Bullet Scars

Regis Toomey and Howard da Silva star in "Bullet Scars," a 1942 B movie that's pretty good, thanks to the nice performance by Toomey.

The Dillon gang, led by Frank Dillon (Da Silva) pulls off a robbery, but one of them, Joe, is badly wounded. They can't risk going to a hospital, so they corral a doctor, Steven Bishop (Toomey) to help them, claiming the shooting was accidental and saying nothing about the fact that they're all crooks.

Meanwhile, Joe's sister Nora (Adele Longmire), a nurse, is asked to come and take care of her brother. Dillon offers the doctor a fortune and his own laboratory if he will stay and take care of Joe, who is Dillon's best friend. Dillon is also in love with Nora, who wants nothing to do with him.

It doesn't take Bishop long to realize that he's pretty much a captive of these men, but while picking up supplies at the drugstore, with one of the men standing nearby, he does find out about the recent bank robbery and puts 2 + 2 together. He also knows he won't live if Joe dies while under his care. He and Nora have to figure out how to get out of there.

There's nothing special about this movie, but it is entertaining, and the end is clever. Regis Toomey was a solid actor with a kindly presence who was prolific in both television and film into his eighties. He was a regular on many TV series over the years.

Howard da Silva, turned in as a Communist by Robert Taylor, was blacklisted for 8 years but acted in theater and returned to television in 1959. He starred as Ben Franklin on Broadway and screen in "1776."

However, the most interesting person in this film was the elderly doctor in the beginning of the film, Hobart Bosworth. Bosworth was a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden on his father's side, and on his mother's side, a descendant of the first Dutch settlers to land in the U. S. He was an actor, director, writer, and producer going back to 1908.

When one of their number ("Joe") is shot during a robbery, the gangsters responsible try to seek the help of a doctor. The first they find claims that he needs hospital treatment and that's soon the end of him. They move on to another, "Bishop" (Regis Toomey), and lure him to their hideout where he discovers the sister of the wounded man "Nora" (Adele Longmire) who also happens to be a nurse. They are given a very thinly veiled ultimatum - save his life or lose their own. Both reckon they are doomed either way, so have to find a way of getting a message out to the pursuing police before they are toast. Just to add a little spice to the proceedings, "Nora" also happens to be the moll of boss "Dillon" (the not very menacing Howard Da Silva) so some conflict looms? Though it is quite watchable, it hasn't really an original bone in it's body and appears to be supplemented with some archive footage from similar crimes-noir. The denouement is just a little different but for the most part it's all join-the-dots stuff that you've seen before with a cast and writing that's probably just as adequate.

Director Ross Lederman began his Hollywood career as an extra in the Keystone Cops comedy flicks... and what a pity he ever rose to loftier heights, because on the strength of BULLET SCARS direction was not his forté.

Despite the ever threatening presence of Howard da Silva, not much Lederman could do with this substandard script by Robert E. Kent that depicts backwater town doctor Regis Toomey as such a gullible medic that he even accepts a salary raise from villain da Silva and his sidekicks in exchange for ignoring bullet wounds. He also helluva slow in the uptake, misses the chance to escape, and it is his Latin that ultimately saves the day.

Nurse Adele Longmire is certainly pretty but, like da Silva, she cannot save this poorly shot and predictably handled C pic.

The plot that served Dr. Socrates and King Of The Underworld got it's third go around with Bullet Scars. The twist here is that instead of the lead gangster himself needing medical attention, Howard DaSilva wants it for henchman Tod Andrews. Not that DaSilva is sentimental, but he is seeing Andrews's sister Adele Longmire who is a nurse.

Since he already killed one doctor who was ratting him out DaSylva goes deep in the piney woods and finds Regis Toomey.

DaSylva's character Frank Dillon is a Dillinger like public enemy with a Dillinger like reputation I found it real hard to believe he didn't know what kind of trouble he was in. It dawns on him though.

Lots of stock footage from previous Warner Brothers classics are in Bullet Scars. Movie fans will recognize it.

Third time was not the charm.

That's the kind of little crime flick that a moviegoer should not miss. It is so efficient, taut, gritty, with a Howard Da Silva excellent, juicy, terrific in this villain character. It is of course fast paced, as were the Paramount crime movies of this period, starring Anthony Quinn, Lloyd Nolan, J Carroll Naish. Short but riveting. The only weak point is that here, you have the unavoidable good guy who survives in the end with his sweetheart. Such a shame. Warner Bros was really a specialist of this kind of films, gangster plots with over the top casts. D Ross Ledermann remained without any ambition as a director and that's also a shame.