User reviews

The ingredients are all there for a superb Christmas holiday classic, but Mr. Soft Touch somehow fails to measure up. It could be because two directors with two different visions if any, Gordon Douglas and Henry Levin got assigned to this film from Columbia.

The film starts out with the same premise as Angels With Dirty Faces. Glenn Ford is a former nightclub owner who while serving in World War II was done out of his share of the club by the mob. Unlike James Cagney who expected to move back into partnership with Humphrey Bogart and George Bancroft, Ford's a bit more realistic than that. He just robs the place and he's got both the law and Ted DeCorsia and assorted hoods looking for him.

Circumstances manage to place Ford in a settlement house in San Francisco where Evelyn Keyes takes an interest in him. He actually starts to help out around the place and spreads just a bit of that hundred grand he robbed from the mob. But Keyes who can't help falling for Glenn and her boss Beulah Bondi know he's trouble.

Mr. Soft Touch is not a bad film, but it could have been a holiday classic, it goes wide of the mark with some bad direction. Or maybe no direction, could happen with two directors. The most interesting character in the film is John Ireland who plays a sleazy tabloid columnist, but a man with an impeccable nose for news and trouble.

Glenn Ford's fans should like Mr. Soft Touch and Evelyn Keyes is absolutely radiant as the social worker. They teamed a few times as well for Columbia, but never got the acclaim that Ford did with Rita Hayworth in Gilda. Of course Mr. Soft Touch isn't Gilda.

A war hero returns from the service and winds up stealing his own money back from the mob in "Mr. Soft Touch," a 1949 film starring Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, John Ireland, and Ted de Corsa.

Ford plays Joe Miracle (shortened from his Polish name) who comes home before Christmas and finds out his partner in a club has been murdered by the mob, and the mob has taken his money. Joe retaliates by breaking into the club and stealing $100,000 from the safe. With everyone looking for him, Joe has a friend buy him a ticket to Japan, but the ticket is for a later date. So he takes off and enters a settlement house run by Jenny Jones (Evelyn Keyes). Jenny thinks Joe is a musician down on his luck. Meanwhile, a newspaper columnist who knows what happened wants Joe's story and is trying to track him down. In writing about Joe, the mob picks up his trail.

Given the cast, Mr. Soft Touch was obviously intended to be a noir but turns into kind of a Christmas romance with comic aspects. For some reason it failed to hold my interest, even though I love Glenn Ford. The acting was good all around, but I preferred the beginning noir and wish it had stayed on that route. The original director was replaced, possibly to change the direction of the movie.

Someone on this board mentioned that John Garfield would have been better in this role. He would have been very good as he always was, but he and Ford were different kinds of types and actors. Garfield looked and acted tough, and Glenn Ford was Everyman. I think his casting in this is the better choice. Joe is a likable, nice guy who was ripped off by the mob while he was off serving his country. Glenn Ford didn't have Garfield's range, but in the right role, he was very effective. And, I might add, easy on the eyes.

The credentials for a superb Noir are all there: Glenn Ford has been one of the most convincing (and still strangely unsung) anti-heroes American cinema has produced. The wonderful opening sequence (in which Ford escapes both the police and the mob) is as minimalistic ally brilliant as the seemingly tight budget would have allowed. Yet after only a short while the film's tone changes radically: sweeter music, romantic comedy and a (however underplayed) Christmas tear-jerker emerge from what promised to be a crisp, economic little masterpiece.

I'm not saying the uneven pacing ruin the film completely but my suspicion is, looking at the credits (no, I don't mean the cast which features a wonderfully noir-ish array of characters: Evelyn Keyes, John Ireland, Ted de Corsia) there are TWO directors (one made good noirs with Ford, the other made Rat Pack flicks with Sinatra, Davis Jr, Martin et al), TWO directors of photography...

For what it's worth my guess is the producer got cold feet and hired a second director to save (a lame comedy? a routine noir?) a product he wasn't very happy with. He probably made a mistake...

