User reviews

Produced, directed and written by Ben Hecht, Angels Over Broadway is a film that I personally hadn't heard of until it showed up on one of the British Freeview stations this last week. The first thing what surprised was the bona fide classy cast list, Mr Charm himself, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Miss Beautiful 1940, Rita Hayworth, Mr Ever Watchable, Thomas Mitchell & Mr Undermentioned, John Qualen. The next thing that surprised me was during a bit of research I learned that critics of the day gave the picture a hard time for not soft soaping the audience, madness really, because this is a razor sharp and highly efficient picture.

Set around one night on Broadway, our four main characters come together courtesy of Charles Engle's {Qualen} intention to kill himself over a huge debt. Mistakenly thinking that Engle has loads of cash to burn, Bill O'Brien {Fairbanks} enlists Nina Barona {Hayworth} in the hope of luring Engle to a poker game run by seedy gangster types, and thus fleecing him of his cash, where of course the pair of them will get a cut. Yet boozy playwright Gene Gibbons {Mitchell}, upon learning of Engle's suicidal leanings, hatches a plan to turn the tables on the poker fiddlers and turn Engle's life around. Naturally tho, not everything is going to go to plan!

A smashing film that shines brightly with quality acting and comically astute writing, so if you get the chance then give it a go and you might be as surprised as I was. 8/10

Popular writer Ben Hecht certainly was no stranger to the Broadway cornucopia of gangsters, molls, hoofers, & sharpies and mixes them all in a non-glamorous look at the Great White Way.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in a bit of offbeat casting plays Bill O'Brien, Broadway sharpie who thinks he's latched on to a sure thing in steering rube John Qualen into a fixed poker game. Qualen however is not a millionaire. Fairbanks has it all wrong, Qualen doesn't have money, he's embezzled $3000.00 from his employer and is thinking of suicide. Fairbanks ain't as sharp as he thinks, but with the help of inebriated playwright Thomas Mitchell he tries to bluff his way through the gangsters and turn a profit.

Always appealing to Fairbanks's better nature is Rita Hayworth who does a good job of arousing the noble and the carnal at the same time. She's not Queen of Columbia pictures yet, just a crown princess. But Hayworth is just magnificent in this part.

Thomas Mitchell is always given kudos for his part and they are deserved, but one who's not talked about is John Qualen. Qualen had a fine run of character parts in his long career of little men constantly being victimized. He started that cycle with The Front Page and continues it on with Muley in The Grapes of Wrath and now this part in Angels Over Broadway. He was a fine, but underrated actor and another favorite of John Ford.

It's worth it just to see Rita Hayworth as always and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. with that New York City accent.

1940's "Angels Over Broadway" is actually a little play on words, since the name of one of the main characters is Engle, which in German means Angel (actually spelled Engel). Written by Ben Hecht, the film stars Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen. It's an interesting and sweet film with very good performances, but you would swear it's based on a play because it is extremely heavy on dialogue.

The story concerns four people who wind up joining forces: a wheeler dealer named Bill O'Brien (Fairbanks Jr.), a suicidal man, Engle (Qualen), a lonely performer, Nina (Hayworth) and a drunken playwright, Eugene Gibbons (Mitchell). Engle needs to come up with $3,000 that he embezzled by morning; O'Brien thinks Engle is a rich sucker; Nina is looking to meet someone successful; and Gibbons has written another flop. They all are in the same nightclub. While intoxicated, Gibbons learns Engle's sad story and is determined to help him. His first move - taking back a piece of $12,000 jewelry from his girlfriend -- does not work as, after he takes it, she tells him it's paste. Though O'Brien had planned to bring Gibbons to a poker game so he could lose a lot of money to thugs and O'Brien could earn a bonus, it is decided that Engle should go instead and skip out after winning the initial money that the players will allow him to win to draw him into a false sense of luck. Nina goes along, interested in O'Brien, even after she finds out he's broke.

One of the most amusing aspects of the film is that everyone - including the mobsters - knows who the Gibbons character is. They all say,"Oh, yeah, you're the playwright." Anyone who has ever watched "Jeopardy" knows that today, no one knows current playwrights by name or face, let alone current plays. The film is interesting as well because is that although this is really four individual stories, the plots converge so that the film is not in the least episodic.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is marvelous as usual. The man could be the most elegant of British gentlemen or a born and bred New York low-life. Here he is the latter and a delight. I am so glad a previous comment mentioned Marilyn Monroe - she must have been influenced by Hayworth in this film, as Hayworth's voice and delivery in spots can only be described as pre-Marilyn. Monroe couldn't have had a better role model. Hayworth is just beautiful and gives a sympathetic portrayal of Nina. Mitchell's performance is heartrending, especially when he calls his wife on the telephone. Qualen has precious little dialogue but he, too, does a great job as a desperate man.

