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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

THE BIG SHOT (1941)

Maybe somebody missed the memo.* How else to explain Humphrey Bogart, on fast-track after HIGH SIERRA and MALTESE FALCON, with ACROSS THE PACIFIC & CASABLANCA, on deck, finding himself in this programmer, a real stinker from journeyman megger Lewis Seiler. Bogie must have felt the diss though, going thru the motions as a three-time loser shooting for four (and life if caught) on another job. He pulls out at the last minute when his current squeeze objects and the robbery goes bad . . . bad for Bogie as he’s fingered for a job he had nothing to do with! Then his lawyer blows the case, unused to defending an innocent man . . . especially one who's diddling his wife! Yep, the very same gal who kept Bogie ‘occupied’ during the heist. These courtroom scenes are the only good thing in the pic, with Stanley Ridges’ cuckold/lawyer smoothly pivoting on his client. Alas, as wife/mistress, Irene Manning blows the only big dramatic opportunity she ever got. At least, Sid Hickox comes thru with some dark, glistening cinematography, just not enough to save this one. Even with Bogie it remains little known. Not helped by having his partner in the inevitable prison break in full BlackFace makeup as they scale the walls. (Don’t ask.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Joseph Downing, the guy from the robbery gang who gives Bogart such a hard time, played ‘Baby Face’ Martin in DEAD END on B’way, a big success for Bogart in the 1937 William Wyler film. Downing plays as if he still holds a grudge.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: *One of the great Golden Age Hollywood reads Rudy Behlmer’s INSIDE WARNER BROS. (1935-1951) is nothing but studio memos.

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