Nightclub owner Joe returns from WWII only to learn gangsters have taken over his business and killed his partner. Being a tough guy himself, he gets the money back, but now needs to hightail out of the country. But before his ship sails, he's thrust into a neighborhood settlement house, whose winsome supervisor tempts him with a different kind of life.

Oddball Xmas film, sort of like gangster noir meets Xmas spirit. I'm surmising it's holiday fare since Santa and the spirit of giving amount to the subtext. Plus, "Miracle" is Joe's (Ford) last name— no guess work there. Nonetheless, the tough guy overlay is heavy and darkly photographed. And catch that ending—certainly not what I expected as noir triumphs. Then too, just count actor Ford's number of smiles, or leading lady Keyes'. It's more like dour Xmas than the merry kind. Still, I kind of enjoyed the overall result. Maybe because it manages to convey a spirit of giving without rubbing our nose in it. After all, Joe's more interested in keeping the hundred-grand than doling it out to the needy. Good thing the kids are there to ease his greed.

Still, the movie's pretty uneven. The gangster part sort of drops in and out. I get the feeling no one in production had a clear concept of the desired result. Overall, the parts may not fit well, but they are lively, never dragging. Still, it's an interesting little film, but don't expect it to show up for holiday celebration, except maybe for fans of 40's noir.

Here is a strange movie. Depending on what part you are tuned into, you may be watching a gangster movie with vintage Depression-era wise-guy chatter, or a heart-touching true-meaning-of-Christmas film, or a comic variation on a "Crazy House"-type theme, featuring scenes with eccentric characters pontificating weirdly. Then I saw that there were two directors, so maybe that is why the film shifts so much.

Not that it is bad. On the contrary, "Mr. Soft Touch" is quite an entertaining movie, with a fast-paced script that barely ever pauses to catch its breath. The reason this film works for me is that Glenn Ford so easily slides from film-noir to romance to comedy and back and forth again. A very interesting role for Glenn, perhaps inadvertently given a chance here to show how versatile he could be.

Evelyn Keyes plays an interesting character as well. It is unusual for a film made in what was still the 1940's to feature a character who so openly refers to, and sometimes uses manipulatively, a handicap such as deafness; the references to the hearing aid may make a modern viewer a little uncomfortable.

The only character who seems out of place is John Irelands's crusading reporter. He wears a pair of dark-framed, "please don't hit me" glasses, which don't seem right for some reason. His character is perhaps a good guy, perhaps not; we never really find out, and in the end, neither we nor the directors seemed to care. Just not sure how he really fits in.

From a social standpoint, "Mr. Soft Touch" presents an up-close and intimate look at private charity in the days before the government took over that role. We get a chance to spend quality time with those caring souls who fought tirelessly against an endless shortage of money and supplies, and who believed that it was worth helping people, even if it was only one person at a time. No one in this movie whines about getting a check from the government.

The bottom line, then, is that you have a film that is part "Little Caesar", part "Its a Wonderful Life", part "Bowery Boys", and part "You Can't Take it with You". If you accept the genre-changes that occur haphazardly throughout the film as all part of the fun, then you can have yourself an enjoyable hour and a half in the company of "Mr. Soft Touch".

Joe Miracle returns from World War 2 to find that his San Francisco nightclub has been taken over by the mob. To get even he steals $100,000 from the club and plans to leave the country. He hides out in a settlement and falls in love but can he stay out of danger?

Set at Christmas, but not a festive film as such, this is an entertaining offering despite the ambiguous ending. Glenn Ford stars as the veteran who develops a conscience and the principled head of the settlement is played by Evelyn Keyes.

Joe Miracle (Glenn Ford) is a World War 2 veteran who returns back home only to find out that his nightclub has been taken over by gangsters. So Joe decides he has no choice but to rob his own casino then run for the hills to avoid the gangsters coming after him. Joe may have had a plan to take the money and run until a pretty advocate of the down-trodden named Jenny Jones (Evelyn Keyes) arranges to spring Joe out of jail on the condition he stay at her halfway house with the other unfortunate souls.

