The Limey (1999)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; produced by John Hardy and Scott Kramer

English career-criminal Wilson (Terence Stamp), newly released from prison, travels to Los Angeles to discover the truth behind the death of his daughter Jenny. Officially, she died in a fiery car-crash, but Wilson disbelieves this. His principal lead is Jenny’s much-older former boyfriend, record-producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda). Valentine and his ‘security consultant’ Avery (Barry Newman) learn of Wilson’s arrival; what they don’t know is just how determined and dangerous the Briton is.

At once a crime thriller and psychological character-study (as the best crime-thrillers seem to be) The Limey is a first-rate movie with high quality acting, writing, directing and – certainly not least – editing. The number of opinions I have heard and read of people disliking it at first, then thinking it excellent upon a second viewing is telling: its method of narrative is a contrast to most films.

At the centre of The Limey is Stamp’s performance. It is uniformly top-notch. He makes Wilson volatile, charming, fearless, deadly, caring and sympathetic. Wilson is a hard man, but one gathers that there is nothing he wouldn’t do for a true friend – though he seems unable to think of anyone who fits that category.

Wilson is a Cockney, complete with rhyming slang. His character might seem to border on caricature: too much of a Cockney to be true. But this is a man who has spent much, if not most, of his adult life in prison – he has trouble differentiating his various sentences – so he is a bit of a time-capsule: the behaviour and phrases he knows are from thirty years before. He has not had the opportunity to stay current, or to be influenced by the world at large.

Fonda’s Valentine is another interesting character, though nowhere near as likeable. He too is trapped in the past, though his incarceration is willing, and he has had every facility for living in the present and for the future. Instead, his glory days were the 1960s. In fact, he narrows them down to perhaps eighteen months: “1966, and some of ’67…”

Yet Valentine’s relationship with Jenny seems to have been genuine: the girl made an impression on everyone she met. Valentine’s conversations with another girlfriend are banal – his one serious talk with her is met with incomprehension - highlighting his lack of chemistry with her and, perhaps, accentuating by implication, his connection with Jenny.

Two other characters are fully realised: Roel (Luis Guzman) and Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren). They befriended Jenny and assist Wilson, though their respective approaches to that help is a contrast: Roel, a former convict, has an appreciation of Wilson based on similar pasts; Elaine is initially dismissive of the much-absent father Jenny had told her about. Other, more minor characters are used mainly for complications.

The writing doesn’t really offer surprises, except at the end, in the motive for Jenny’s death, which is related to how she used to behave with her father. But the script’s value is in how it unfolds the story, and the characters, especially of Wilson. We learn that he thinks Jenny was ashamed of him – Elaine corrects that to ‘disappointed’ – but it’s really Wilson who is ashamed and disappointed of how he let his daughter down. The emotions in the script are well-translated to the screen by Stamp’s face, once boyishly handsome, now rugged and lived-in.

Soderbergh’s direction is subtle, though it is actually overwhelmed by the more explicit editing, by Sarah Flack. Yet it is there in the small things, such how Wilson signifies that he appreciates Roel’s help by flicking a pack of cigarettes across a table toward him, or how the first thing that Wilson concentrates upon after stepping out of the airport terminal is a pair of local policemen.

But what confuses not a few viewers is the segmentation of a number of scenes. For instance, during a conversation, we see other events happening, some in the near future, some at an indeterminant time. Images appear that are seemingly unconnected with what is going on. This is not as bewildering as it may read. These brief glimpses of other actions are sometimes used as flashbacks, or as foreshadowing; sometimes to illustrate another scene of lesser importance which completes a principal scene without leaving it (eg. we see Wilson driving to a location while being given directions to it; the next complete scene is him already there). They also provide examples of the subject being discussed – this is often the case when Jenny is talked of – or to show feelings that continue over long periods. This editing trickery helps maintain a short, sharp running time (89 minutes) while sneakily adding more body to the film. Would I like to see it in movies frequently? Not at all. But in The Limey it is very effective.

The Limey is character-heavy, stoey-heavy creation fitted into a lean movie, driven by all the right elements.

