Hell's Half Acre

Evelyn Keyes flies to Hawaii. According to Navy records, he was killed at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, Wendell Corey has just been arrested by the Honolulu police for murder, and the picture in the papers looks like her husband, twelve years older and with a scar. She can't be sure, so she shows up at police chief Philip Ahn's office, only to find that Corey has fled into the city's red light district.

This might be set in Hawaii, but despite the sunlit views of the Big Island and the languid steel guitars, director John H. Auer leads us into a darkening and corrupt world that it all looks and sounds menacing, despite the low-key acting of the two leads. It's not great, but it's always interesting, with nice turns by Elsa Lanchester, Marie Wilson and Jesse White.

Hell's Half Acre is directed by John H. Auer and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor, Nancy Gates and Leonard Strong. Music is by R. Dale Butts and cinematography by John L. Russell.

Filmed and set in Hawaii, one could be forgiven for thinking this couldn't possibly work as a piece of film noir. In fact, the opening credit sequences lends one to think this could well be a frothy Elvis Presley type of movie - but it most assuredly isn't.

Cash or Cave in?

Story has Corey up to his neck in femme fatales, shifty criminal acquaintances and coppers. Which is not bad for a guy who was apparently killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor! The Hell's Half Acre of the tile is what is termed in the film as a shabby tenement district, this is the seedy underbelly of what we know as the paradise island. The location makes for some excellent atmospheric noir touches, with the production line abodes and the ream of wooden stairs and banisters making for a moody backdrop. At night the shadows come in to play, hanging nicely off of the alleyways and tawdry bars.

Dirty Rat!

Though a little too contrived for its own good, the many characterisations on show make the annoying itches easily scratched. From two-timing dames and thugs in need of anger management - to alcoholic slobs and batty taxi drivers, this has a roll call of colourful people drifting in and out of Hell's Half Acre. There's even some censor baiting going on, though the whiff of violent misogyny could have been less pungent.

Some serious noir credentials are found with the makers, Auer (City That Never Sleeps), Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming), Corey (The Big Knife), Keyes (The Prowler), Windsor (The Narrow Margin), Gates (Suddenly), Lanchester (The Big Clock) and Russell (Moonrise), and that's only really scratching the surface. With its distinctive setting and well controlled unfurling of noir conventions, this is well worth a look by the noir faithful. 7/10

This little gem of a film noir B movie is about a woman trying to track down her long lost husband in Hawaii after the War (WWII) where he was supposed to have died. In the process she finds herself in the middle of an underworld power struggle. Beautifully filmed in Hawaii with Ms. Keyes really working those facial expressions, as she tended to do. The film is tight, cynical and at times redeeming. Just a good little film.

I am not surprised by this Republic Pictures film noir, this studios was famous for mixing up some genres, western musicals, modern western, so why not exotic adventure crime noir movie? This one is not uninteresting because of its charm and atmosphere, and this story of the wife seeking her husband trace, supposed killed in action at Pearl harbor, this scheme is rather unusual in a film noir. This is a cute little crime flick from this studios specialized in serials and westerns. Wendell Corey seems to get bored, not convinced by his character, maybe the studio executive Herbert Yates should have chosen Forrest Tucker or Rod Cameron, the "home" studio stars, instead of Corey. And I was expecting the bland but not that bad Vera Ralston, Yates's wife, as the female role.

It's almost mandatory that when you film in Hawaii you film in color. But that would have put Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures on the horns of a dilemma. They were making a noir film set in Honolulu which is most often done in black and white anyway. And Yates was trying mightily to keep his studio afloat with the advent of television which overtaking Republic's bread and butter, B westerns.

Evelyn Keyes and Wendell Corey star in this film where Evelyn hears that the husband she thought lost on the Arizona in December of 1941 is on trial for murder in Honolulu. She goes to Hawaii to investigate. Corey the long lost husband is now a syndicate big shot and has confessed to killing a former partner. A third partner Philip Ahn is looking to take advantage of the situation and inherit all of Corey's assets.

No sooner does Keyes arrive in Hawaii than she's hip deep in the case when she tries to visit Corey's current girlfriend Nancy Gates. She spots Ahn near the home where he has just recently murdered Gates. That puts both Corey on a personal hunt and the Honolulu PD on a hunt for Ahn.

I have to say that while Ahn has played villains before, he was never quite as brutal as he is in this film. His opposite number Keye Luke plays Honolulu's chief of police and he's a wise and compassionate soul and really in the end comes through for Keyes. Corey also does the decent thing in the end.

A couple of other interesting roles are Jesse White as a hapless drunken gunsill and his slattern of a wife Marie Windsor who next to Gloria Grahame played the most tramps of the Fifties.

Some story plot holes that you could have driven the Arizona through when it was afloat unfortunately mar Hell's Half Acre. But the characterizations are just fine. I only wish that color had been used because having been to Hawaii black and white doesn't do it justice.