Loophole

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.

Barry Sullivan is the chief teller at a bank branch. Checking his figures at the end of the day, he comes up $50,000 short. He rechecks, and goes home to wife Dorothy Malone and his dog, and tells her what happened. She knows he should have reported the shortage before he went home. He tells his boss the first thing Monday, and the bonding company is told. They send Charles McGraw to investigate, and plays tough, finally dragging Sullivan and Miss Malone to the police station. The cops believe Sullivan, who remembers that the auditors had come by in the morning, and had done something odd, asking to recheck the big bills. They send Sullivan home, and try to figure out who the auditor was. Not McGraw. He believes Sullivan did it, and starts hounding him. Sullivan loses his bond and goes through a series of small jobs, each of which McGraw gets him fired from. When Sullivan gets a job at Richard Reeves' can company, he tells McGraw that as long as Sullivan keeps his nose clean, he'll keep his job until he goes to jail.

McGraw is brilliant as the brutal investigator, convinced he is Inspector Javert and suggesting the cops third-degree Sullivan. Miss Malone is the dutiful wife, a couple of years before she would win an Oscar.Don Beddoe, one of those familiar faces from hundreds of movies, is fine as the actual thief, and peroxided Mary Beth Hughes is fine as the viperish dame who has Beddo on the hook.

It's a fine shaky A production from Allied Artists that makes the most of its cast and script, an exercise in the tawdry underworld that Sullivan and perky Dorothy Malone fall into when suspicion falls on them.

When a bank gets audited, one of the tellers, mike donovan, comes up massively short. The viewer sees exactly what happens, so all the suspense comes from seeing what will happen to him when it is discovered. If he had reported it right away, it wouldn't have looked quite so suspicious, but he waited until the next day to report it. It's mostly good. Lots of suspense as the coppers and bond company hound donovan, and keep him from working anywhere else. Can he ever prove his innocence? Directed by harry schuster, for allied. I had seen his marine raiders, which was pretty good! There are several later films with the same name, but only the 1981 version involves a bank robbery. The mistaken identity bit is quite similar to hitchcock's wrong man, from 1956. But of course, loophole came first! Lead barry sullivan had just made bad and the beautiful, and was busy in hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Even has two stars on the walk of fame!

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.

I loved "Loophole", and the film has many things going for it. The story is much like a variation on "Les Misérables" and "The Fugitive" and much of it is because the story seems so real.

When the story begins, Mike Donovan (Barry Sullivan) is a well respected head teller at a bank. However, his reputation is destroyed when a group of bank examiners arrive to check on the bank...a standard procedure. What is NOT standard is that one of these examiners is a phony...a guy using this situation to steal from the bank. And, unfortunately for Mike, the crook steals from his cash box. And, when the bank is $50,000 short, he's in deep trouble with the law.

After investigating, the police find no money nor any proof that Mike stole anything...and they believe he's innocent. However, a security officer from the bank's head office, Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw), has assumed from the start that Mike is a crook...and even after the police release Mike, Guy persecutes him--following him everywhere and getting him fired from many jobs*. After a while, it's obvious the only chance Mike has is to find the real crooks himself.

This films works for two main reasons. First, Donovan is so likable and 'normal' that you really sympathize with the guy. Second, and more important, Gus is just scum....as bad as Javert from "Les Misérables". He's humorless, mean and a punk....and McGraw was wonderful here and in many other films. There just weren't many actors who could pull the role off like he did...plus the writing really helped. Overall, an exceptional crime film...and one that you really must see.

*My assumption is that much of Gus' actions in the film would not be the least bit legal in 2021....especially going to employers and telling them that Mike is a thief and should be fired.