The Great Rupert (1950)

Directed by Irving Pichel; produced by George Pal

The Amendola family - Papa (Jimmy Durante), Mama (Queenie Smith) and daughter Rosalinda (Terry Moore) - a former Vaudeville act unemployed for some months, manage to find a rundown garage to rent until they get back on their feet. Unbeknownst to them, they share their quarters with a squirrel named Rupert, whose circus-performer owner (Jimmy Conlin) had to let him go due to circumstances similar to the Amendolas’. But Rupert unwittingly may be the literal answer to his new neighbours’ prayers.

The Great Rupert had an promising premise - a cleverly-trained performing squirrel inadvertently solving human problems - but then submerged it in a run-of-the-mill plot about a family’s rise from rags to riches. The movie’s failure is due to the latter aspect, and not the former, being its focus.

Instead of Rupert, Jimmy Durante takes centre-stage. Certainly, being a fan of old movies, comedies included, I can testify that many, indeed the majority, of old movies don’t date badly. Comedy, however, probably has the most to fear from changing tastes, yet the work of Sturges, Capra, Lloyd, Keaton and, of course, Chaplin - along with a multitude of others - rise beyond any one era. Some comedy does not. I have not watched a lot of Durante, so The Great Rupert may simply be a bad example of an otherwise worthy talent.

It might be the writing that is to blame, though the sub-plot, featuring a romance between Rosalinda and her landlord’s son (Tom Drake), is mildly involving; ironic, when forced romantic side-stories are usually the weakest part of any comedy. When Durante is on the screen, though, the humour is lame; the sort of jokes that one must laugh at because they’re told by one’s girlfriend’s father. To be fair, a great many comics - especially those with successful stand-up routines - come a cropper when forced to work with other writers’ material. This has been often the case on television.

There are features of the film that are interesting, at least: Rupert goes through his antics in a combination of real-life squirrel action and stop-motion photography. It puzzled me initially, seeing George Pal’s name as the producer, how his particular talents would fit in to this film. Granted, Pal produced and directed a variety of very good films, including The War of the Worlds, The Naked Jungle, When Worlds Collide and 7 Faces of Dr Lao. But he had his start in stop-action animation and, sure enough, here it is again, in The Great Rupert. Both Pal and the director appear as extras in scenes.

The Amendolas discover new wealth and use it not just for their own material comfort, but to help others. A charity to which they give a thousand dollars is one which provides shoes for European children; this was a real and specific need after the Second World War. Also, they invest in local businesses; most of these have proprietors with non-English names, and one has an eastern European accent. The message, subtly given, is that with just a little help, immigrants will make successes of themselves and their communities; a commendable message, but no more than of incidental entertainment in a comedy.

Despite its title, The Great Rupert misses the mark by making the story about humans - and humans who don’t even know of Rupert’s existence - instead of putting the squirrel at the centre, and having various human stories revolve around him. The result is a bland, largely unfunny, comedy.

Wanted for Murder (1946)

Directed by Lawrence Huntington; produced by Marcel Hellman

Businessman Victor Colebrooke (Eric Portman) is handsome, cultured, wealthy and has a way with the ladies; he is also neurotic, quick-tempered, unreasonable and insane. So far, he has strangled six women, with the police investigation, led by Detective Chief Inspector Conway (Roland Culver), at a dead end. But with his mania increasing, Colebrooke is taking too many chances for the intelligent Conway to be far behind. But will Scotland Yard catch the killer before he finishes with his next victim?

There is no mystery here, except whether the murderer will be caught, and when – and how far he will carry his homicidal spree in the meantime. The plot is straightforward, and it’s the screenplay (co-written by Emeric Pressburger), with the acting, that propels the story. Taken from a play, the various scenes, particularly the last, which takes place in Hyde Park, release the film from any resemblance to stage work, though the emphasis on dialogue suggests its origins.

The writing creates a number of relationships, each of which has an effect on the others. Not only does Colebrooke’s mother, worried and vaguely suspicious over her son’s life, figure prominently in the story, but so does Colebrooke’s long-dead father – a Victorian-era hangman! Though an interesting suggestion as to the son’s murderous impulses, the latter connection raises a question on the part of the viewer: would have an affluent family allowed their daughter to marry someone whose trade is execution?

The acting is very good. The male lead is played by the excellent Eric Portman – not his first time in a Pressburger-penned film – whose naturally superior expression lends itself well to the rôle. His character’s growing distraction is well-realised and, though at the film’s start, Colebrooke successfully – though barely – hides his increasing madness, it takes over his life by the end. Each stage is credible, thanks to Portman.

Though she has a little less time on screen, the female lead is as good, and an even more remarkable person in real-life. Dulcie Gray was a very popular movie-actress in the 1940s and ‘50s, but she was better known as a stage performer. She was married for 59 years to fellow actor Michael Denison. They were not only regarded as very happy together, they were apparently as happy collaborating on work-projects, being in several movies and plays together. Between them, they accomplished more than a hundred West End productions. As if that were not enough, Gray wrote many books, mostly mysteries, but also biographies. She was also an expert on butterflies. Evidently feeling the need to expand her horizons, she became very well known in her old age for her television work. In Wanted for Murder, Gray makes her character, Anne Fielding, quite winning. Though not the prettiest of actresses, it is easy to see why more than one man is attracted to her.

Culver is suitably clever and dogged as the police inspector, while a small host of other familiar British actors appear, including Stanley Holloway, atypically playing a police detective (though used for comic relief); Derek Farr, as one of Anne’s admirers; Kathleen Harrison, as a servant (what would have been called then a ‘cook-general’). Also to be seen in small, early bits are Moira Lister, as Colebrooke’s secretary, and Wilfred Hyde-White, nearly unrecognizable behind a large mustache (though that voice is unmistakable), as a wax-museum’s guard.

Though the direction is not much above ordinary, it does provide interest, and the climax is well-handled. And, as priorly mentioned, it translates the play from stage to screen effectively.

Wanted for Murder works its acting and writing into an entertaining crime story, perhaps more of a psychological character study than a thriller, but successful enough in both categories to merit watching.

The Crooked Way (1949)

Directed by Robert Florey; produced by Benedict Bogeaus

Eddie Rice (John Payne) suffered a head-wound in the war and, even after physical and mental recovery, has no recollection of his past, beyond his army service. His records show that he enlisted in Los Angeles, so he returns there, hoping that familiar surroundings and possible encounters will resurrect his memories. They do, but not in the way Eddie wants, and soon he is in trouble with the police, gangsters and a woman (Ellen Drew) who may be his wife.

An amnesia victim searching for his previous life is a good concept, and always has the potential for a entertaining story. An example that worked its potential into a winning reality is Somewhere in the Night, which came out three years prior to The Crooked Way, and which was reviewed on this blog in July, 2019. The earlier film had, however, Joseph L Mankiewicz and Lee Strasberg involved and, though dramatic, included light touches that helped. The Crooked Way has none of that.

The Crooked Way begins with Rice going to Los Angeles, hoping to meet someone whom he had previously known. He does. In fact, he meets two of them even as he exits the railway station. Later that day, he is leaving police headquarters when he is recognized by a woman who happens to be in the pawn shop directly across the street. Even accounting for the compression of time necessary in most movies, this strikes one as unrealistic.

The plot provides few surprises; indeed, Eddie’s past, except for one or two aspects, is swiftly revealed, and what isn’t shown overtly can be guessed by the viewer. There are some inexplicable developments, such as when the principal villain, Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts), has Eddie beaten, though he has - as villains’ thinking goes - sufficient reason to kill him. Even Eddie wonders why Vince didn’t finish him off. The question is never answered. At one point, Vince does frame Eddie for a murder, though that possibility did not occur until after Eddie’s beating.

The players are adequate. Payne was somewhat of a minor star in film noir though, ironically he is probably best recalled - or at least most often seen - as the lawyer in the very un-noirish Miracle on 34th Street. He is variously tough, confused, defiant and dismissive in The Crooked Way, but it is not an outstanding performance. Tufts does well as Vince but, again, there is nothing extraordinary about his work.

Director Florey’s career may be noted more for its longevity than its results. He started directing in his twenties (he is credited with three shorts in 1920) and slipped straight into the new medium of television thirty years later. In between, a few of his movies might have been hits, but most appear to have been standard programmers. There is nothing of note in The Crooked Way’s direction, though the cinematography by John Alton is better.

Though not a bad movie, The Crooked Way isn’t a good one, either. It is a standard crime-story from the era when every second film seemed to be a crime-story.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Directed by Tay Garnett: produced by Carey Wilson

Drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) stops in at the Twin Oaks Diner to ask its owner Nick Smith (Cecil Kelloway) about a job. He is instantly attracted to Nick’s young and beautiful wife, Cora (Lana Turner), and the feelings are mutual. Soon Frank and Cora are not only in love, but plotting a way they can be together - without Nick. Their attempts at murder are as rocky as their romance, however, and deceit, betrayal and death may not be reserved for the intended victim.

The Postman Always Rings Twice was adapted from the first novel of James M Cain. The book is considered a classic of crime fiction and one of the first of the hard-boiled school, though Cain himself rejected, or at least was dismissive of, the term. Cain also wrote the novella Double Indemnity - two years after The Postman Always Rings Twice - which was in turn made into a movie two years before the other story. I am surprised that more critics haven’t pointed out the similar plots of the two books; both deal with a wife who conspires with her boyfriend to kill her husband, and the consequent unravelling of their schemes.

As close as the two plot-lines are, how they are treated is quite different. In Double Indemnity, the conspirators are cool in the execution of their plans, and cold as human beings. In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frank and Cora are more fallible, and realise it. Frank especially may be a smooth operator when it comes to women, but both he and Cora stammer and stutter over their criminal intentions. As well, their scheme is more faulty.

The near-amateurishness of the plot to kill Nick drives much of the action after the attempt, or, to be accurate, attempts, are made. The half-baked plan carries the action so far, but it is the incidental events, the unanticipated occurrences, that cause first despair and then hope for the murderous couple. The intervention of other people, even animals, has more of an effect on the situation than do Frank and Cora.

This may be seen in the characters of Sackett (Leon Ames), the district attorney, and Keats (Hume Cronyn), a defence lawyer. The former has his suspicions of wrong-doing right from the start, while the latter is much smarter and cleverer than the two principals. A pretty girl with car-trouble, a private detective with a private agenda, even an unfortunate cat, all contribute alternately to improve or worsen Frank and Cora’s situation.

The complicated plot about the simple-minded murder is a major benefit The Postman Always Rings Twice. So too are the performances. Turner and Garfield are excellent in their roles, having to create impressions of love and lust, hope and anguish, anger and fear; sometimes more than one emotion at a time. Neither is evil, even if their actions are; Cora is sometimes credited by critics as a femme fatale, but I think she is too earnest and desperate for that part. Both characters are made three-dimensional by the players.

Kellaway is the weakest element, making Nick a rather stupidly oblivious man who is more a plot-device than a character. Consequently, the actor can do little with his part. Of greater success are Ames and Cronyn as the lawyers: their inter-play is interesting in that, professionally, they anger and taunt each other; personally, they seem to be friends. That they are always two steps ahead of Frank and Cora is not surprising; nor is it disappointing in terms of story.

Add to the movie the competent direction, which makes the most of Turner’s beauty - as well as the Californian coastal scenery - and a few unexpected scenes, along with the involving adaptation of the novel by Niven Busch and Harry Ruskin, and The Postman Always Rings Twice becomes a classic crime film.

The Red House (1947)

Directed by Delmar Daves; produced by Sol Lesser

Pete Morgan (Edward G Robinson) runs his farm with the help of his sister, Ellen (Judith Anderson) and their adopted daughter, Meg (Allene Roberts). But he is aging, and Meg persuades him to hire Nath Storm (Lon McCallister), a young local man. Warned by Pete to stay out of the nearby woods, and away from its mysterious Red House, Nath’s curiosity is aroused, as is Meg’s; the girl feels connected to the abandoned building somehow. Yet the more questions the young pair ask and try to answer, the stronger becomes Pete’s desire to keep the answers hidden.

The Red House is an eerie and unusual film, possibly a film noir, but more of a psychological thriller. As is usual with successful movies, it depends not just on one element, but on acting, directing and writing.

In terms of acting, Robinson is a big part of the movie, though he doesn’t carry it; he isn’t even really its centre. This actor, who could play villainous and sympathetic, comedic and dramatic, nonetheless provides much of the action, if dialogue and emotion that move a story may be termed that. He manages well to convey a man haunted by a past that may or may not undo his appearance of decency.

Lon McCallister is probably an unfamiliar name to many now, despite his second billing here. He forsook acting in his forties, and The Red House is likely his most significant rôle. He does very well in it, though his character doesn’t really give him much to work with. Allene Roberts started acting with The Red House; the reason for the brevity of her career – even shorter than McCallister’s – is clear; she is adequate as a performer, but no more.

The screenplay is good; co-written by the director, it effectively creates a sense of tension, especially when concerned with Robinson’s character. There is, perhaps, too little to the secret at the heart of the movie’s mystery; the viewer may guess at least the gist of it some time before it is revealed. That doesn’t mar the story. Indeed, the finale is both exciting and fitting.

Delmar Daves is another name that might be largely unknown these days, though with much less reason than McCallister’s. As a writer, he penned Love Affair, Destination Tokyo, Dark Passage, and A Summer Place, among others. As a director, he helmed some of those films, and more. One of the factors to making The Red House work is the contrast that Delves makes between the pleasant countryside, with its open fields, well-kept farms and swimming ponds, and the claustrophobic woods, the overgrown cabin and menacing shadows. As well, the direction – and the script – shows the loving, almost chummy relationship between Nath and his mother – he keeps trying to get her to marry her long-time admirer – next to the unhealthy obsession centred about the title house. The aspects of light and dark are more than just visual.

Neither a ghost story nor a tale of crime, The Red House manages to combine these features – at least figuratively – in a movie that will, even if it doesn’t keep you guessing until the end, will keep you entertained.

Pursued (1947)

Directed by Raoul Walsh; produced by Milton Sperling

Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) was saved as a boy after the mysterious massacre of his family, and adopted by the woman (Judith Anderson) who rescued him. Growing up with the Callums, tension and fear are always hanging over him, from the resentment of his adopted brother, Adam (John Rodney), to the nightmares that haunt his subconscious. Constantly meeting a malevolent stranger (Dean Jagger), Jeb struggles to find peace while unraveling the enigma of his past.

An impressive array of talent goes into Pursued, in front of the camera and behind, and it shows. Mitchum plays the conflicted Jeb Rand very well, someone who tries to live in the present but finds the dangers there linked to the past. He’s mostly a peaceable man, but isn’t afraid to stand up for himself.

Teresa Wright (who receives top billing) has an misleadingly ordinary rôle as Thorley Callum, the girl with whom Rand grows up but loves; at one point, her behaviour alters – with good reason – and Wright gives the character an eerie menace. Anderson has a sympathetic part, the kind with which she isn’t usually associated, while Jagger plays his villain as half man-of-action and half devil-on-the-shoulder, direct and insidious, as he sees the need. The ubiquitous Ian Wolfe appears in a slightly larger rôle than usual, playing a fair-minded county coroner.

The direction by Walsh is very good. By this time, he was as veteran a director as could be: his first job in the director’s chair being in 1913! He had also been an actor, an uncredited part being that of John Wilkes Booth in The Birth of a Nation. His work covered all genres, from comedies to romances, though he is best known for action (eg. High Sierra, They Died With Their Boots On, the superb White Heat). Pursued has more than a touch of film noir to it (interestingly, so does another Mitchum western, Blood on the Moon, reviewed in this blog on June 18th, 2023). Walsh adds a surreal element to Pursued, as well, reflected in Rand’s dreams and even in his relationship with Thorley; this is stressed in some effective lighting.

The screenplay is by Niven Busch, another heavyweight (husband of Wright at the time Pursued was made), editor of Time magazine and contributor to The New Yorker, he wrote for the movies and penned novels. His most famous screenplay was for The Postman Always Rings Twice. He wrote Moss Rose, also reviewed in this blog (October 22nd, 2023.) His work here is very good, and Pursued’s noirish and nightmarish aspects are as much due to his words as to Walsh’s direction. (Busch had a small acting part, oddly, in The Incredible Lightness of Being (1988), three years before his death.)

Editing is achieved by Christian Nyby, another leader in his field (Red River, The Big Sleep), who also directed (The Thing from Another World, which he edited, too), though most of that work was on television. In charge of Pursued’s photography is James Wong Howe, who started as a slate boy for DeMille, and worked on movies from The Thin Man to Hud. Here, he uses the American southwest to excellent effect; as often as that country has been used for movies’ backgrounds, Howe shows some new landscapes, impressive and perfectly in keeping with the mood of the film.

Even if all the famous names in the cast and crew didn’t matter, Pursued remains an entertaining western, with good action, fine acting, an intriguing story-line and three dimensional characters.