ddcamera

Two of the American participants in the making of this 1949 English film, the director Edward Dmytryk and the actor Phil Brown (Bill Kronin), were blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In Britain, they joined other former members of the American Communists Party who found work. This excellent thriller from the novel and screenplay by Alec Coppel is perfect example of Dmytryk's outstanding craftsmanship. Perfectly staged, photographed, and paced, as was Dmytryk's fashion, the director sets out to tell the suspenseful story shot after shot, scene after scene, never drawing attention to himself. He is helped, of course, by the underplaying of Robert Newton before his growling pirate days, and an astonishing performance by Brown. After Dmytryk named names before HUAC in 1952, he was able to go back to work in America where he directed such films as The Caine Mutiny, Young Lions, and Raintree County. Brown reamined in the UK. He is best remembered today as Luke Skywalker's uncle in Star Wars,

Fans of low-budget tough guys detective pictures, such as this one made at Republic in 1947, may have noticed that the name Albert DeMond often appears in their credits. IMDB lists over a 132 credits over the years. One suspects that DeMond was often called in at the last moment to punch up mediocre scripts with his snappy barbs and one-liners. DeMond's signature seems to be wise-cracking dialogue, snarled by someone cynical like hard-boiled PI William Marshall in this fast-paced mystery in which lines like "This gun doesn't shoot marshmallows" get tossed around when the leads actors are not fighting bad guys. In little over an hour of screen time, there are three fights plus a car chase. Some of the minor players are worth your time: the beautiful Stephanie Bachelor as a convincing bad girl, Ben Weldon as the gambling club bartender, and George Gay as the butler. Gay sounds a lot like Peter Lorre, although he was born in St. Petersburg. Director Lesley Selander, better know for his Westerns, does an excellent job of keeping things moving so fast you don't have time to follow the plot.

Fans of pre-Code feature films will enjoy this forgotten 1933 gem made in twenty-three days, brilliantly directed by the world's most underestimated director, Michael Curtiz, for Warner Bros when young Daryl Zanuck ran the studio and Hal Wallis assisted him. The film, lasting a little more than an hour, is packed with mystery, comedy, and romance, all thrown together helter-skelter and moved along at a rapid pace whose only purpose is to entertain. William Powell, as to be expected, is his usual impeccable self as the charming detective with integrity who ends up helping beautiful Margaret Lindsay, a society damsel in distress. As those were the days when all well-born people in films spoke with English accents, Margaret's is particularly thick. Ruth Donnelly plays the opposite: a working-class secretary who gets the laughs. There is a mystery plot, of course, that makes more sense than most. It's peopled with any number of sleazy lower-class villains, one of whom is referred to as a "snowbird" in the days before the word meant someone spending his winters in Florida or New Mexico. A most enjoyable film made when movies were movies.

.