Alternate title: One Dumb Script. M-G-M had the devil of a time finding good vehicles for Lucille Ball during her mid-‘40s stay. (Per Ball, she spent a lot of ‘down time’ hanging out with an equally underused Buster Keaton, talking comedy technique.) The studio didn’t do much better with co-star John Hodiak, either; each would shine brighter on other lots. And this hopelessly wan comic/ romantic noir certainly wasn’t the answer. Director Jules Dassin, another misused contract talent*, tries to follow the playbook about confidence man Hodiak scamming to deal half a mill in stolen bonds; Ball’s confidence gal (playing her own angles while falling for the guy); easy-going detective Lloyd Nolan (letting Hodiak take the scenic route back to NYC & a ‘doable’ prison term); and weaselly Elisha Cook Jr (claiming half the loot), but it's a logic-free mess. Though as it winds thru Mexico & New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, a studio-bound picaresque, you can see faint outlines of the glam adventure they were shooting for. That and a nickle would buy a phone call in 1946.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: One of the film’s scripters never earned another credit, the other had a seven year drought. The producer made one more feature for a grand total of two. Who says there’s no justice in Hollywood?
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The sole takeaway is a ludicrous one: Elisha Cook Jr sporting a Harlequin unitard for Mardi Gras. Yikes!
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Don Siegel’s THE BIG STEAL/’49 (a little known delight with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix) gets this sort of thing just right. OR: *Ill-used at M-G-M, Dassin broke thru at Universal on his next pic, BRUTE FORCE/’47, an ultra-tough prison drama for Burt Lancaster & Hume Cronyn.
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