Loophole

Mike Donovan (Barry Sullivan) is a teller with a problem - a $49,900 shortage (the equivalent of $466,000 in today's money) in his cash for one day. Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw) from the bonding company is sent to investigate. Slavin is sure Mike stole the money, so he's arrested. The cops believe he had a female accomplice.

Everyone believes Mike except Slavin, so the bond company revokes his bond, and he is fired. Slavin also keeps him from keeping other jobs by telling the bosses they've hired a thief.

Slavin figures if he can keep Mike broke, he'll go for the money. Meanwhile Mike and his wife (Dorothy Malone) sell their house and move into a cheaper place.

Mike meanwhile gets a job as a cab driver, and the boss tells Slavin that until Mike is in prison, he's working there. It's in his cab that Mike hears a familiar voice and the wheels start turning. He and his wife devise a plan.

Charles McGraw is fantastic as a relentless investigator who doesn't have a nice bone in his body. He has the strongest role. The revelation is sweet '30s and '40s ingenue Mary Beth Hughes as a hardboiled blonde - she was terrific! Sullivan and Malone are sympathetic characters and play their parts well.

Great seeing all those old '50s cars.

You know in five minutes how this film will end. But it is the journey, not reaching the destination that is the best part of this low-budget film noir piece. Barry Sullivan is miscast as a banker who has a bad day at the office. But Mcgraw is letter perfect in his Edward G imitation of "Double Indemnity". He plays the hard-nosed bond detective to a tee. The females do well in this film, also. I love the bank robber's moll, who was as evil as they get, and the good girl was predictably played well by good girl Dorothy Malone, who always suffered during love scenes (she could never convince the audience she was overtly sexy). She is fine in this role, however. Sullivan, who was famous for uttering one of the most famous lines that ever slipped through the censors in Hollywood with Barbara Stanwyck in "Forty Guns", when he tells Stanwyck that "she better not play with his gun or it might go off in her face". How the hell did that get through? Anyway, the direction is interesting and the production values are wretched, but somehow, the film works anyway. The idea is quite clever at the beginning. A watchable noir.

If Loophole had starred a well known actor like Robert Mitchum this film would be better known. But Barry Sullivan good actor that he was never made it to the top tier. As it is it does have Dorothy Malone as Sullivan's loyal supportive wife, but this was two years away from Malone's Oscar performance in Written On The Wind which vaulted her career into the big time.

In fact had Malone already made Written On The Wind she would have gotten the part that Mary Beth Hughes had as the hard hearted dame who drives Don Beddoe into a life of crime.

I have to say that Beddoe and Hughes had one brilliant scheme for embezzlement. They take $50,000.00 from the bank where Sullivan works as a teller and suspicion falls on him. The whole movie is Sullivan trying to clear himself of suspicion.

He's in fact initially questioned by the police and FBI and let go for lack of evidence. But the insurance investigator Charles McGraw stays doggedly and Javert like on his trail. Sometimes Javerts have their uses, but only when they're right. McGraw is dead wrong and won't back off. He keeps hounding Sullivan hoping he'll lead him to the money that he doesn't have.

Beddoe is another interesting character. It's like they borrowed Alec Guinness's character from The Lavendar Hill Mob and used it here in a serious vein. He's this mild mannered teller who gets seduced by Mary Beth Hughes and then embezzles the money. Just a man thinking with his male member getting a taste of a sexy dame way out of his league.

It's Hughes however that really dominates this film. One of her best bad girl roles. But she's definitely one you might risk imprisonment for a little nookie.

Sullivan's a true tragic figure who fortunately had a couple of people believing in him. He's not arrested but he loses his teller job and then McGraw keeps on his trail getting him fired from every job he gets. I've known law enforcement people like that, won't explore other alternatives to a theory of a crime. I've known people who've suffered because of it.

Loophole is quite the sleeper noir film. Definitely do not miss this if it is broadcast.

Very implausible plot. What bank is ever inspected by a team of auditors in this way who just suddenly turn up to count the money in each teller's drawer? And wouldn't the teller be casting a careful eye over what the "inspector" was doing, no matter how busy he was? Very odd.

A bank teller comes up $50,000 short and an investigator is determined to nail him for theft. The film is something of a mixed bag. The cinematography is pedestrian, the narration is hokey, and the ending is too neat to be satisfying. However, a story about someone being wrongfully accused always makes my blood boil in a way that holds my attention. Barry Sullivan is great as usual, but more interesting is Charles McGraw. McGraw usually plays a righteous character, but here he's such a relentless, contemptible bastard that you can't wait to see him get what's coming to him. The film could have paid off a little better in this respect, but it's an engaging performance. Dorothy Malone is unfortunately saddled with a dull good girl role that doesn't exploit her talents, but there is a small but delightful femme fatale part for Mary Beth Hughes. Ultimately the positives outweigh the negatives and it's a fun watch.