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Saturday, May 17, 2008

DECOY (1946)

This recently recovered ‘noir’ from Monogram Pictures plays like a companion piece to Edgar Ulmer ’s DETOUR which came out a year earlier. Director Jack Bernhard displays little of the inventive minimalist style that Ulmer managed on a tighter shooting sched & an even tinier budget, but the film works pretty well as a showcase for Jean Gillie who plays the calculating femme fatale role (she’s hunting for buried loot) with a cackling laugh of contempt for the men she uses. Technically, the film isn’t bad at all, other than the perfectly awful score from Edward J. Kay, and you’ll see actors like Sheldon Leonard on his way up & Robert Armstrong on his way down. But the oddest thing in the film involves a serum that revives a prisoner AFTER he’s been executed in the gas chamber! That’s a stretch, even for a noir.

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