It’s back by popular demand! (Spoiler alert: it’s not really…it’s not even that popular, to be honest.) The last one of these I did was back in November of 2015, and since I have been availing myself of some of the splendid B-movie fare from The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ of late (if you work it right, you can fit two second features on one disc), I figured why not apply some paddles to this long-dormant Thrilling Days of Yesteryear feature. (I have also taken the liberty of cleverly changing its title; I have become terribly spoiled with our DISH Hopper—it allows me to transcribe a lot of TCM’s movies to play back at a more convenient time—so it's more accurate to say “from the DVR.”)
I have kind of a running joke here on the blog (I use “joke”
in the loosest sense, since I may be the only person who chuckles at it) where
I occasionally comment on whether or not character veteran John Litel is
playing a lawyer in a movie. I realize
Litel demonstrated much versatility in his cinematic endeavors (as well as
scads of TV appearances) than I give him credit for…but there’s no getting
around the fact that he seemed to be the go-to guy for playing onscreen attorneys. He was Carson Drew—father of Nancy in
Warner’s brief attempt to bring the popular teenaged sleuth to the silver
screen. Later, in Paramount’s Henry
Aldrich series, he was the awkward adolescent’s pop Sam (also a member of the
bar). Still later, he portrayed Hugh
Mitchell in Columbia’s “Rusty” franchise…still poring through the ol’ legal
books to pay the rent. (Fans of the blog
might remember that Mr. L was also the diabolical Spencer Merlin in our Serial Saturdays presentation of Don
Winslow of the Navy [1942].)
The four features I DVR’d from Tee Cee Em not only feature
Litel but Dick Purcell—the unofficial “King of the B’s” at Warner’s. Here in the House of Yesteryear, we remember
Dick as the titular hero of the 1944 serial Captain America—one of his last movie roles before his untimely
passing that same year when he succumbed to a heart attack after finishing 18
holes of golf. I recorded these
programmers during a day-long tribute to Purcell on the channel, which also
featured Accidents
Will Happen (1938)—reviewed in this space last week.
Alcatraz Island
(1937) – John Litel gets top billing in this Warner’s effort released by the
studio’s B-picture unit after their success with another “ripped from the
headlines” vehicle, San Quentin
(1937). Our man John is ‘Gat’ Brady…and
though he should write “notorious racketeer” in the ‘Occupation’ portion of his
income tax returns, he’s also a doting father who’s stashed his daughter
Annabel (Mary Maguire) in a private girls’ school lest she learn the truth about
what her pop does for a living. (It
don’t make no never mind to Ann, though—she’s been clued into her father’s
activities and loves him just the same.) Gat is planning to take Ann to visit Europe
when he gets a visit from the Feds: it turns out he hasn’t been filling out those tax returns I mentioned earlier, and though
Gat’s clever attorney Fred MacLane (Addison Richards) cuts a deal for Brady to
get a slap on the wrist (six months in the pokey and a $50,000 fine) the judge
(Walter Young) winds up throwing the book at the Gatster, sentencing him to
five years in Leavenworth. (Just like
real life, he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm.)
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Ann Sheridan, John Litel |
Missing Witnesses
(1937) – Litel is on the right side of the law in this entry; he’s Robert L.
Lane, an inspector who’s been appointed by the governor as a special prosecutor
to head a law enforcement unit that will deal with complications stemming from
the reluctance of eyewitnesses testifying against a trio of hoodlums—‘Little
Joe’ Macey (Raymond Hatton), Chivvy Prado (Earl Gunn), and Heinie Dodds (Louis
Natheaux)—who have been shaking down merchants for protection money on behalf
of an anonymous “Mr. Big.” Assigned to
Lane’s unit is ‘Bull’ Regan (Purcell), a hard-nosed cop who’s faster with his
fists than his brains…and his continued capacity with the department hinges on
his success at his new job (if he f**ks up, Lane will make certain his future
employment opportunities involve the lucrative field of nighttime security).