It is Christmas time and very quickly Joe realizes that the plight of the families and single men living in the shelter are worse off than he ever envisioned. As it is the Christmas season, and Joe is quickly attracted to the shelters Manager, Miss Jenny Jones, Joe's plans for a quick getaway by himself changes and his conscience gets the better of him which is why he has been nicknamed Joe Miracle.

The movie title does not provide the audience any inkling that this is a Christmas themed film, but make no mistake it is a FEEL GOOD Christmas themed film that is worth watching more than once.

I give the film a decent 7 out of 10 IMDb rating.

"Mr. Soft Touch" is an odd sort of film. It's like merging a film noir movie with a schmaltzy family film--and the results are far from great. Now I am not saying it's a bad picture--but it could have easily been a lot better--mostly because of its saccharine script.

The film begins with Glenn Ford on the run. It seems he held up a nightclub and stole $100,000. But was it exactly stealing? It seems that the club had belonged to Ford but while he was off fighting in the war, it was stolen out from under him. So, the money is just payback for what was rightfully his--at least in his mind. The problem is that the mobsters who now run the place are not about to let him get away with it...and Ford needs to get out of the country ASAP.

Now here is where it gets bizarre. His boat doesn't leave for a day so Ford tries to get himself locked up for the night--as he figures at least he'll be safe. But a do-gooder social worker feels sorry for him and gets the police to agree to release him to her program--something Ford really doesn't want. And, after a while, Ford's tough-guy persona is slowly eroded as he starts to think of others and care about the people in this Salvation Army-like setting. What's next? Well, it is predictable but a bit ridiculous--so watch it if you are really, really curious. I wouldn't.

Ford's character is a bizarre enigma. He's supposed to be tough and nasty--and he's good at that. But later, he's supposed to be a softy--and this just never range true. Nor, for that matter, did the script.

I see from other reviews that some viewers are troubled by this film's failure to fall squarely into the comedy or noir genres. Maybe that's why I like it, for isn't life a mixture of comedy and tragedy? My interest didn't flag during the movie as I found it fresh and original and the plot twists unpredictable. I'm not a big Glenn Ford fan but he hits this nail squarely on the head. Even though his Joe Miracle is more accurately a victim than a baddie, he has been sucked into the world of crime and violence. Can the beautiful Jenny Jones redeem him, and can he even survive? It's lineball all the way. Evelyn Keyes is just lovely to look at, and there's lots of character actors doing their bit, some of them only children. I'm going off to do a bit of research on who wrote it and who directed it. They deserve kudos. Surprisingly good entertainment.

"Mr. Soft Touch" may seem familiar to anyone who has seen RKO's 1943 film, "Mr. Lucky." That's because it's based on the same story, but with enough changes in the plot, characters and setting, that it can't be called a remake.

The earlier film takes place just before the U.S. entered World War II. This one is set shortly after the war. Both film's heroes were gamblers. Cary Grant's Joe Adams owned a floating casino that plied ports up and down the Atlantic Coast. Glenn Ford's Joe Miracle was the co-owner of a casino in Los Angeles.

Grant's "Mr. Lucky" sets out to find a stakeholder for his casino's next port of entry. Ford's "Mr. Soft Touch" robs his casino that had been taken over by the mob while he was off at war. Both movies have slowly developing love stories. Laraine Day is Dorothy Bryant, a society woman who eventually catches Grant's heart, and vice versa. She has been helping coordinate volunteer war relief for the British population of England which had been at war for more than a year. Ford's Mr. Soft Touch eventually falls for Evelyn Keyes' Jenny Jones. She grew up as an abused child and now works as one of the head staff of a large inner-city orphanage.

Both films have elements of crime and capers. Viewers see how Mr. Lucky deals with coin tosses and tricks of the trade to win things for the British War Relief Society. But we see just one example of Ford's Mr. Soft Touch winning goods for the orphanage. Yet donations, a baby grand piano and supplies keep showing up at the orphanage after Joe Miracle has been out making calls. While both films have drama, the first one has enough comedy to be billed as such by Hollywood. But the stakes, surroundings and people of "Mr. Soft Touch" are more serious and quite dour.

