By David in TN
Friday, June 5, 2020 at 5:21:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 a.m. ET is Cy Endfield’s The Underworld Story (1950) with Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, Howard da Silva, Michael O'Shea, Mary Anderson and Gar Moore.
Film Noir Guide: “After Moore, the son of a wealthy newspaper publisher Marshall, kills his wife, he and the father conspire to frame their black maid (Anderson).
“Unethical reporter Duryea, fired from his previous job and now half-owner of a small-town newspaper, sees the murder case as an opportunity to make headlines and a few bucks.
“His partner (Storm), who went to school with Anderson, is more concerned with her friend's fate than with selling newspapers, much to Duryea’s annoyance.
“While D.A. O’Shea is building his case against the innocent maid, Marshall and Moore approach a notorious gangster (da Silva) for help in disposing of the nosy reporter.
“Except for the presence of noir icon Duryea as the likable scoundrel, The Underworld Story (a.k.a. The Whipped) is a pretty standard crime drama.”
N.S.: Sounds like a waste of a good cast. Then again, so many of those 50s’ B pictures were like that, presenting wonderful performances in otherwise mediocre vehicles.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 am ET and 10 am ET is Irving Lerner's Murder by Contract (1958) with Vince Edwards, Herschel Bernardi, Philip Pine, and Caprice Toriel.
Film Noir Guide: "The film that is said to have influenced director Martin Scorsese the most, Murder by Contract is the story of a polite, misogynistic hit man (Edwards)who got involved in the murder business to finance the house of is dreams. He's hired to kill a witness (Toriel) due to testify against his boss, and spends most of the film making his two contacts (Bernardi and Pine) nervous about his laid-back attitude (he'd rather see the sights and go fishing than plan the hit). When Edwards finds out that the mark is a woman, he balks, not because he's sentimental or chivalrous but because he feels he should be paid extra for killing a dame. Tempers flare after Edwards botches the job twice, causing everyone to have second thoughts. This is an interesting little film that emphasizes character development over plot, allowing us to learn more about the hit man than we really want to know. Edwards, who's really good here, later played TV's hunky doctgor, Ben Casey, Bernardi later starred in Annie, and Pine co-starred in The Blue Knight."
So-so in my opinion. others may like it. A better one is on Monday Night at 10 pm ET, Farewell My Lovely (1975). Robert Mitchum plays Philip Marlowe with Charlotte Rampling doing a Lauren Bacall knockoff as the femme fatale pursued by a hulking ex-con.
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