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Thursday, March 26, 2020

TAKE ONE FALSE STEP (1949)

This innocent-man-on-the-run film noir (half serious suspener/half comic put-on) diligently ticks every box in the formula and still gets every genre trope wrong. (They should make it mandatory viewing at UCLA Film School.) Chester Erskine who directed (and co-wrote with Irwin Shaw) over-eggs a decent enough mystery with corkscrew twisty narrative baggage and illogical character behavior as Professor William Powell (out of sorts for the only time in his long career) reconnects over drinks with pre-war flame Shelley Winters before meeting up for a late night get-together. Big mistake as Shelley (thin & glam) pushes her unwanted attentions on Powell at the home of gal pal Marsha Hunt. Finding out that Shelley’s mixed up with some mysterious lowlifes, Powell, now even more eager to clear out, drops Shelley off at home; picks up an injured crook; is knocked out in a car accident; becomes a ‘wanted man’ when Winters goes missing (presumed dead); breaks into her home to seek clues; gets bitten by her rabid dog; rushes to a lecture hall to give a speech; nods briefly at his wife just in from the East Coast; finds the cops back on his tail; keeps a rendezvous with Shelley’s likely killer only to watch as cops chase the guy into an on-coming train . . . Yikes! And that’s just the half of it. The film starts nicely, teasing us with a witty credit sequence showcasing ‘false step’ accidents waiting to happen. But Erskine won't settle on a tone; and even if he did, hasn’t the technical chops to carry it off.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: A last film for character actor Felix Bressart, visibly dying of leukemia. A favorite of Ernst Lubitsch, see him shine in NINOTCHKA/’39; SHOP AROUND THE CORNER/’40 and TO BE OR NOT TO BE/’42. OR: See Powell deal with another sham murder in a neat little 1933 Warners programmer, PRIVATE DETECTIVE 62.

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