small-town America via a small town American girl who maybe read too many romantic novels, Cinderella stuff, when young. Abetted by a social striving mother who harpooned her father into giving a up a steady if underpaid and underutilized his skills job in order to rise economically for Alice’s benefit. Jesus, no wonder Alice was ready to debase herself at every moment in her quest for a rich man who would carry her off.  

Maybe I better set the story and you can figure out whether she was a holy goof or had more sense than I did in trying to get out from under that small- town girl rock. Alice, via her father, lives in an old-fashioned working- class house which befitted an employee, a clerk working for somebody else. Alice though had dreams and maybe some small connections to the upper classes via a tenuous friendship with one of the town debutantes. In order to “fit in” or believe she did she developed a whole persona who denied reality and lived in cloud cuckoo land. Except at one key dance she “met” Arthur, a rich young man played by Fred MacMurray last seen in this space bleeding like a sieve after Barbara Stanwyck threw a few off-hand slugs into him after the pair plotted the murder of her husband for dough and freedom in Double Indemnity, who somehow despite her wanderlust was attracted to her. Attracted despite being in some kind of relationship with that debutante who threw the party where they met.

Despite Alice’s antics, despite her slavish devotion to her dreams of upward mobility and her willfully false consciousness about her family’s financial condition Arthur stays the course. Stays the course even when she invites him to what turns out to be a disastrous dinner. Stays the course despite her brother’s getting into legal trouble and her father too in attempting to move up in class for her sake. Ms. Hepburn in the early days had a certain refreshing rose-cheeked charm and beauty but I will be damned unless Arthur was an airhead how she snagged that guy. But she did.

One More Johnny Blake, More Or Less, Is Not Worth Dying Over…With Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart’s “Bullets Or Ballots” (1936) In Mind

One More Johnny Blake, More Or Less, Is Not Worth Dying Over…With Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart’s “Bullets Or Ballots” (1936) In Mind   

DVD Review-of sorts

By Josh Breslin who re-enters the film review wars after a long-term assignment working through the effect on cultural workers who went through World War I which will be published in this space in November during the 100^th anniversary commemorations of Armistice Day which ended that war on November 11, 1918.

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The only thing as far as the law went worse that a crooked cop was an honest one. That was the familiar ring around my growing up neighborhood in the heavily French-Canadian Ocean View section of Olde Saco up in coastal old-time mill country Maine. That sentiment came to mind the other day when I watched the 1936 classic Bullets or Ballots where an honest cop, a public cop, tried to break up the rackets and got nothing but a diet of lead and maybe a big sent-off funeral from cop departments around the country.

(This saying obviously applied only to the very visible public coppers who ruined our young man-hoods although I will draw a distinction between the corrupt and honest a bit below after I mention that this only applies to civil servant coppers. Definitely not to private coppers, private eyes who we held in high regard off of the movie screen come Saturday afternoon at the Majestic in downtown Olde Saco. Although some of them might like Sam Spade, Nick Charles, Phil Larkin, and Phillip Marlowe have started out as public coppers they soon came up against that “go along, to get along” idea that most cop departments worked under and split that scene when they were looking for a little rough justice in this evil world. Tilted at windmills for a living although none of us every came in contact with any real P.I.s so that might be all hooey.)

Since this screed is as much about the cops, corrupt and honest, in that growing up town up in Maine let me give a short overview of that situation before going to the “what is what” of this film. Ocean View was heavily F-C as we used to say (F-C on my Le Blanc mother’s side with relatives who still live up there). There was always a tension between the Down-East Maine Yankee mill-owners and their hangers-on and the immigrant F-Cers from Quebec who came down to get off the dead-ass farms and make a little money when the mills were thriving mostly in my great-grandparents and my grandparents’ generations before and during World War II. In my parents’ generation those mills started to go south, to the low-wage non-union southern states before heading off-shore altogether. That did not stop the mill-owners and their hangers-on from lording it over the F-C community every way that they could. This included direct harassment of my crowd of guys who hung around Jimmy Jack’s Diner (owned by Jean-Jacques Renan who Anglicized his diner’s name to draw the old swamp Yankees in for lunch breaks and after work) mainly wishing and maybe a little thought of larceny which I will keep silent about.

