soren-71259

Richard Denning and Audrey Long are 2 of the most underrated actors and why neither became super famous is a mystery to me. Denning had a long career and his low-key but highly effective acting talents have elevated many a B film to watchability. Audrey Long was elegant, beautiful and talented and the chemistry between the 2 stars in this one is wonderful. The plot is nothing special but has a few twists and turns and bad girl Hillary Brooke is around to stir things up for a while. It builds to an edge of the seat climax which is great fun to watch and parts of it are even rather nasty for 1951. The ending has some wildly crazy implausibilities which include the fact that nobody ducks even where their car is being shot at right through the windshield and the police in dealing with a group of thugs and gangsters seem to be limited to one car and very few men (is the movie that low budget?) but never mind-- it's been so much to watch and this one is a real sleeper. Too bad they couldn't have come up with a better title. I had the pleasure of having dinner with the great director and editor Robert Wise and his charming wife some years ago when he was "only" 84 and I told him that I thought my favorite actress of all he directed in his many many films was Audrey Long and he looked really startled and said "but she was only some contract player". I was so disappointed to hear that because her work when seen now positively shines. She had a fabulous life and lifestyle, traveling all over the world as the 4th and enduring wife of Leslie Charteris who created The Saint and was an internationally known gourmet and high liver. She must have had a ball living that fine life but too bad she didn't get to be as famous as she deserves, along with so many of the fine fine actresses we get to watch in the old movies: Ann Dvorak, Irene Hervey, Joan Marsh, Joan Woodbury and Wanda McKay and so many more forgotten ladies but for us diehards. Watch this movie if you like good old fashioned adventure and crime films and I'll bet you will like it!!

Nobody has reviewed this for IMDB so I thought I'd jump in since I tracked down a tattered print of this rare film with no credits on it, with Spanish subtitles and Spanish inserts replacing English letters and books that were shown within the film. The heavy-set veteran Edward Arnold carries off this film nicely as the attorney Frank Rodie. Don't read the plot summary because the film is full of cleverly plotted legal twists and turns that culminate in a bizarre (and not completely satisfying) finish. The film has some comedic sections too, most notably with Walter Catlett as an over-enthusiastic public relations expert and a very funny scene in which Franklin Pangborn is almost seduced by a strongly oversexed young lady. The scenes with Catlett and Pangborn feel extraneous to the picture which is really a drama about the bitter personal dramas that lead to Arnold becoming a famous divorce lawyer, who makes his living through staged framings of innocent people. The ever wicked Clarence Wilson is on hand as Mr. Keibel, an unscrupulous lawyer. Wilson, with his diminutive frame and bizarre looking head, graced dozens upon dozens of films as a nasty lawyer fond of foreclosing on widows and orphans. He is one of those great character actors of which few can recall the name but usually just say "oh that guy" when they see him. The film is really Edward Arnold's to showcase his considerable dramatic chops and his sly wickedness at seeking revenge for the deeply felt wrongs done to him by his golddigging and scheming wife, played by former silent film minor star Dorothy Revier. If you like old movies and well written dialogue and you can find a print of this that isn't kind of bad (the version I got hold of has several untranslated Spanish sections to read and I got through it by pausing the film and going to a dictionary), I'd call this one a worthwhile time spent. It's not a masterpiece or a superb lost gem but its plot, writing and acting are all solid and for a super low budget film it has some beautiful sets and costumes, as if everyone connected to the film was trying to make something memorable. And if you've never seen that powerful bear of an actor Edward Arnold at work, this one is a good place to start. His crisp and dominant speaking voice and his burly presence always tend to dominate any film he's in, be it comedy, tragedy or even blind detective films. He is one of our most unsung and unjustly forgotten actors and this film really should be restored if possible since it deserves your consideration. It is best enjoyed if you DON'T read anything about the plot and just let it unfold on you.