Definitely recommended for the acting and the structure of the film, which is masterful.

For the most part this unusual, thought-provoking and character-driven moral fable is a fascinating affair but, in spite of the compact running-time, it becomes tiresomely talkative (especially given Hecht's overwritten script). Co-directed by a writer (Hecht made seven films in this multiple capacity, but this is the first one I've watched!) and a cinematographer that were second to none in their respective professions, it's small wonder that the film is brimming with sparkling dialogue (particularly as delivered by Thomas Mitchell, here in his trademark role of philosophical drunk) and inventive shadowy lighting.

The main roles, however, are equally well-filled: Mitchell, as I said, wasn't really stretching himself here but his three co-stars - Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rita Hayworth and John Qualen - had rarely been offered such an opportunity to shine up to this point. Fairbanks' best-known role had been his 'smiling villain' Rupert of Hentzau in THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937; where's that DVD, Warners?) but he had already made other impressive ensemble pieces, such as THE YOUNG IN HEART (1938; see my review elsewhere) and GUNGA DIN (1939); actually, his role here is sort of similar to that of the former - though he's a harder character, an utter heel, but whose scheme of 'taking' a man he believes to be a millionaire rebounds on himself and actually ends up involved in the 'taking' of his 'business partners' to the benefit of the latter (who's really an embezzler on the brink of suicide)! The unwilling crook is played by John Qualen, the great - if largely unsung - diminutive and mild-mannered character actor, whose other notable roles included the murderer in HIS GIRL Friday (1940), a victim of the Oklahoma Dustbowl in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) and "Miser" Stevens in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (1941). The film's feminine interest, then, is provided by a young Rita Hayworth who, again, exceeds all expectations with her role of a star-struck girl who forsakes her dreams of glory in order to do a good deed (even if she's initially drawn into the 'plot' purely on a whim by Fairbanks); indeed, the characters' individual reformation - more so than in THE YOUNG IN HEART, and done in a much less sentimental manner - adds an undercurrent of spirituality to the film's prominent sophistication and hard-boiled veneer, which is not so surprising coming from Hecht!

For its time, ANGELS OVER Broadway must have seemed like a B-movie with pretensions; while it falters here and there under the strain of its own self-indulgence, because it is unique, the film doesn't feel all that dated today and is bound to give detailed pleasure on every viewing.

We were intrigued by this movie last night when it showed on TCM. I've always been a Ben Hecht fan so it was good to see something I'd never seen before - in the old days, Bill Kennedy out of Windsor/Detroit showed many old films on his TV show at 1 pm but I don't remember ever seeing this one. Rita Hayworth was just glorious! As usual. I wonder if Marilyn Monroe saw this movie and used Rita's slight speech impediment. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is always wonderful. I'm a fan of such actors as John Qualen and Thomas Mitchell. They are good in everything. I also liked finding two new actors to look for in old films, Jack Roper, the boxer who played Eddie, and Eddie Foster who played Louie Artino. The black & white was almost delicious, the rain put the movie into a certain mood and the sets were perfection. Wardrobe was easy, no one changed, except for taking off their rain coats. I liked it and I want to see it again soon, which shouldn't be a problem with TCM, they have started showing the same movies over & over anyway. I recommend Angels Over Broadway!

