On the frontier, everyone has gold fever. People are trying to find gold and steal gold and it falls to brave Treasury agents like Steve Ellison (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnette (played by Smiley Burnette) to keep things safe. When Steve needs to find out who is trying steal gold, he puts on his mask and assumes the identity of The Durango Kid.
Near Laredo, a shipment of government gold has been stolen. Dan Parks (Jim Bannon) is arrested after the gold is found in his wagon but Steve knows that the Durango Kid earlier warned Dan about traveling with gold. Durango and Smiley set out to prove that Dan was set up by his business partner, Fenton (Hugh Prosser).
This yet another Durango Kid movie where Steve gets a job working for the bad guy while Durango works to thwart his plans. (Remarkably, no one ever puts two and two together and notices that Steve, Smiley, and Durango always seem to show up in town at the same time.) Fenton is just one of a long line of corrupt businessmen and land barons that Durango has had to deal with. Fenton is not above threatening Dan’s young son (Tommy Ivo) to get Dan to do what he wants. Given that Dan is just trying to make a good life for his family in a rough world, it’s satisfying when Fenton gets his comeuppance.
Almost every Durango Kid film featured at least one good fight scene. In Trail to Laredo, the big fight takes place in a saloon and it’s pretty exciting. Not only does the saloon get trashed but there’s a moment where one of the bad guys actually seem to fly through the air. Even Virginia Maxey, playing Classy the saloon singer, gets in on it.
Both Virginia Maxey and Smiley Burnette get to sing a few songs. As always, there enough gunfights and horse chases to keep fans of the genre happy. Charles Starrett was a great cowboy.
The 1947 film, Johnny O’Clock, invites us to take a behind-the-scenes look at the sleazy and sordid world of casino management. If that doesn’t intrigue you, just consider that the man character is named Johnny O’Clock.
Seriously, that’s a really kickass name. I have to admit that, if my last name was O’Clock, I would be tempted to name my child Four Twenty. But, that said, Johnny is a pretty good name too. On the one hand, he’s got an all-American name like Johnny but he’s also got a last name — O’Clock — that promises mystery and danger. Johnny O’Clock is also played by Dick Powell, who was always good at playing tough guys who had a heart of gold. (Along with appearing in several noir films, Dick Powell was also the first actor to ever play the famed detective, Philip Marlowe.)
Johnny O’Clock is a partner in a casino with Guido Marchettis (Thomas Gomez). Johnny and Guido are longtime business partners who find the future of their casino threatened when a hat-check girl named Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch) dies under mysterious circumstances. Even though the crime scene was clearly set up to make it appear as if Harriet committed suicide, it doesn’t take Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) long to figure out that Harriet was actually murdered.
Who killed Harriet?
Was it her boyfriend, Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon)? Chuck is a corrupt cop who has been trying to convince Guido to force Johnny out of the casino and instead hire Chuck instead.
Or is the murderer Guido’s wife, Nellie (Ellen Drew)? Nellie used to be Johnny’s girlfriend and, as soon becomes obvious, she still has feelings for him. When she attempted to give Johnny a romantic present, Johnny’s response was to give it to Harriet so that Harriet could return it. Did Johnny’s rejection of Nellie push her over the edge and did she take her anger out on Harriet?
Or maybe the murderer was Guido. Guido, after all, is a rather shady sort. Maybe Harriet discovered something that she shouldn’t have.
Then again, you could also say the same thing about Johnny O’Clock….
Inspector Koch isn’t the only person determined to get to the truth! Harriet’s sister, Nancy (Evelyn Keyes), also shows up and starts to investigate on her own. Soon, she and Johnny are falling in love but Johnny knows that the situation is too dangerous for either him or Nancy to stick around the casino. He starts to make plans to flee with her to South America but he’s got just a few things to do before they can leave….
Johnny O’Clock was the first film to be directed by Robert Rossen, who is often credited as being one of the most important filmmaers in development of American film noir. A year after Johnny O’Clock was released, Rossen’s All The King’s Men would win best picture. Rossen’s career was derailed when he was accused of being a communist and blacklisted in the 50s. Like Elia Kazan, Rossen initially took the fifth but he later relented and “named names” to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Though Rossen would later direct the Oscar-nominated The Hustler in 1962, it can be argued that Rossen’s career never recovered from either being blacklisted or from naming names.
