Three directors-to-be hide in the credits of this standard-issue hard-luck/ working-class Warners meller: scripter Robert Rossen; dialogue-director Irving Rapper; Byron Haskin on F/X. Any one a more interesting choice than journeyman helmer Lewis Seiler proves. Still, he’s competent, and what could anyone have done with this near parody of the chip-on-his-shoulder characters being worked up for new star John Garfield, here reunited with peppy Priscilla Lane from his breakthru debut in FOUR DAUGHTERS/’38. Fresh out of jail after a miscarriage of justice (the real robber just confessed); Garfield’s soon in trouble for hopping freight trains & resisting arrest. Sent to Reformatory, he meets-cute with Lane whose nasty step-dad runs the joint. Catching the canoodling lovebirds, Pop takes a swing at Garfield! Garfield swings back! Then the old man’s bum-ticker gives out! Geez Louise! Now, Garfield’s running from a murder rap! On the lam with Lane (sounds like a song cue, no?), even good luck turns bad: like a freebie wedding that comes with an identifying publicity photo; a diner gig that sets them up with an address the cops can raid; a heroic deed that makes you Front Page News. Yikes! That chip on the shoulder is now a boulder. And the last act turns positively ridiculous with a big courtroom sequence that defies all logic*. (Though Rossen’s left-leaning speeches for defense attorney Moroni Olsen are something to behold.) Alan Hale, looking rather handsome for a change, has a nice turn as a sympathetic newspaper editor, and Frank McHugh gets his laughs as a theatrical wedding organizer. But the film is entirely skippable.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Priscilla Lane probably had her best role (away from her sister act) later this year as the nice girl James Cagney is all wrong for in THE ROARING TWENTIES; *while Garfield gets a better day in court (a doomsday in court) in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE/’46.
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