This early Rita Hayworth movie shows off her more youthful charms of innocence and good will. She was not yet a femme fatale or a glamour queen, although she does get an opportunity for a brief dance. She was born Margarita ('Rita') Cansino in a family of dancers, so she could dance before she could act, and made numerous film appearances as Rita Cansino before she was reinvented by Columbia Studios. This film has never been released on DVD so I had to buy an old video to see it. It is written, produced, and directed by Ben Hecht, and describes Hecht's Broadway of that era. The unlikely casting of glamour boy Douglas Fairbanks Junior as a small-time chiseller is a surprise. He does tolerably well but is no genius at it. Thomas Mitchell plays an inebriated playwright who five years ago won the Pulitzer Prize but is now a flop. Well, that's Broadway! Or was! I am referring to a time, of course, when they still had plays on Broadway, and not just musicals. Yes, believe it or not, way back in the Stone Age there was something called drama on the Great White Way, but only mastodons and plesiosaurs (got my geological eras mixed up, but who cares) remember it. The film features a fine performance from sad-sack character actor John Qualen as 'Charles Engle', a rather obvious pun on the title of the film, 'Engel' being German for angel. The film is very heavy on dialogue and somewhat preachy, but Hecht's dialogue is interesting and often extremely witty, so even though it is longer than a modern 'text message', it is worth listening to. The film was made, after all, before attention spans shrank to five seconds. The story is rather contrived and corny, and lurches rather heavily in the direction of Moral Messages. Well, good for Hecht, he was trying to get some messages across, rather than just titillate. So he was a bit clumsy at it. The film is still very good and well worth watching. And there is the irresistible Rita to gaze at, in wonder and awe. Sometimes you just want to give her a hug, don'tcha?

I first became friends with Rita when I was 22 and the same age as she is in this only film of hers I had never seen till last night. On that night she and Hermes Pan (master choreographer)were slumming to show her what a coffee house was like, and my roommate who knew Hermes invited them to the hippie like house in an alley way in West Hollywood we shared.We both were in love with the Goddess and did black magic (amateur)to see that Hermes would bring her and it worked.Rita was 38 an still beautiful,a gypsy who drank our cheap wine,and we talked and laughed till dawn. From that day forward,we spent three or four nights a week at her home on Hartford and she often burnt dinner for us and we drank Dom Perignon and we danced and laughed and she told stories and her Brooklyn accent would come out (I hear it a lot in ANGELS) Rita always insisted she could act and this film showed her talent and some of her incredible allure which was emerging.I think she did BLOOD AND SAND the next year where she was outrageously sensual and cruel.She was great in that.Paulene Kael disliked her because she was dubbed by Anita Ellis in most films even though Rita had a decent voice. I found this Hecht film to be far ahead of its time with terrific casting and dialogue which sounded like Mankiewicz in a way,and a touch of Damon Runyon with sophistication.It is an odd, and terrific film and my Rita was really good and I watched her and she "listened" to other actors like a seasoned performer.She still is magical and her presence on film still excites.

Whatever Ben Hecht wrote was always brilliant - by this time in his career however he knew this himself so would never see the need to edit or revise anything he wrote. Harry Cohen must have been another fan because he gave him free reign not just to write this movie but to direct and produce it. Pandering to someone's self indulgence would be a way of describing this decision.

Hecht might have the gift of being able to write anything from fast-talking screwball comedy to gritty underworld drama to the tear-jerking sentimentally of Wuthering Heights and Gone with the Wind but was he a director? There's some fabulous imagery, use of reflections and shadows not just to add atmosphere but to literally tell the story like words. All this however is used as part of the screenplay, it's all very clever but Ben Hecht is no Orson Wells, he can't do everything himself and as a result, this film doesn't quite work.

You get the impression that everything spoken in this film is vitally important - something you really need to know whereas in retrospect, it probably isn't. It's still worth watching and maybe even revisiting after a few years to catch the subtle nuances you miss first time. Ostensibly however it feels a bit forced and the actors aren't real people - they're just acting. As a director, he concentrates on his script and his vision of how his film should look (both done excellently) but doesn't seem able to develop his cast into believable people. Doug Fairbanks comes across as one dimensional and doesn't seem to develop any emotional connection with Rita Hayworth. Scarlett O'Hara's dad however is really great in this - everything he says (and he does say a lot) really does seem like it's of life and death importance. He had worked with Rita Hayworth a couple of years before in ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS so knew a thing or two about angels.

It is so easy to write off beauty as the reason an actress achieves great rank in Hollywood, and it is what also plagued Marilyn Monroe - the desperate need to be taken seriously for your talent rather than your looks once you have become famous for beauty alone.

I myself had never given Rita Hayworth props for anything other than her luminous visual persona. So it was with great delight that I came across this exceptional film, with its screwball comedy timing and humor, and its amazing ensemble casting - from a sleazy but compelling performance by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. To the ironic portrayal of the has-been drunk played to iconic perfection by Thomas Mitchell.

But the two real gems are John Qualen as a suicidal bookkeeper who is the target of a 2 bit mob scam, and Rita Hayworth - in a portrayal as exceptional to me as Rosalind Russell in The Front Page, or Marilyn Monroe in 7 Year Itch - plays a star-struck wanna-be who is barely making it in shady circumstances, yet manages to convey tremendous innocence and idealism in spite of her deeply compromised situation.

