Nebbia a San Francisco

Spoiled San Francisco socialite Arlene Bradford (Bette Davis) returns to her partying ways and brings along her sweet half-sister Val. She steals security bonds from the family and cash out with investment broker fiancé Spencer Carlton. She's involved with crime boss Jake Bello. The theft is discovered as the family business tries to cover it up. Arlene disappears and Val is desperate to find her. Reporters find her body in the car that Val is driving.

This starts as an intriguing drama with Bette Davis. I expected this to be a girl behaving badly and getting over her head. In a way, that's what happens but I'm surprised that Bette Davis doesn't stay in the movie. It stops being her movie. It becomes a bit of a screwball thriller with the body in the trunk. This is a movie split in two. The first half is a character study with Arlene. The second half is more silly starting with the kicking contest in the newsroom. After that, even Arlene disappears for a while. It becomes a bit jumbled. I would have liked to follow Bette Davis for the whole movie. Failing that, the movie should follow Arlene all the way to the end.

If you watch this only once it will strike you as a 7/10 because, unless you have the attention of a speed reader, much will escape you. After a second viewing and filling in all of the gaps, you'll likely see it as 8/10. This is a fast paced crime drama in which Bette Davis plays Arlene Bradford, the wicked stepdaughter of a wealthy man, and Margaret Lindsay plays the good daughter, Val. Everett Bradford is the father of Val, but he was once married to Arlene's mother who was apparently a wild one who ran out on him. Arlene is made in her mother's image - something her stepfather won't let her forget. Bette Davis gives a very lively performance here as a spoiled and easily bored socialite who, in spite of the family drama, has a good relationship with stepsister Val.

The whole movie centers on a complex securities smuggling racket that involves Arlene using her stepfather's business as a means of laundering the stolen securities - without his knowledge of course. When Arlene turns up dead, there are a multitude of suspects including the girl's own stepfather.

Bette Davis gives an energetic performance that presages the great roles to come, in spite of the fact that she is only in the first half of the film. Hugh Herbert plays the bumbling newspaper photographer who actually stumbles across a key clue. Warner contract player Robert Barrat plays the Bradford family butler, Thorne, who seems way too interested in Arlene's comings and goings.

I highly recommend this one, but only if you have the time to sit through it twice.

This film is so rapidly paced that some of the action flew by me too fast to fully understand, although some of the confusion was cleared up in the end. Director William Dieterle used fancy wipes rather than fade-outs and overlapping sound to speed the action along. I prefer a more leisurely pace to enable me to digest the material. Still, the ending was exciting with location shooting in San Francisco a big plus, and it's always enjoyable to watch Bette Davis, who had emerged as a big star by this time. Hugh Herbert provides very minimal comic relief as an inept photographer. I was reminded a bit by Hitchcock's film "Psycho (1960)," but you'll have to watch this film to see what I mean.

Bette Davis gets top billing even though she isn't in two thirds of the movie? Well, considering how boring the leads were, she deserved it. This films crams a lot into 68 minutes. Red herrings, wild car chases, a butler with a secret and of course Bette Davis as the one who sets it all off, it's all in the film. Davis as Arlene Bradford, seems always in command, that her fate is a little shocking but not unexpected and a little bit delicious. With her short blonde hair and the tight shiny dresses, she is quite a welcome sight. A short fun little film.

I saw this at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto last week on a double bill with Of Human Bondage. At any rate, nothing really groundbreaking about this movie except that it was a fast paced, low budget bill-filler made before Bette Davis had broken through as a big star. The real treat here is the location shooting in San Francisco, showing the city before they built the bridges and a car chase that predates the one in Bullitt, except never exceeding 35 miles per hour. I also give the scriptwriters high marks for authentic use of forgotten place names ("Butchertown," "South of the Slot"). I'll admit my admiration is parochial, but you could do worse if it ever turns up on TCM or a streaming video service.

BTW: I can't recommend the Stanford highly enough. Beautifully restored movie palace featuring live intermission organ music on weekends and the cheapest date in town at only $7/ticket for a double bill. Google Stanford Theatre for the latest program.