Clocking in at 93 minutes, Johnny O’Clock is probably about 20 minutes too long and the murder mystery is never really as intriguing as you might hope it would be. On the positive side, the casino is stylish and the cast is full of noir talent. Dick Powell is a likable, if occasionally bull-headed, protagonist and Lee J. Cobb is well-cast as Inspector Koch. (The film has some fun contrasting the glitz of the casino with the shabbiness of Koch.) Burnett Guffey’s black-and-white cinematography gives the film a properly noirish look and, while the pace may be slow, the occasional bursts of action are well-handled. The scene where Johnny is nearly the victim of a drive-by shooting is particularly exciting. Johnny O’Clock is a flawed noir but the cast is good enough to hold the interest of fans of the genre.
The 1947 film noir, Framed, is the story of a loser.
That, in itself, is not a surprise. The loser who finds himself stranded in a strange place where he’s manipulated by nearly everyone he meets is a film noir archetype. This is especially true when it comes to movies about men who end up getting manipulated by another film noir archetype, the femme fatale. I mean, let’s be honest. Most film noir “heroes” fall victim to their own desperation. If they weren’t so obviously desperate to find money or sex, they probably wouldn’t end up in the trouble that always seems to follow them around.
Framed tells the story of Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford). When we first meet Mike, he’s sitting behind the wheel of an out-of-control truck. While the truck recklessly speeds down a steep hill, Mike desperately tries to keep from crashing. It’s not until Mike pulls into a small town that he finally gets the truck to stop. Of course, in the process of stopping, he also dings the back of someone else’s pickup truck.
It turns out that, until recently, Mike was a mining engineer. After he lost his job, he found temporary employment as a truck driver. He needed the money so he didn’t bother to find out what he was hauling or even if the truck had working brakes. When Mike calls up the man who hired him and tells him that the owner of the pickup is demanding that Mike’s employer pay for the damage, the man hangs up on him. To recap, before we’re even 10 minutes into the movie, we’ve seen that Mike can be tricked into driving a truck with no brakes and that he can’t even convince his employer to help pay for the damage caused by those faulty brakes. In other words: Loser!
Anyway, the local cops are planning on tossing Mike in jail for reckless driving but fortunately, a local waitress, Paula Craig (Janis Carter), is willing to pay Mike’s fine. She even helps a drunken Mike find a hotel room. Is Paula doing all of this out of the goodness of her heart or is it all just a part of an elaborate scheme? While Mike is getting a job with a local prospector (Edgar Buchanan), Paula is meeting with her married boyfriend, Steve Price (Barry Sullivan), and bragging about how she’s finally found the perfect patsy.
Yes, to no one’s surprise, Paula and Steve have hatched a nefarious scheme and Mike is about to find himself stuck right in the middle of it. Of course, since this is a film noir, it should come as no surprise to learn that Paula and Steve are just as willing to double cross each other as they are Mike….
Framed is an entertaining if slightly predictable noir. From the minute that Paula first appears, we know that she’s not to be trusted but part of the fun of the film is that those of us in the audience are always a step or two ahead of poor Mike. You watch Mike in amazement that someone could be so dense but, at the same time, Glenn Ford is likable enough that you do hope that everything will turn out okay for him. As for the film’s main villains, Barry Sullivan is perfectly slick and sleazy as Steve Price but the film is really stolen by Janis Carter, who plays Paula as if she were a panther waiting to pounce on her prey.
Framed is a film that will definitely be enjoyed by those who appreciate the shadowy landscape of an old school film noir. It may not rewrite the rules of genre but it’s still an undeniably entertaining film about a loser and the people who use him.
In tonight’s episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller, Edward Andrews plays a bookseller who discovers that his wife has numerous lovers. Fortunately, he has a collection of books that is just full of good ways to take care of the competition!
This episode was written by Robert Bloch and was based on his short story.
Enjoy the little tribute to the power of literature!
On the frontier, everyone has gold fever. People are trying to find gold and steal gold and it falls to brave Treasury agents like Steve Ellison (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnette (played by Smiley Burnette) to keep things safe. When Steve needs to find out who is trying steal gold, he puts on his mask and assumes the identity of The Durango Kid.
Through the Shattered Lens 