The most striking thing to me of all is how uncanny it is to watch what one would consider to be a classic Monroe performance coming from an actress seven years prior to Marilyn having been given her first on screen part. Suddenly I felt like I understood how Marilyn had crafted her persona - hours of sitting in darkened theaters watching Rita Hayworth concoct her brilliant magic of innocence and seduction like it was real and not a carefully crafted act.

In my humble opinion, I don't believe Marilyn would have been nearly as iconic had she not had Rita Hayworth's example to follow, and this portrayal in Angels Over Broadway is the link that, to me, irrefutably proves my point! What an amazing, under-appreciated work of group talent and screen writing art! Rita is poignantly brilliant and her performance ranks for me with Robert Williams in Platinum Blonde for great, naturalistic acting that lasts through time.

Written, produced and co-directed by hot-shot screenwriter Ben Hecht, this pithy little feature, which barely runs for 80 minutes, for me brings to mind the down-beat paintings of mid-century American artist Edward Hopper. Here we get four ordinary, average New Yorkers who get together to help one of them in need against the mob, set to the backdrop of a less than glamorous New York with more than one scene shot in the pouring rain at night time.

The rather insubstantial plot revolves around the cowed and beaten Mr Engels, played by John Qualen, who has not only just been rumbled by his senior co-partner for extorting $3000 from the business but also learned that his believed-loving wife to whom he gave the money to indulge her expensive taste, is actually having an affair with another man. With only until 6 o'clock the next morning to raise the money and no means to do so, he understandably gives up hope, writes a suicide note and sets out to do the deed.

However he delays doing so in order to have one more night of fun at a fancy hotel where he is seen dishing out dollars like a millionaire by Douglas Fairbanks Jr's Bill O'Brien character. Thinking he has identified another commission for inveighing another unsuspecting rube into a crooked, mobster-heavy card game set up only to relieve the innocent of his suspected riches, he sets up a meet with his gangster pals.

However, he's thwarted in his nefarious plan by a drunk, hammy theatre-writer, coming off three successive flops, played by Thomas Mitchell and a young, pretty, okay make that very pretty, we're talking about a pre-fame Rita Hayworth here, would-be showgirl and when they learn of Mr Engels' true plight, form an unlikely alliance with an initially reluctant Fairbanks to try and help him glean the money back from the early stages of the card game and then spirit him away into the night. It's fair to say that things don't exactly go according to plan but like all good morality tales, which this film effectively is, times four, they pretty much all get to a different, better place in the end.

With shades of a less flamboyant Damon Runyon short story, the film sets an interesting juxtaposition between four ordinary people who struggle individually in their lives but in the end learn that by reaching out either to give or receive help, even from unlikely sources, they can improve their respective lots.

There are some nice scene-setting shots, possibly the idea of co-director, master-cameraman, Lee Garmes, one of which gives a top-down view of the enticing card-game. I might have looked for some slightly sharper dialogue from the guy who wrote the glorious "His Girl Friday" to name just one classic from his prize catalogue and Mitchell's character's pickled verbosity grates after a while but all in all this is a neat and tidy redemptive story of four ordinary New York nighthawks who band together to take on the mob.

This had a very interesting beginning, really getting my attention, but then bogged down way too much, mainly with Thomas Mitchell's inebriated rantings. (Anyone ever notice how many drunks and loud-and-obnoxious characters Mitchell played?)

The writers also gave Rita Hayworth some sappy dialog as she tried to be Douglas Fairbanks' girl. But, I wasn't complaining looking at the young, innocent-and-gorgeous looking Hayworth. Wow - hubba, hubba!

The story, however, does pick up with the card game and then finishes strong. John Qualen is good as the mousy man who really is at the center of this story. He may not be the 'name' actor the others are here, but he is the real star of this movie.

This is a wonderful film that many reviews say was way ahead of its time, and it was not a roaring success due to this fact. A very dark drama, it has some wonderful scenes, both sad and touching, but those are rivaled by quite a few confusing and/or dull scenes. Douglas Fairbanks, jr. and Rita Hayworth both act supremely, which luckily saves the film from being a killer. Make sure you give this one your full attention when you watch it, anything less and you'll be lost. If you stay watching, it'll keep you compelled, as well as touch your heart.

