Main Street After Dark

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.

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.

Too bad that more work and fine tuning wasn't put into this film. What you get is a mildly entertaining programmer about a family of pickpockets harassed by a police lieutenant who could be held partly responsible for the murder that takes place during a robbery. Even the title is misleading. with a title like "Main street After Dark," one would expect to see either a film noir or a "Naked City" type docudrama. Instead we get a "Crime Does Not Pay" type package that plays too much like a stage presentation, especially for the first thirty minutes. That's not to take away from an intriguing story, acted out by a stellar cast. One of the reviewers for IMDb mixes up the family, although the review itself is excellent. The family consists of ma, one daughter, and two sons. Lefty is one of the sons. He is married to Jessie Belle.

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.

While boasting "more stars than there are in heaven" MGM was not terribly stellar when it came to making crime pictures. This is a somewhat clunky example of that shortfall, but still worth an hour of your time.

What's interesting about Main Street After Dark is its noirish view of the American home front during World War II, made when the war was still going on.

No Andy Hardy-like coziness here. Main Street in this burg is teeming with pickpockets and pattyrollers (whatever those are) all eager to bamboozle the boys in uniform before they ship out.

All in all, it's a surprisingly gritty take on the seamy side of wartime America, enlivened by the screen debut of Audrey Totter, who plays-what else?-one tough dame.