Smart Girls Don't Talk

Virginia Mayo stars with Bruce Bennett in "Smart Girls Don't Talk," a 1948 noir courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Mayo plays Linda Vickers, who is caught in a robbery at a gambling casino owned by Marty Fain (Bennett). At one time, she had money; now she bounces checks. Fain doesn't want the police involved, so he asks his thugs to pay the criminal a visit and offers to pay back the customers for what they lost in the robbery. Vickers comes in with a tall story about losing $18000 in jewelry, and Fain demands to see the insurance policy. They go to her apartment in Fain's car and he says hers will be returned to her in the morning. At Linda's place (of course he knew she didn't have any policy) they have a drink...fade out. The next day the police arrive, and she finds out her car was used in a murder. The murdered man is the one who robbed the casino. Vickers makes some not so subtle hints about blackmail.

Linda's surgeon brother, 'Doc' (Robert Hutton) arrives and doesn't like Fain or the fact that his sister is involved with him. The plot thickens and soon, Doc becomes involved in some bad business.

Pretty good but not fabulous either in story or acting. The main actors are all likable, though. Mayo was very attractive with a terrific figure, and she did well in these noirs. Robert Hutton in looks has always reminded me of Jimmy Stewart. Bennett was always straightforward in his delivery with little variation. Nevertheless, he was certainly a remarkable man, an Olympic Silver medal winner in shotput under his real name, Herman Brix, went onto a career in films and lived to be 100.

If you are a fan of noirs, as I am, see this and enjoy it.

Impoverished debutante Virginia Mayo and gambling house owner Bruce Bennett start an affair. Miss Mayo calls it off on the advice of her brother, Doctor Robert Hutton. Then Bennett gets shot dealing with one of his welshing customers. Hutton treats him. Fearful he will report the gunshot wound to the police, Bennett's henchmen kill him.

Richard L. Bare's first feature has a good script, fine camerawork by Ted McCord, and Tom D'andrea giving good advice while looking like he's been eating persimmons. Bennett's dry, lecturing style of speaking works well to indicate he's careful about what he says, but Miss Mayo isn't quite up to the requirements of a leading lady on an emotional roller coaster. Keep an eye open for Phyllis Coates as a cigarette girl. I imagine she's working undercover for her paper.

The one with the brains in Smart Girls Don't Talk is Virginia Mayo, a good-bad girl a little down on her luck who's open to some fudging when it comes to a buck. So when she's gambling in Bruce Bennett's Club Bermuda the night it's knocked over, she claims her paste ear-bobs were real diamonds. Bennett, eager to cover his clients' losses so the police don't come snooping around, sees through her ruse but falls for her anyway. (He drives her off to a ritzy roadhouse where they feast on châteaubriand - and after-dinner martinis.)

When her kid brother (Robert Hutton), just appointed to the surgical staff of a New York hospital, hits town, he meets the club's canary (Helen Westcott, who treats us to `The Stars Will Remember' - twice). But he disapproves of the company Mayo keeps. Deep down, so does she, and breaks off her affair with the casino boss. In a foul temper, Bennett kills a welsher in trying to recoup a bad debt, but takes a bullet himself. He staggers back to his club where Hutton is romancing Westcott; the surgeon is press-ganged into patching Bennett up. Rebuffing a payoff, Hutton raises fears that he, too, will turn canary, and one of Bennett's trigger-happy goons shoots him down. At first, Mayo refuses to believe that Bennett could be involved in the murder. Police detective Richard Rober (`I'm a policeman - I'm paid to have suspicions') tries to change her mind, and the wheels begin to turn....

Smart Girls Don't Talk is a brisk, big-town story with serviceable work from Mayo, Bennett, Rober and Tom D'Andrea (as Bennett's 2iC). Its director, Richard Bare, would work with Mayo again the next year in Flaxy Martin, where she played a duplicitous blonde (of course, she always played a blonde). She fares better here. Mayo lacked the tense skills necessary to project a believable femme fatale, but was quite appealing as a basically decent woman who's been around the block. That's what made her so smart.

A romantic relationship between a charming, erudite gambler/hood and a wayward rich gal. Sounds like it could be promising, especially when the girl is played by Virginia Mayo with whom it is almost always worthwhile spending time. Unfortunately, the clunky screenplay by William Sackheim resolves the central conflict between these two halfway through the friggin picture so that the second half lacks any dramatic tension whatsoever. Plus, Sackheim's dialogue is, with the exception of a few Tom D'Andrea zingers (the future Gillis on "Life Of Riley" is here playing the Eve Arden role), humorless and stiff with lines like: "We are two trains meeting in a depot and now going separate ways". Oh, lordy. Also not helping matters is overscoring from David Buttolph (a poor man's Bronislau Kaper) and undistinguished cinematography from the usually good Ted McCord that gives the film a most generic back lot look. Give it a generous C plus, mostly for Mayo.

Petty criminal Johnny Warjack and his gang hold up the Club Bermuda, a casino nightclub. Club owner Marty Fain (Bruce Bennett) allows them to escape and orders his men to track them down later. Fain is covering all his customers' stolen cash. Not all the claims are believed. Broke socialite Linda Vickers (Virginia Mayo) insists that she lost expensive jewelry. In turn, Fain insists on seeing her insurance policy... at her apartment. On the next morning, Warjack is found murdered and police Lieutenant McReady (Richard Rober) comes to interview Vickers.

It's crime B-drama. It has some limited noir style. Virginia Mayo is doing yeoman's work. I like the premise and how it starts. It could go harder. A modern movie would play up the erotic part and add in more action. The story is not that dramatic. It has an interesting spin but it's nothing outstanding. It's solid work all around.