Main Street After Dark

Main Street After Dark starts out like a big city Shadow of A Doubt, takes a brief turn into Arsenic and Old Lace territory, and then spends it's last half hour playing out as an expanded edition of MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series. It's vaguely unsatisfying but features a stellar cast and has moments of noir sensibility. There are many worse ways to spend a mere 57 minutes of time.

MGM usually produced smoother B-films than MAIN STREET AFTER DARK, a curious item that starts out as a small-town study of crime, turns into a family melodrama about a bunch of pick-pockets and thieves, and then turns deadly serious when a murder is committed and the "crime doesn't pay" theme is attached to the unhappy ending.

SELENA ROYLE is the tough head of a crime family (in the sort of role you'd expect to find Shelley Winters) with TOM TROUT and DAN DURYEA as her criminal sons and AUDREY TOTTER as her wise-cracking daughter-in-law. The story involves girls who prey on soldiers and sailors to steal their wallets and anything else for financial gain so the profits can be turned over to the local pawnbroker (HUME CRONYN).

It's rather slow going even for a film that lasts just under an hour and leads to an obvious "crime doesn't pay" sort of conclusion.

The treatment is dated and heavy-handed with EDWARD ARNOLD in one of his least convincing roles as a detective committed to solving the series of petty crimes that eventually lead to a murder.

Summing up: You'll find the cast interesting but the plot is strictly by the numbers.

This film belongs to the first part of Edward L Cahn's career, before he drowned in grade B and even Z movies industry. This light hearted crime film made for MGM is not uninteresting for gem diggers as I am. This is a feature destined to the whole family for matinee theaters. It is short but not as sharp and brutal as a Warner Bros pictures of the same period, because this is not Ma Barker and her sons gang, another crime family scheme. And I found very amusing a scene of the whole criminal family, sitting in the living room and listening on the radio, not a song nor the news but guess what, the police messages thtru a scanner.....very unusual...

It's a typical wartime home: service star in the window, family sitting quietly in the living room. The door bell rings. It's a a telegram. There's tension. Tom Trout is coming home! They discuss what food there'll be and argue over who gets to cook it. After all, it's not everyday that Tom gets out of prison!

Selena Royle is the mother of the brood, with Dan Duryea as the other son; Audrey Trotter (in her screen debut) is Trotter's wife, and there's little Dorothy Morris to round out the clan. Police lieutenant Edward Arnold never seems far away, urging Trotter to keep out of trouble, mentioning that the farms are short-handed Mostly, though, this movie is hanging around, waiting for the boys to do something dangerous and get collared. With less than an hour to do it in, it doesn't take long.

A great opening scene and Arnold playing one of his chuckling characters keeps this one good. Otherwise, it looks like an expanded entry in the Crime Does Not Pay series.

Edward Arnold is a police lieutenant prowling Main Street After Dark invthis 1945 film also starring Selena Royle, Dan Duryea, Hume Cronyn, Audrey Totter, and Dorothy Morris. Directed by Edward L. Cahn.

Royle heads up a family gang of thieves, the Dibsons, and Cronyn is Keller, their pawnbroker. The big excitement in the family is that Lefty (Trout) is being released from prison. His wife Jessie (Totter) would be happier, but she seems to be in competition with her mother-in-law who takes charge of his welcoming.

The family's major concentration is on ripping off soldiers coming through town with wage packets, so none of them are very likable. And though Lefty is warned by his mother not to carry a gun, he does.

This is a more sophisticated Ma Barker group as they sit around the radio listening to - police scans instead of Jack Benny.

Audrey Totter is great in her debut.

This is supposed to be light-hearted but I felt sorry for the soldiers.