Roaring City

Hugh Beaumont plays against what folks of my generation see him as: the perfect dad to a perfect family. He ain't no family man here. But, what is he? He seems to be a private investigator without a license holding down a day job as a renter/seller of old boats at the shoddy end of the San Francisco harbor. As Dennis O'Brien, Beaumont isn't exactly Sherlock Holmes (though he does have a low rent professor sidekick and go-fer), nor is he Sam Spade. He's a stupefyingly poor down mix of the two if you're generous.

Actually, with Beaumont there's something ,almost, to like as his charisma occasionally comes through. But, then there's the quirks that apparently the producer and director insert. For one, the "tough guy" dialog is downright laughable akin to the intentional use of such for comedic effect in the Steve Martin flick "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid". Only it's unintentional here thus really bad without the comic relief. It's a big fail.

Also, because this isn't actually a feature B flick at all things never flow. The producer/director/writers have stitched together two segments that must have been meant for a TV pilot and first episode (that were not good enough even for that). So, it's a fledging wannabe movie. The word "clunky" comes to mind even if it was a money move to meet the demand for the double features of the day. Besides Beaumont there isn't much in the acting department either. It leaves one thinking even if there wasn't a financial loss careers were muddied. Somewhere in this mess something quite a bit better could have been crafted around Beaumont's character. It wasn't and instead this is the lame result. It's basically a waste, a which is a generous way to say it's laughably terrible. Don't bother with this one.

Hugh Beaumont who made an indelible impression on all kids as the world's greatest dad as Ward Cleaver on television will shock the fans of Leave It To Beaver when they see him play laconic private eye Dennis O'Brien, living on the San Francisco wharf with his research man Edward Brophy in Roaring City. Definitely not the Hugh we're used to.

You know he's got the dialog and the patter down straight, but as a detective he falls into the Miles Archer rather than the Sam Spade category. In this film which involves Beaumont in two separate stories in both cases he does a job which looks really suspicious from the start. In the first he lays down some bets for a fight manager against his own fighter under an alias. He looks real good for the homicides of both the manager and the fighter to detective Richard Travis.

The second one is even worse, he's asked to pose as the husband of one of a pair of women in a rendezvous and the real husband comes up dead with an unconscious Beaumont with the stiff in a trash dumpster. I mean this guy's radar is really on the fritz.

Still it's not a bad premise for a television show which it was for a brief time and it proves that Hugh Beaumont could be something other than the All American Dad.

Hugh "Leave it to Beaver" Beaumont stars in "Roaring City," from 1951. The film also features Edward Brophy and Richard Travis.

This was apparently one of three feature films that combined two half-hour stories, which answers the question as to why these stories weren't connected. Denny O'Brien (Beaumont) is man with a ship he rents, but he also does odd jobs. He rooms with an alcoholic ex-professor (Brophy) who does some work for him.

The first story concerns a fixed fight that O'Brien is hired to bet on; in the other one, he is hired to pretend to be a woman's husband. These jobs are not without problems. In the fight story, it doesn't go the way it was supposed to; in the other -- well, it's not as straightforward as it first seemed.

Denny usually winds up unconscious or beaten and in hot water with a police inspector. Hugh Beaumont does a good job in the role - he's natural and charming.

I'm not exactly the audience for these low-budget Bs, but I appreciate that they have their place in the noir canon.

This poverty row noir starring Hugh Beaumont as Dennis O'Brien, San Francisco boat salesman and traveler through the back alleys of life, is hilarious. There wasn't enough money to give it atmosphere nor any big names. It distinguishes itself in three areas - a cast now known or remembered for things not noir, how it is actually two independent storylines glued together, and that concentrated noir dialogue that sounds like something out of the satire "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid".

I wonder if this wasn't supposed to be some kind of TV pilot, because it is divided into two thirty minute tales in which the main character, O'Brien, agrees to do something for money for some shadowy or unknown character, gets double crossed, and then has to solve what happened or take the fall. A police detective, inspector Bruger, who seems to know him always shows up to accuse him of murder. So we have a protagonist who makes bad decisions and a police detective who always draws wrong conclusions. I can see why the networks thought this might not work out in the long term.

Of course, most people know Hugh Beaumont as TV dad Ward Cleaver in Leave It To Beaver, and I have to think that gig worked out better than had he played O'Brien in a TV series knock off of this film. O'Brien's roommate and partner is "the professor" played by an out of place Ed Brophy. Brophy was an assistant director who became, after sound came in, a supporting player portraying various barely literate lugs and thugs. Here he is portraying a somewhat alcoholic intellectual who talks of Shakespeare. If you know him from any of his earlier film roles, it is a sight to be seen.

Finally, let me get to that dialogue. Absolutely do not play a drinking game every time you hear a line of over done noir dialogue that sounds like satire rather than the way actual people - hard boiled or not - would ever talk. You'll be dead in twenty minutes.

Recommended for the fun of it all.

As a PI, Beaumont's (O'Brien) got all the macho moves and snappy rejoinders down pat. In fact, dialog may be the programmer's chief asset. The movie's really two separate half-hour stories in a single one-hour package, but don't bother with the plots. They're too complex for brief run-times, and really just an excuse to move the cast around cheap apartment sets. I'm just sorry we don't see more of atmospheric San Francisco where the shenanigans ostensibly occur. I could also have used more of the stately blonde (Valerie) instead of guys in trench coats threatening one another. Seems like O'Brien's main purpose is to get slugged and then wake up amid dead bodies. Nothing special or unusual here, except for Ward Cleaver making a pretty darn good tough guy. Trouble is the blended half-hours are more unwieldy than satisfying.