Adding to the considerably brighter atmosphere of the first film was its cast. From the stars to the sizable supporting cast, it was peopled with the best known of the day. And several of the cast had meaty roles with several lines in scenes throughout. "Mr. Soft Touch" has other known actors of the day, but most weren't of the stature of the cast members of "Mr. Lucky." Most have short time on screen with lines. Evelyn Keyes gives a fine performance as the female lead in this film. She had played opposite Ford in the 1948 comedy, "The Mating of Millie," and had been in a few other films with Ford in lesser roles. And she would have more leads and supporting roles over the next decade plus. But Keyes was tied to Columbia Pictures, which was not one of the Big Five of Hollywood's golden era. So, she never achieved the star status that the leading ladies of the biggest studios did.

RKO was one of the golden era Big Five of Hollywood, and one can tell by the screenplay, sets and camera work that "Mr. Lucky was a first-class production from start to finish. "Mr. Soft Touch, on the other hand, had a screenplay with holes. It wasn't tightly knit and coherent. The direction and editing appear very weak. On the other hand, the camera work is quite exceptional in this film, as it captures the mood of a noir atmosphere in the orphanage and street settings. That may have had something to do with the revisions in the story plot, so that the lower side of life on the streets could get by with much less cost for sets, costumes and design.

The endings to the two films are very good twists, and very different. But, for Mr. Soft Touch, the audience isn't quite sure of the final outcome as the film comes to a close. One other thing is worth noting about "Mr. Soft Touch." It's opening has a very good and rather long scene of a car chase.

This is a good movie with an interesting, if somewhat incomplete story, but mystery film buffs should enjoy it. This review begged comparison with "Mr. Lucky" because of the same story source and the very revisions of characters and plots. And, for those who have seen the earlier film, but not yet this one, it's to help the enjoyment of "Mr. Soft Touch" by dispelling any expectations that it might match the earlier film.

Joe Miracle (Glenn Ford) is on the run from the law. He's a returning vet who finds his San Francisco nightclub under the control of the mob. His friend and partner Leo is presumed dead. He steals $100k from formerly his own club and tries to sail for Yokohama on Christmas Eve. He assumes a different identity to hide until his ship arrives. Sweet social worker Jenny Jones believes him to be a down-and-out musician named Victor Christopher.

This is mostly crime drama with a touch of Christmas inspired goodwill. I don't care that much about the crime drama. The feel-good scenes are really touching. I love the blanket scene. I really wish that this is more a Christmas movie rather and less a neo-noir crime drama.

I was expecting a crime drama, maybe even a noir...what I wasn't expecting was a holiday film just shy of a holiday romance. WWII veteran Joe Miracle comes home to find a gangster has killed his best friend and business partner and taken over their night club. Joe has an inspired idea and steals the money out of the nightclub safe, although as one reporter put it...it is not exactly stealing if it is your money. With both the gangster with his men and the police after him, Joe seeks out first an old friend. There, he is mistaken for the friend and almost arrested if not for the interference of citizen do-gooder Jenny Jones. She offers up an alternative to arrest on Christmas Eve, counseling at the settlement home...but when Joe discovers the boat ticket his friend purchased for him isn't for another day and a half, he decides that a good place to hide might be in jail with his new mistaken identity. He proceeds to ring a bell and create a ruckus until the police return and arrest him. Unfortunately, Jenny Jones ends up interfering with the judge once again...which is how Joe ends up staying at the settlement home where he is put to work decorating for their upcoming Christmas party.

With bell ringing Santa's, Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, bells and a Christmas choir singing Christmas carols...this was a surprisingly festive holiday film. There is an overall moral message and a romance...the only thing I was surprised by was the ending it didn't quite match the overall holiday cheer. I loved the interaction between Joe and the boys in the Settlement house, but my favorite scene besides the bell-ringing one was the boys cutting down a Christmas tree in the park.

