Smart Girls Don't Talk

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.

It's an interesting film and entertaining. The plot keeps moving, and there is an unexpected death. What makes it unusual is that, except for Mayo, it doesn't have any big stars. They have some solid supporting actors like Bruce Bennett and Tom D'Andrea.. But on a bigger budget there would be Cuddles or Jack Carson or Alan Hale. What this does is give lesser known actors bigger roles, like Bennett, who plays a bad guy in contrast to his loyal good-guy husband in Mildred Pierce, and Helen Westcott, who a year later had a marveous moment in the Adventures of Don Juan playing one of Don Juan's previous lovers whom he doesn't remember but she seizes the opportunity to reignite with him. Two years later, she would have the prime role of Gregory Peck's estranged ife in The Gunfighter. There's even Phyliss Coates, the first Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman TV series, in her first role as a cigarette girl. It is norish and has a romantic ending that does come out of nowhere. But it's worth a look.

Ms. Mayo must have been friends with bit part player Helen Westcott, who had a fine career, because I remember both of them fondly from the film Flaxy Martin. I can't help but wonder if Mayo got Westcott her part in this film. Westcott's performance here is formidable, especially when questioned by the police; but my fondness of her is from Flaxy Martin.

As far as Smart Girls Don't Talk, I think it's the script that truly drags down this potential entry in the noir style. It's difficult to fault the director. Cinematography is good. Lighting not so noir.

I confess I've seen this at least five times, and yet I'm still not sure why. Is it because sometimes subpar is entertaining? Is it because it's Mayo? It's certainly not because it's the talented but lanky Bruce Bennett.

Perhaps I'm truly a junkie for 1940s Hollywood. In all honesty, this one's a toss-up. Heads or tails you'll like it or dislike 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.