I love old movies--generally more than newer films in fact. So, in light of my adoration of Hollywood's golden age and the preponderance of very favorable reviews here on IMDb, it surprised me that I disliked this film as much as I did. To me, it is a film that comes off as stagy, overly talky and unconvincing.

The film is about a group of losers who all meet in a nightclub one night. One is Charles Engle (John Qualen)--a guy who embezzled some money but who others in the club mistake for a millionaire. Another is a famous but down and out playwright (Thomas Mitchell). And, there's the sharpie (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and a woman he enlists to help him (Rita Hayworth).

While there are some nice moments in the film and some of the acting is pretty good (I particularly liked Qualen), too often the film comes off as a play clumsily brought to film. In other words, it retains its stagy quality and characters tend to bluster and talk too much for a movie. Additionally, while I generally like Fairbanks in films, here he seems a tad miscast and out of place. Overall, a mildly interesting film that definitely gets better as you watch it, but nothing more.

Underrated gem about three strangers (Rita Hayworth, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Thomas Mitchell) in a nightclub coming together to help out a suicidal embezzler (John Qualen). Fairbanks is a con man with his own angle to play. Hayworth is a slightly ditzy chorus girl who falls for him. Mitchell is a writer and drunkard. A labor of love for Ben Hecht, who wrote the screenplay as well as co-directed and produced. The script, smart and full of dark humor, plays like a Damon Runyan plot with cynical Hecht characters. The cast is good, with Hayworth, Mitchell, and Qualen all standouts. Fairbanks is OK but I agree with other reviewers that he's miscast for the role. He just doesn't seem like a streetwise hustler beaten down by bad breaks, which is what the role calls for. Anyway, he isn't bad and doesn't detract from the film in a way that is significant enough to hurt the overall enjoyment of it. Give it a look, I doubt you'll be disappointed. If you like Frank Capra films, you'll probably like this.

Ben Hecht, reputedly the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, sometimes directed. Those efforts, among them ANGELS AND SIN, SPECTRE OF THE ROSE and CRIME WITHOUT PASSION all reek of arty pretension, low-key lighting (often as here by Lee Garmes) and pages of purple-prose dialogue. It's as if occasionally Hecht said the hell with all this hack crap I do for money, now for once I'm going to create some real Art. Capitol A. One can't help but admire him for trying, for selling scripts and subjects no one else in town would have even dared peddle. Here in 1940, he even managed to convince crusty Harry Cohn at Columbia to star Rita Hayworth in what was to be her first A role. She is as ever beyond gorgeous and does her best, acting with the sort of voice Marilyn Monroe must have copied. Mitchell, as to be expected, is his usual excellent self doing a Mitchell, and the underrated John Qualen is as always superb. Unfortunately, suave leading man, the debonair Douglas Fairbanks Jr., works hard (too hard?) at doing a tough guy Jimmy Cagney/Bogie character and almost succeeds. Almost. The trouble, alas, is not in the limitations or talents of a first-rate cast, but in Hecht's writing. He attempts unconvincingly to coat his usual hard-boiled style with sudden shifts to standard Hollywood corn off the cob. Hecht, as he displayed in FRONT PAGE and many of his best plays and screenplays, was always at his best when he was a 100% cynic. Here, sadly, it is Hecht and not Fairbanks who seems out of character.

As one who loves old Hollywood movies and has been recently discovering old ones I haven't seen before, this was an interesting find. I was surprised to find this early Hollywood movie about down-and-out New Yorkers with 4 actors well-known to old movie buffs: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, and John Qualen.

Fairbanks Jr. Was very good playing a charming (but not-too-successful) con man, Mitchell solid as ever, and Qualen very good in a larger role than I was used to seeing him in, but the real joy in this movie was Hayworth: charming and endearing as a heart-of-gold showgirl. And as other reviewers have noted, she projected the Marilyn Monroe persona long before anyone had heard of Monroe. She looked and sounded like Marilyn in a charming performance. Did Marilyn copy Rita Hayworth's style in this movie? Don't know...

While not a great movie, it was overall an interesting one, namely to see stars in unexpected "loser"-type roles, and to see the young Hayworth's wonderful performance.

A portrait of a slighly dramatic night in NYC. Charming Rita with the cute little voice, the chemistry between the actors and the rainy mood cover the misty story.

