Two Smart People

In order to enjoy this movie, you have to start out with the understanding that the plot makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! A convicted con man (John Hodiak) convinces a stupid police officer who is accompanying him to prison (Lloyd Nolan) to make it a leisurely first class trip together -- by way of New Orleans, Mexico, and some top notch night clubs and restaurants. Apparently this is the idiot cop's brilliant way of trying to loosen up the con man and trick him into revealing where he has hidden some valuable bonds. Add a beautiful con woman (Lucille Ball) who finds out about the bonds from the idiot cop, complete changes in personality on the part of the key characters near end of the film, and a particularly ridiculous non-explanation for how the bonds were recovered at the finale. It's a lot for a reasonably intelligent mind to discard.

But if you can, there are some notable performances. Lucille Ball is very believable in a non-comic, romantic role. She was quite a hot-cha-cha back in the day, if you can get Lucy Ricardo out of your head (another one of the mental challenges this movie presents). Lloyd Nolan plays his usual straight arrow, trustworthy role so convincingly that it's hard to believe that he makes so many dumb decisions and gets into so many stupid jams during the trip. It's almost like he's the world's most unfunny member of the Three Stooges. I never understood why the con man didn't just escape with the bonds during one of the many moments when Nolan was distracted, then come back and get Lucille Ball later if he was so in love with her.

I was impressed with the solid acting job that John Hodiak did as the con man, so I looked him up on the internet to find out why he didn't become a bigger star, and sadly discovered that he died fairly young. He did a good job of being just rogue-ish enough to be a convincing con man, but just soft enough to fall in love with a glamorous woman.

Anyway, this isn't the only movie ever made that requires you you check your brain at the door. And if you can, there are worse ways to pass a couple of hours.

In Leonard Maltin's review for this film he complains that "laughs don't come very often." I should hope not since this isn't a comedy. Seriously you have to wonder about people sometimes. This is a romantic drama with some noirish touches to it. It reminds me a little of Angels Over Broadway and Remember the Night. Both are great movies so that's definitely a compliment. John Hodiak isn't my first choice for leading man but he's a good fit for this part, unfortunate mustache notwithstanding. Lucille Ball has never been more beautiful than here and does well with a character more complex than the norm for the time. Fine support from pros like Lloyd Nolan and Elisha Cook, Jr. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. My rating may seem slightly low for the praise but I always struggle getting over the 6 to 7 hump. I'll probably raise my score next time I watch it. That's often how it goes with me. Anyway, good movie check it out. Someone tell Leonard Maltin to do the same.

Anyone coming to Jules Dassin's Two Smart People in expectation of the hard-core noir of his Brute Force, The Naked City, Thieves' Highway or Night and the City will have a surprise in store. Here, Dassin betrays his continental roots in fabricating a light if poignant romance between two con-artists. And though the movie has a noir veneer, it's less suggestive of Fritz Lang or Robert Siodmak than of Ernst Lubitch – specifically the Lubitch of Trouble in Paradise, another elegant romance sparked between larcenous lovers.

The pairing here is between Lucille Ball, on the lam from a job she pulled in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and John Hodiak, being escorted back from the west coast to finish a stint at Sing Sing by cop Lloyd Nolan. While trying to sabotage one another's swindles, Ball and Hodiak fall in love, and she joins him on his train journey to that castle on the Hudson. Also in play are half a million in bonds which are tucked away in a fancy cookbook (all ortolans and truffles) that Hodiak, a bit of a gourmet, keeps with him for bedside reading. And the wild card is nasty Elisha Cook, Jr., one of Ball's former partners in crime, who wants the bonds for himself.

Dassin keeps a delicate balance between the intrigue and the romance, but the romance wins out (and who's complaining). Hodiak takes to the lighter, more debonair style with greater conviction than he does the harder-boiled roles he played in Somewhere in the Night and Desert Fury that same year. Ball, in a role that is neither too broad (like The Fuller Brush Girl or Miss Grant Takes Richmond) nor too melodramatic (like The Big Street), delivers a subtle and winning performance – and she looks smashing.

For his finale, Dassin whisks us to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, granting Cook a flamboyant exit. It's a gaudy set-piece crowded with costumed revelers that raises the spirits before they grow subdued at the surprisingly bittersweet ending. If Two Smart People can be counted as part of the noir cycle (and it often is), it's possibly its most effervescent title. If not, who cares? It remains an offbeat delight all its own.

This obscure B-movie was Jules Dassin's last film before embarking on a series of classic noir and crime films--and actually it's the first of his crime films and shows his interest in developing the genre. As another critic reports in a previous post, this film is NOT a comedy (as Maltin's book describes it) about two con artists mixed up "in art forgery." Actually, it's a crime/road movie about stolen bonds, co-written by the creator of "The Saint." True, Lucille Ball co-stars, and she and John Hodiak meet cute in a TROUBLE IN PARADISE manner, blowing each other's cons with a mutual pigeon. But from the first shot, Dassin reveals his interest in crime

Like Dassin's forgettable comedy A LETTER FOR EVIE, this film is shot by the great Karl Freund, in decline from his silent heyday and not yet arrived at his groundbreaking I LOVE LUCY three-camera period. He gives us expressionist shots aplenty, and such privileged moments as a pan shot with window reflection from outside a train, a cactus-by-moonlight scene, and a chiaroscuro moment when Ball is menaced by Elisha Cook Jr lighting a match. The presence of Cook, Lloyd Nolan, and Hugo Haas (on their way to being entrenched noir icons) also counts for something. The road trip plot (on a train) allows stops in Mexico and New Orleans. The last third (set at Mardi Gras) is suspenseful and colorful, with Cook in fool's motley.

In conclusion, if this 1946 film doesn't hold up as well as Dassin's later, truer noirs, we can still see it's an early step in the development of that genre.

THREE SMART PEOPLE might be considered the low-point of Lucille Ball's career at MGM in the 1940's but it's still a quite good little tale and a rather unique cross between romance and crime drama. Lucy and John Hodiak are elegant con artists who find themselves battling for the same pigeon. There are romantic sparks immediately but a rival is a rival and they each deliberately ruin the other's con. When Lucy learns from old partner Elijah Cook Jr that Hodiak is carrying a hidden a half million in bonds, she ditches Cook and manages to find a spot on the cross-country train Hodiak is on heading toward New Orleans. Lucy is unaware though that Hodiak's traveling partner Lloyd Nolan is a cop escorting him on one last fun fling before Hodiak turns himself in for a prison stretch of at least five years.

This smooth pseudo-film noir is surprisingly agreeable. Essentially a three person picture (Ball, Hodiak, and Nolan) the only other part of any length is Cook's who surprisingly billed below both Hugo Haas and Lenore Ulric in roles that are basically bit parts. The movie looks great and it's no surprise Lucy later sought the cinematographer Karl Freund to helm I LOVE LUCY. She's a vision here, particularly in the Mardi Gras segment. The extended New Orleans sequence is the highlight of the film and director Jules Dassin and the production designers do a very fine job of capturing both the unique look of the city and Carnival season, complete with jazz for the background music. TWO SMART PEOPLE is a very enjoyable diversion with a nice performance by Lucy in an atypical role.