Twelve Crowded Hours

Twelve Crowded Hours is a tidy, swift and enjoyable little "crime comedy". Richard Dix, who seemed much more at ease in these programmers than in "A" features, is good as the newspaper reporter trying to bring the mobster responsible for his editor's death to justice. He manages to temper the character's innate cockiness and make him likeable. Lucille Ball enthusiasts may be disappointed with her role here; even though she has a few funny lines, her Paula Sanders is drab. Coming off much better are Donald MacBride as the sour detective and Cy Kendall as the burly mob boss. (The type of higher-profile role he should have had more often.) A nice, breezy 64 minutes.

Poor Lucy. It's a wonder she ever got any of the big breaks that came her way when you see how she was mistreated at RKO in a bunch of ingenue roles that required not even one-third of her talent.

She's barely even visible in this trifle, a gangster movie that has RICHARD DIX getting most of the attention as a newspaper reporter on the heels of a rackets number gangster (CY KENDALL) while Lucy sits on the sidelines and pops up in only a few scenes. Even in the scenes she's in, she's hardly given more than a few lines to speak.

The plot is nothing special, just a series of car chases and shootouts that make little sense since none of the characters are anything more than cardboard fixtures. Lucy's not the only one wasted here. ALLEN LANE as her kid brother has virtually nothing to do and DONALD MacBRIDE does his usual turn as an exasperated police officer.

Trivia note: JOHN ARLEDGE, who plays "Red", and serves as the juvenile comedy relief, played a dying soldier this same year (1939) in GONE WITH THE WIND. And incidentally, Lucille Ball was sent to audition for David O. Selznick as a Scarlett O'Hara hopeful. Can you believe it???

Nick (Richard Dix) is the reporter, trying to get the goods on local mob boss (Cy Kendall) running the town, but Paula Sanders and her brother ( Lucille Ball, Allan lane) get in the way. You'll recognize Donald MacBride as the Detective... MacBride always yelled "Jumpin Butterballs!" in the marx brothers films. Granville Bates is McEwen, but Bates keeps looking off to the right... appears to be reading the lines off a card. Lucy had been making shorts and un-credited film roles since the early 1930s, but had just recently started getting bigger, credited parts. it all works. very linear. they get taken by the crooks,and have to figure out how to get out of it. no suspense. it's all very flat-line average. another pretty small role for Lucy, but she's on her way, after all those un-credited roles. Dix (and his son) both died quite young, as did Kendall. Directed by Lew Landers. made four films with Lucy. they never really knew what to do with her, until she got her own series.

While I have always liked Richard Dix, I must admit that this is one of the more ordinary films he made. Dix stars as a newspaper man--one that is frankly too glib and clever to be real. When a coworker is killed, Dix thinks a gangster is responsible and soon steals $80,000 from the crook. Much of the rest of the film is spent with the crook and Dix talking...a lot. Their tough banter seemed stagy and the film went no where for a very long period. By the end, I frankly didn't care who killed who--I was just bored and looking forward to another film.

Dull writing, clichéd characters and a complete waste of Lucille Ball in a supporting role (she could have just as well been played by a ball of lint--the part was dull and shallow). While it's not a bad film, it's also not particularly good and seemed to be just another B-movie from RKO.

This is a decent 1939 crime drama. Richard Dix is good and Lucille Ball is as well, in a non-comedy performance. Worth watching but not the kind of thing that would make any "best of the decade" lists or anything.