Private Hell 36

Private Hell 36 is a tale of two Los Angeles PD cops who get an assignment to track down money from a big bank robbery which is being laundered at the pari-mutual window at Hollywood Park. Howard Duff is a responsible family man with wife Dorothy Malone and an infant daughter. He's got the financial responsibilities that any middle class individual from the Eisenhower 50s has.

His partner is Steve Cochran a brooding loner who feels he's not gotten his just due from the job. Their boss is Captain Dean Jagger who gives them that assignment.

That assignment also comes with trailing singer Ida Lupino who is the only one who can finger the right bettor. She does and when they give chase the perpetrator dies and they're left with a whole lot of money and maybe, just maybe they ought to keep it themselves.

I'm not sure how any of us would have handled the issue. The police however have some strict guidelines because they get tempted in these situations a lot more often than you or I would be. Cochran goes over the edge and he's taking Duff with him.

Some of these situations were handled a dozen years later in the Glenn Ford film The Money Trap where he and Ricardo Montalban found themselves tempted the same way. If you're familiar with that film you know how it comes out and probably a bit better for one of the detectives than in The Money Trap.

Don Siegel got good performances out of his ensemble cast. See this one back to back with The Money Trap if possible.

Strolling home one night, Los Angeles police detective Steve Cochran interrupts a robbery in progress at a drugstore. He fatally shoots one of the perps and books the other. A marked $50 bill in the loot came from $300-grand robbery-homicide in New York. Cochran and his partner Howard Duff trace the bill back to the pharmacist, the bartender who passed it to him, and Ida Lupino, coat-check girl and part-time singer at the bar. She claims a drunk tipped her with it one night after she sang him `Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' five times; the cops don't quite believe her, but it doesn't matter. Cochran is falling for her, even though his cop's salary won't snare her the diamond bracelets she's after.

Over the next week, they drag her to a racetrack where more of the marked cash is being uttered, in hopes that she'll spot her tipsy tipper. When she does, Cochran and Duff go off in hot pursuit. The getaway car hurtles down an embankment, killing the driver but leaving cash blowing around the ravine. Cochran pockets about $80-grand and turns over the rest, leaving Duff angry but not angry enough to break the inviolable code: Never rat out your partner. Cochran makes Duff an unwilling accomplice by giving him a duplicate key to a rented trailer where he's stashed the money; it's parked in slip #36. But then Cochran gets a phone call from a stranger who claims the cash is his and wants to make a deal....

Opening with an initial burst of two brutal robberies, director Don Siegel then slackens the pace but not the tension; he moves the story forward through character rather than incident. The square-rigger Duff tries to dissolve his guilt in alcohol, to the distress of his wife (Dorothy Malone, in too skimpy a role); Cochran and Lupino seesaw up and down, back and forth in their more volatile liaison. The fifth major player, Dean Jagger, as the detectives' canny superior, senses that their story doesn't quite add up.

Written by Lupino and her ex-husband Collier Young, the movie departs from the usual formula by not making current spouse Duff Lupino's love interest; perhaps in consequence, Duff loses the cocky, ingratiating mien he often adopts, while Cochran runs off with the meatier role. Private Hell 36 stays lean and hard-edged (with help from cinematographer Burnett Guffey); it's among the better offerings from the latter years of the noir cycle.

Cop partners are tempted into stealing robbery loot, causing tension between them and troubles for their women.

The crime drama may be a potboiler, but it's also redeemed by an effective cast. And that's despite one of the most obtuse film titles in Hollywood annals. Actually, the movie amounts to a Steve Cochran showcase, showing what that swarthy actor could do given the chance. Nonetheless, the competition's pretty stiff from Duff and Lupino, while Malone would have to wait a year for her break-through role in Battle Cry (1955).

Cochran and Lupino do make a convincing tarnished couple, as another reviewer points out. At the same time, Cochran's devious cop amounts to one of the most unself-conscious performances I've seen from an actor. Note how at ease he is in the role, as if he really is cop Bruner.

It's also director Don Siegel, a year away from his classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). His skills are especially apparent in that opening action sequence that hooks the audience right away. Also, the car-wreck scene is really well done—no stock footage there— including the smoothly executed thievery scene. However, the last sequence, in the trailer park, appears too abrupt and poorly staged, as though the production had run out of film or money or both.

Kudos to co-producer Lupino who continued to be instrumental in turning out quality B- movies at a time when TV was slowing demand. Nothing memorable here, just a solid little crime drama with an expert cast.

This taut, low-key and highly effective B-movie film noir was an early example of a style that director Don Siegel came to perfect in his later films. Although dealing with robbery and murder it's at its most effective in the small scenes of domesticity between the central characters, a crooked cop, his partner and the women they are both involved with and there are good performances from Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Dorothy Malone in these roles. (Lupino co-wrote the movie with producer Collier Young). Excitement is generated from not knowing exactly which way the characters might go and from the degree of complexity that both the players and writers invest them with. The denouement is a bit of let-down, however, with things tidied up too quickly and too neatly. Still, it's a commendable effort.

Very watchable film, especially scenes with Steve Cochran. He is absolutely beautiful to look at, one of the most gorgeous men ever captured on film. He is also the best actor of the cast, bringing a sly grace to his role. He seems very on target as a cop who sees an opportunity to get rich off of money from a dead murder suspect. Ida Lupino does a capable job as the object of his lust, but she was a bit long in the tooth at that point, and just didn't "fit" as a femme fatale. Howard Duff went way overboard in his portrayal of the "good" cop. His teeth-clenching, jaw-rubbing portrayal of moral dilemma was kind of strained. Dorothy Malone did a suprisingly good job as Duff's wife. Her performance in the film was one of the most subtle she ever gave. The film suffered when it got really bogged down in the middle as they searched for the suspect at the racetrack. A lot of that should have been trimmed out. Otherwise, a nice film for a rainy afternoon.