Don Haggerty | Through the Shattered Lens

The 1950 film noir, Gambling House, begins with the aftermath of a murder.

A man’s been gunned down in an illegal gambling house. The murderer is gangster named Joe Farrow (William Bendix) but Farrow has no intention of going to prison. Fortunately, another gambler was wounded during the shoot out. Marc Fury (Victor Mature) will survive his injury but he might not survive being a witness. However, Farrow sends his gunmen to make Fury an offer. If Fury agrees to take the rap for the shooting, he’ll not only live but Farrow will pay him a good deal of money. Fury agrees because …. well, what else is he going to do?

Fury is arrested for the murder. He pleads self-defense and he’s acquitted at the trial. So far, so good, right? However, there’s always a complication. First off, there’s the fact that Farrow wasn’t exactly being honest when he promised to pay Fury. Farrow has no intention of giving Fury any money. In fact, now that Fury has been acquitted and the case is officially closed, it might be more convenient just to have Fury killed.

The other problem is that Fury’s trial brings him to the attention of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS takes a look at Fury’s record and they discover that he’s not Marc Fury at all! (I know, it’s a shock. Who would think that a name like Marc Fury would be fake?) It turns out that his original name was Marc Furiotta and he was born in Italy. His family came to the U.S. when Marc was a child. Marc always assumed that he was a citizen but it turns out that his parents were never naturalized and therefore, Marc is in the country illegally! INS wants to deport him. Marc wants to stay in the United States.

Fortunately, Marc will have a chance to try to convince a judge to let him stay in the United States, despite his lengthy criminal record. Until his hearing (or until he makes bail), he’ll be detained at Ellis Island. Marc soon finds himself stuck on Ellis Island, presumably right underneath the base of the Statue of Liberty. (I know the Statue of Liberty isn’t actually on Ellis Island but the imagery just got stuck in my head while I was writing this review and I’ll be damned if I’m going to take it out.) He’s surrounded by earnest immigrants who can’t wait to become American citizens and that awakens his own patriotic feelings. He also meets a social worker named Lynn (Terry Moore) and he falls in love with her. When he appears before the judge, he explains that he can’t put into words why he wants to stay in America. He just know that he does. Awwww, what a wonderful story …. oh wait. He’s still got Joe Farrow trying to kill him, doesn’t he?

Gambling House is an odd film. Actually, it’s something like three different films at once. On the one hand, it’s a low-budget film noir, with menacing tough guys and a morally ambiguous hero and an outwardly respectable villain who is actually a member of the mob. On the other hand, it’s an earnest legal drama about an immigrant who comes to love his adoptive country. And then, on the other hand (that’s right, this movie has three hands), it’s a romcom where cynical Marc ends up falling for idealistic Lynn.

That’s a lot for one, low-budget 90-minute film to carry on its shoulder and sadly, Gambling House struggles to balance all of its different elements. It gets off to a good start, with Victor Mature delivering all of his lines with a scornful disdainful for anyone who looks at him. And the scenes with William Bendix as the mob boss are effective. But none of those scenes seem to belong in the same movie with Marc waiting on Ellis Island and Lynn explaining why she wants to help people become citizens. In the end, this is a film about many things but none of those things are really explored in that much depth.

Though this is a adequately directed and acted film and this is one scene, in which Marc looks at the New York skyline from the holding cell in Ellis Island, that achieves a certain visual poetry, this is still an offer that you can refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

The 1957 film Footsteps in the Night opens in a small motel apartment in Los Angeles.

Jazz blares from a record player. Playing cards are spread across a table. A cigarette burns in an ashtray while a stack of poker chips sits undisturbed nearby. When the apartment’s resident, Henry Johnson (Douglas Dick) steps into the room, he nearly stumbles over the dead body that’s lying in the middle of the floor.

Henry looks down at the body. Is he shocked? Is he scared? Is he regretful? Is he guilty? It’s impossible to tell from his somewhat perturbed but mostly blank facial expression. He takes in the scene and then promptly turns out the lights.

The dead man is Henry’s neighbor, Fred Horner (Robert Shaye). When the police arrive, Detectives Andy Doyle (Bill Elliott) and Mike Duncan (Don Haggerty) immediately deduce that someone murdered Fred in the middle of a poker game. Since everyone says that Henry was not only a degenerate gambler but that he also frequently got into arguments with Fred, Henry becomes the number one suspect. Not helping Henry’s case is the fact that he’s disappeared and his girlfriend, Mary Raiken (Eleanore Train), won’t reveal where he’s hiding.

It seems like an open-and-shut case but Doyle has his doubts. The case against Henry is almost too perfect and Doyle wonders if maybe they’re overlooking something. As Doyle and Duncan continue to investigate, they discover that Fred Horner was an angry and misanthropic man. They also discover that there’s a salesman named Bradbury (James Flavin) who is staying at an adjacent hotel and who bears a strong resemblance to the dead man….

Clocking in at just 62 minutes, Footsteps in the Night is a fast-paced police procedural with elements of film noir tossed in for good measure. While I was doing some research for this review, I discovered that Footsteps in the Night was actually the fifth and final film in which Bill Elliott played Detective Andy Doyle. Before taking on the role of Doyle, Elliott appeared in several westerns and he plays Doyle much like an ideal frontier sheriff. He’s a no-nonsense lawman who solves cases with common sense and doesn’t have much time for wild speculation. Dan Haggerty backs him up as the equally no-nonsense Mike Duncan. As opposed to the modern tendency to celebrate cops who “break the rules,” Footsteps in the Night emphasizes the professional, by-the-book attitude of Doyle and Duncan. If you were ever murdered, Duncan and Doyle are the type of cops that you would want assigned to the case.

As for their number one suspect, Henry may claim to have just been an innocent bystander but his gambling addiction makes him less than trustworthy in the eyes of many cops. It’s only when Doyle and Duncan start to dig into the case that they discover just how cruelly Fred manipulated Henry’s addiction. In the best tradition of many murder mysteries, Footsteps in the Night not only leaves you wondering who the murderer may have been but also whether or not the victim may have gotten what he deserved.

Footsteps in the Night is a good police procedural. I look forward to watching and reviewing the other four films in which Bill Elliott played Detective Doyle as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTwVORuKuJ0