Mr. District Attorney

This film is a few steps up from the Lippert films which predominate the Forgotten Noir Vol. 4 series. It's a Republic Film offering a much better cast than the Lippert films, including: Dennis O'Keefe, Peter Lorre and character actors Charles Halton, Dick O'Neil, Norma Varden and Grady Sutton. Mr. District Attorney doesn't take itself as seriously as the others and has a strong comedic edge to it. It's like a combination of screwball comedy and film noir. Story involves graft perpetrated by Lorre and a wacky reporter and rookie D.A. O'Keefe vying to solve the case. The cast helps move the proceedings along. One of the odder efforts in Forgotten Noir Vol. 4.

Dennis O'Keefe is straight out of law school. He comes to LA to wangle a job on District Attorney Stanley Ridges' staff, and promptly annoys newspaperwoman Florence Rice and gets a crook a mistrial, Then he gets assigned to a case that has gone nowhere for years, involving Peter Lorre, the missing cash from an old bank robbery, and Minor Watson, who is running for Ridges' job and looks to be a shoo-in.

It's the first movie version of the popular radio show, and a pretty lively one. It has lots of gags in the relationship between O'Keefe and Miss Rice, both of them excellent farceurs, gradually moving into a crime and action sequence, with an exciting chase. It's directed by William Morgan, one of those directors who had been editors, and thus could 'cut in the camera' for an economical shoot. His career was never particularly distinguished, but he does a good job here, with a good script. Definitely worth your time.

I did not know this little movie produced by Republic Studios. I don't know the director either. Not a crime movie but an entertaining mystery yarn indeed. Typically from the early 40's, well paced and little comedy too. Look for Peter Lorre in the Mr Hyde character.

Dennis O'Keefe is also the good surprise of this little movie.

It's always a good surprise to find this kind of forgotten film. The score is the same as the Republic serials, especially in the action sequences. In the car chase for instance. I did not expect so much from this feature.

It's available in the Forgotten Noir disc set.

Go for it.

Mr. District Attorney (1941) is a particularly well-produced Republic Picture, coming as it does from a studio better known for its quickie Westerns and B-picture programmers. It is extremely well-staged and paced by British-born director William Morgan, who had begun his film career as a film editor. His previous experience shows. The script was co-written by Karl Brown, one of the few cinematographers ever to leave the camera behind to become a successful screenwriter; Karl had begun as a teen-age camera operator working for D. W. Griffith in the silent days. This film is a typical screwball comedy with an improbable crime plot, a genre popular back then, and features Dennis O'Keefe as the uptight Harvard lawyer, and Florence Rice as the wise-cracking girl reporter. They are not quite up to the dazzle of a Cary Grant and a Roz Russell, but they are both attractive and perfectly acceptable. Republic must have spent a good deal of money surrounding them with some of the ablest character actors in town, faces all of us recognize even if we can't name them-- among them, Minor Watson, Stanley Ridges, Charles Halton, Vince Barnett, and, for a flash, Dave Wilcox. Peter Lorre, who must have cost Republic a pretty penny to borrow from Warner Bros, is his usual evil self. Of all the fine cast, the ever-dependable Charles Arnt is the most memorable as the little sucker who falls for the no-good dame. As was so often the case, director Morgan went on from picture to picture, and as an editor, from TV series to series, rarely ever getting a chance to show his comic talents as a director again. Too bad.

This is one of three movies bundled on a DVD entitled "Forgotten Noir", though I really wouldn't consider it an example of film noir. It's more a kooky movie where one of the characters just happens to work for the District Attorney. Dennis O'Keefe plays a recent Harvard Law graduate and from the start he irritates his boss to no end. So, to punish him, he's given a dead case--one no one else wants. However, when the missing witness suddenly shows up, this becomes a very hot case and O'Keefe and his spunky female reporter friend (what a cliché!!) do what any assistant DA would do--investigate the crime and get caught up in the middle of it.

The bottom line is that none of this is the least bit believable and the idea of these two kooky characters solving a crime is silly. But, the characters are likable and if you only look at it as a kooky B-mystery, you'll not be disappointed. Not bad, but clearly a low-budget B-film.