This movie is endearing and entertaining. It is endearing because of the story and the setting. It's about working class people trying to hustle their way through life in New York City. Thomas Mitchell gives what may be his best performance in cinema. He dominates the movie; he also has the best lines which he delivers with gusto. Rita Hayworth is absolutely charming as a dance hall girl from Brooklyn (btw: Hayworth actually was from Brooklyn). Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the tough guy whose brittle on the outside but really a good guy, something that he is trying, unsuccessfully, to hide. The movie is compact, well-acted, and dramatic, with lots of humor interspersed throughout the story. In short, this movie provides high-quality entertainment.

"Angels Over Broadway" is billed as a comedy, crime and adventure - the latter first. It's much more film noir than anything. And it's no more an adventure than going on carnival rides or to a wax museum. I think the vast majority of people have a completely different notion of adventure.

This is an odd story with some oddball characters coming together. It was a trait of Ben Hecht the writer who, in the early to mid-20th century wrote or worked on 165 screenplays. Hecht was a versatile talent who also wrote books and worked for newspapers. He wrote stage plays, some of which were also made into movies. And, he also directed and produced some films, and acted in some, mostly in uncredited roles.

This is one of a handful of films that Hecht wrote, produced, directed and acted in. It has the snappy dialog that Hecht often wrote -here in Bill O'Brien, the main male lead played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fairbanks is very good in his role. But the role of Rita Hayworth is quite strange. Was she a woman of the night - a hooker, or not? The dialog and plot goes back and forth on that, and never seems to get it straight. Aside from that, this story is very heavy with dialog. Thomas Mitchell gives very long winded orations at times. Although they have some wit and cleverness, they give the feel of a stage performance. And the entire film has a stagy feel. Indeed, this is a story that seems written for the stage.

The plot has holes and the characters come across as acting for the stage. This is not one of Hecht's better movies. It's nowhere near the quality of his work for such films as "The Front Page," "The Twentieth Century," "Comrade X," or "Nothing Sacred." Interestingly, Hecht was nominated for an Academy Award for most original screenplay. He clearly was a darling and favorite of Hollywood by 1940.

Thomas Michell's Gene Gibbons has the best line in this film. "Yesterday's pain is tomorrow's joke. And you'll always end up laughing if you can manage not to cut your throat first."

This was a fun watch, included in my oddly-titled yet truly economical Mill Creek 'Classic Romances' 8-pack, which I purchased because I love old movies and it was only $10. Though if you really stretch the definition of 'romance', the designation fits, that aspect is but a very minor component of this, and the other films', workings. The 2-time Oscar winner (both wins, and all six nominations, were for screen writing prowess) Ben Hecht directed this, and he did a decent job, even throwing in the odd bit of idiosyncratic flair. I must admit though I admire him more for his writing--he's made such a mark on cinema with simply the handful I'll casually mention here (Underworld--an Oscar-winner, The Front Page, Scarface, Nothing Sacred, Angels with Dirty Faces, Gunga Din, His Girl Friday, The Shop Around the Corner, Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Gilda, Notorious, Rope) from ones I have personally seen and adored.

I must admit I'm more familiar with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s work than that of his son here, and it's really different watching Rita Hayworth at this stage of her career, playing a shy, naïve waif--nothing like the force of nature she would become just a few years later with 'Gilda' and her short, tempestuous marriage to Orson Welles.

In short, the story works for me, that of a boozing playwright, struggling actress and hustler helping a suicidal man out of a jam. It's a sweet little movie that's worth owning and rewatching. I honestly wish they still made little wonders like this these days. Not everything has to be either Star Wars or Hamlet.

This film turned up as a surprise, like so many of Ben Hecht's films do - he had his hand in almost every quality film of the 40s-50s, and this was not only written by him but also directed and produced, so it's one of those very rare films that is more or less completely Ben Hecht's own.

The story is typical of his going to extremes about everything - there is a suicide candidate, a drunk, a reckless adventurer, a gang of gangsters setting up poker games to kill the victim, a loose young lady, a loser playwright, and a lot of intrigue. It rains almost throughut the film to make matters worse, so most of the action is indoors, in a night club (of course), in a shabby hotel with a poker room dense with smoke, and the obligatory window exit of someone getting out at any cost, like in almost every one of his films.

Although the character of the film is dark like an early noir, it's actually a charming comedy. The protagonists get together in a cozy kind of way, there is no hostility or quarrel but rather the opposite, they keep warming up to each other through the entire film, until the weather clears and the drama is over, actually to the satisfaction of everyone. Douglas Fairbanks gets a plastered nose, but that is about all the bloodshed. Nothing serious, although it's dead serious all the way, but things get sorted out more or less by themselves.