Prolific B’way & Hollywood scribe Norman Krasna uses a light touch on this melodrama, adapting what amounts to a low-rent GRAND HOTEL as if reimagined by GUYS & DOLLS author Damon Runyon. Set largely in the lounge of a theater while a dopey musical comedy goes thru the motions upstairs, the area becomes a hangout and hide-out for handcuffed convicted murderer Richard Barthelmess, killing a few hours with his cop handler before catching a train to his hanging, but hoping for one last shot (literally) at the guy who ratted on him. (What a perfect moment to take in a mindless show!) Meanwhile, box-office manager Henry Travers is on the hunt for a missing piece of jewelry; coat checker Joe Morrison knows where it is, but won’t tell; girlfriend Helen Mack may ‘give-in’ to raise 200 bucks; Gertrude Michael goes behind her husband’s back with venal lover Ray Milland (each hoping to get that jewelry back); a sweet retired couple are caught ‘upgrading’ their seats; while various cops in ascending order of position & mental logic try to figure it all out; and a non-functioning pay phone booth stands empty to help plot machinations. A big comedown for Barthelmess from the prestige social issue pics he’d been making at Warners, but this little Paramount toss-off is fun.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *After a decade at First National/Warner Bros., Barthelmess was doing a fast fade. After this one off at Paramount, he made a film in England before heading to France and a botched facelift that kept him off the screen for three years, finally coming back in 1939 at Howard Hawks’ urging for ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS. Forty when he made this film, he looks perfectly fine, a bit like Jimmy Fallon.
DOUBLE-BILL: Mitchell Leisen, still new to directing, got this gig after his confident, pacey work on MURDER AT THE VANITIES/’34, an even better backstage murder story.
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