This is recommendation from me, while not my favorite crime drama it was fun to have a holiday offering in the genre.

"Mr. Soft Touch" takes forever to really get going, and even when it does it's only nominally entertaining.

Glenn Ford spends the first half of the movie wandering around a community shelter, where he's hunkered down to hide from thugs who are after him. He flirts a lot with Evelyn Keyes, who looks adorable in this but doesn't get much to do. Ford has a charming, winning screen presence, so it's easy enough to hang out with him for a bit, but if you came here looking for a noir, you might be disappointed.

The noir part kicks in in the last half hour or so, and there are some shootouts and a burning building to escape from. The ending leaves us hanging -- Ford has been shot and lies in the arms of his love, but whether he dies or lives to see another day we'll never know.

Grade: B.

I like this film. The casting is terrific. Although there is some very dated dialogue, some lines are very memorable.

Before the war, "Joe" (Glenn Ford) and his partner ran a successful music venue. After he war, he returns to find that it wasn't his anymore and that his partner was no more at all! Set on revenge, he empties the safe of $100,000 and then takes refuge in a shelter run by "Jenny" (Evelyn Keyes) where he passes off a down-at-heel musician. His time with her makes him realise just how decent she is, at how important her work in the community is, and they gradually start to bond. Then John Ireland's nosey journalist "Byrd" manages to figure out his true identity and the resultant scoop puts his nemesis "Teener" (Roman Bohnen) and his thugs on his trail. Quickly, he realises that it's not just him that is in danger, and as a conflagration follows and the money changes hands a few times, "Joe" must make some tough choices to do the right thing and, hopefully, to stay alive too. There does end up being quite a decent chemistry between Ford and Keyes, but the rest of this is a slow burn and a bit keystone cops - only it's keystone gangsters instead, led by the most un-menacing "Rainey" (Ted de Corsia). Ireland probably steals the acting plaudits here, his character so unlikeable that it ended up being the most admirable. It does offer a message about the value of providing social care and of the kindly souls who move heaven and earth to provide it, but as a crime drama it's just a bit weak and Ford doesn't really impose himself, sorry.

A wrong headed action yarn starring Glenn Ford & Evelyn Keyes. Ford has returned to the States after a stint in the military to find his gambling establishment has been taken over. Robbing the place & hightailing it back to his stomping grounds in a stolen car, Ford manages to get to a bickering couple (friends of his) to hole up in their apartment. When the cops are called because the husband is a habitual wife beater & bell ringer (the building is more annoyed by the latter), Ford pretends to be the hubby so he can be safely in custody since the robbed party are on his tail. Keyes, a social worker, pleads his case & since the Christmas season is upon them, Ford is encouraged to hang out w/her at a community center to help out (put up decorations & the like) & when he finally confesses to Keyes his true identity, he manages to even fall in love. W/a plot that bounces back in forth to noirish suspense & comedic hi-jinks (Ford falls from a ladder landing on top of a piano, breaking it), the two directors, Henry Levin & Gordon Douglas, seem to have made 2 different films & neither one is much compelling. Also starring John Ireland who plays a newspaper columnist.

Reworking of an old John Garfield film, with some of the same cast, this slight drama tells the story of a guy (Ford) on the run with stolen loot who ends up in a settlement house. There he learns a few things about life and himself. He falls for a woman (Keyes) who works there and has taken pity on him, thinking he is a down and out musician. A reporter (Ireland) discovers his true identity, which leads to gangsters pursuing him and causing no end of trouble. Ford is OK, but Garfield was much more convincing in an almost identical role. Keyes is simply window dressing. This kind of film was very popular in the 1930s, but pretty passe by the late 1940s. Columbia or whomever probably was looking over some old movie scripts and decided to dust this one off and make it the bottom half of a double bill.

There's something about this movie that just bugs me. It does nothing well, no matter what it tries - comedy, crime thriller, romance. Ugh. It actually made me a little queasy. The only thing more embarrassing than seeing Glenn Ford in this was seeing him in "The Visitor".