Any given Friday or Saturday night during the school year, any given night in the ocean spray summer, Billy Babcock and William Smith, public coppers, and so crooked they needed a corkscrew to get into their respective uniforms would move us along even though Jimmy Jack could have cared less about us hanging around, at least outside in summer since this was peak tourist season when the place was jammed between mill-workers and “foreigners.”  During the winter, during the school year especially when we were in high school we could be inside o or outside since Jimmy Jack (sorry for not using his F-C name but we were so used to called him by his English moniker it is hard to change up even now) thought we added “class” to the place. By that he meant our hanging around brought guys with cars-and girls around. Girls to endlessly play his jukebox to perdition and back.

This is where a small example of how crooked Billy and Will were comes into play. They got a cut of the jukebox money, got a cut of the waitresses’ tips and a bunch of other small-time hoods hustles that even we from hunger kids would not stoop to do. They also make dough on their “protection” racket for small shop owners who didn’t want hoods hanging around their stores. Like I said crooked like pretzels. Which did not stop them from trying to shake us down as well to keep us out of jail when we were doing those un-said larcenies, or to just try to run us in as vagrants. A few groin kicks and police batons to the knees, front and back, were also part of their arsenal. Naturally every once in a while, the Yankee brethren who ran the mills and town would get in a reform mood and guys like Billy and Will would be bounced out. Replaced by a copper, an honest copper as far I know, like Officer Baker, that is what we called him, that is what he wanted to be called by guys like us. This guy wanted to be our friend, tried to get us to play basketball, Jesus, tried to wean us from jailbreak rock and roll whenever he came into Jimmy Jack’s’ to tell him to keep the jukebox music lower. (Like he couldn’t see that we had girls to die for who wanted louder music and no fucking basketball bozos hanging around them.) Like I said, and will say again, the only thing worse that a corrupt cop is an honest one.                 

Which brings us to one Johnny Blake, one honest copper in the red hot corrupt big urban city of New York in the film under review. This Johnny Blake, played by Edward G. Robinson who would later in one of his gangster films, Key Largo, play another Johnny, Johnny Rocco, who also fell down in a hail of bullets from a guy who didn’t like him much, made me feel the same way I had about the latter Johnny. As somebody said in that film “one Johnny Rocco, more or less, is not worth dying over.” You can figure six, two and even that nobody is going to cry much over this honest cop after he gets that big cop send-off. And they don’t except maybe some small-time hooker, bar girl, whatever, Clara,  who was running a small numbers racket while Johnny looked the other way. Yeah, she was sweet on Johnny boy but he was all cop, bled blue, although red when the deal went down.      

As Sam Lowell, my dear friend with his own public copper stories from down in the Acre section in North Adamsville south of Boston to tell, used to say here is the skinny. Gotham, or the do-gooder reform element in it were in one of their periodic “tired of the rackets” moods so they grabbed a head cop who they thought would clean up the town. Fat chance but they were trying anyway. This commissioner grabbed Johnny as a guy who knew the guys running the rackets, or who they thought were running the rackets. Brought him in to go palsy with Big Al Kruger the front man for whoever was really running the operations, the guys who were getting the big pay-offs. Some of Big Al’s underlings, especially one dope named Bugs, played by Humphrey Bogart who turned out to be the guy who said that remark about the Johnny Roccos of the world in Key Largo, and who liked to use his phallic symbol weapon, his gun, regularly or he got nervous suspected that Johnny Blake, ex-cop, was a stoolie, was working undercover.

Although Bugs, the guy with the itchy trigger finger, wasted a few too many people he shouldn’t have, was right about Johnny Big Al wouldn’t hear a word against Johnny once he conned him into doing the numbers racket big-time. Of course there had to be tension between “shoot and loot” old time Bugs and what he had represented back during Prohibition when a handy gun was a necessity and “businessman” low over-head Big Al. Johnny played to those irreconcilable tensions, played as well once he got in Big Al’s confidence the info-wars to find out who Mister Big really was. Well Johnny found out, found out the hard way after confronting Bugs after Bugs had wasted Big Al in a fit of hubris and was ready to take over the rackets himself. Johnny figured he was the guy the big boys would want to run things and he was right. Dead right once Bugs was tipped that Johnny was a stoolie. And the big boys-guess what-this ending is maybe something out of Bertolt Brecht’s Three Penny Opera the big boys were the biggest robbers of all-the leading town bankers. That didn’t mean much to Johnny though as he fell down with the life draining out of him on Wall Street. I wonder if he heard the noise of wings before the end-or Bugs’ ironic laugh.