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Jean Dale |
Missing Witnesses
is an unofficial remake of Bureau
of Missing Persons (1933). Both
feature hothead cops (Pat O’Brien in Persons,
Purcell in Witnesses) who are
dangerously close to getting the heave-ho from the force…and while O’Brien’s
favorite phrase is “I’ll bet you a dollar six bits” Purcell prefers “Well, there’s
no harm in tryin’.” (The characters played by Bette Davis [Persons] and Jean Dale [Witnesses] are also quite similar, even
both hiding in closets at points in the action.) Missing
Witnesses was purportedly based on several cases investigated by then-Big
Apple D.A. (and future New York Governor/Presidential nominee) Thomas A. Dewey.
William Clemens, the auteur behind Accidents Will Happen, also directed this film (and the evil dame
from Accidents, Sheila Bromley,
appears in Witnesses as the wife of
Ben Welden’s character—another reluctant “witness”) scripted by Kenneth Gamet
and Don Ryan. Making return appearances
from Alcatraz Island are Welden,
Hatton, Young, Lane Chandler, John Harron, Al Herman, Stuart Holmes, Edward
Keane, Milton Kibbee, Jack Mower, Willard Parker, Edwin Stanley, Myrtle
Stedman, Elliott Sullivan, Joan Valerie, Tom Wilson, and William Worthington. (You can’t say Warner’s didn’t keep actors
busy—TDOY favorites like Veda Ann
Borg, John Hamilton, and Mary Treen also have small roles.)
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Litel, June Travis, Dick Foran |
Mentioning that Foran’s character becomes a singing
sensation in this film naturally means that Dick is going to warble a few tunes
(four by my count, including Ave Maria)
…so if you’re not a fan of prison musicals (if that’s even a thing) consider
this your caveat emptor. I don’t care for Foran’s singing…but I
soldiered on because I already paid the rent on the hall; truth be told I would
have enjoyed Over the Wall more if
someone other than Warners’ resident singing cowboy had played the part. (For a prison break picture, it also takes its
sweet time getting Foran’s Davis out of the joint; he never technically goes
“over the wall” but makes a run for it while on the outside as a prison orderly
on special assignment.) The movie’s
story was written by real-life Sing Sing Prison warden Lewis E. Lawes
(personified in Wall by John “Great
Caesar’s Ghost!” Hamilton), who had to be one of the savviest civil servants
when it came to self-promotion (his pop culture contributions include the radio
programs Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing [also a 1933 movie] and The
Crime Cases of Warden Lawes and the films Invisible
Stripes [1939] and You
Can’t Get Away With Murder [1939]).
Despite the handicap that is Dick Foran, Wall is a diverting little flick with good performances from Litel,
Purcell, Bond, Stone, Hamilton, and Veda Ann Borg (as the dame what spills the
beans on Purcell). (I also giggled at
seeing Preston Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin as Foran’s “handler” and a young,
thin Dick Wessel as the inmate responsible for Stone’s “accident.”)
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Marie Wilson, Sheridan, Margaret Lindsay |
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Janet Chapman, Litel, Sheridan |
Litel takes a backseat to the three female stars of Musketeers…and, again, if you refrain
from comparing them to the trio from Three
on a Match (Dvorak, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis) I think you’ll find it’s
a most serviceable little B. (A
pin-prick of a nitpick: I love Marie Wilson like nobody’s business, but her
character in the film fluctuates from smart cookie to the kind of dumb blonde
she made famous on My Friend Irma. However,
her boyfriend, who appears toward the end of the movie, is played by the
aforementioned Jimmy Conlin.) I also enjoyed
seeing Dewey Robinson (who has some nice moments where he bonds with little
girl Chapman) and Horace McMahon as two of Purcell’s henchmen in this spirited
little mellerdrammer scripted by Missing
Witnesses auteurs Garnet and Ryan and directed by John Farrow.
1 comment:
One attorney John Litel portrayed memorably was Patrick Henry... in "Give Me Liberty," one of the American-history shorts Warners did in the late 30s, which played fast and loose with facts but are entertaining in their own right. Of course, he closes the short with the famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech, punctuating it with drawing his sword from its scabbard. (That scene would be rotoscoped by Chuck Jones' animators and included in the Porky Pig "Old Glory" cartoon.)
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