Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:12:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Felix Feist’s Tomorrow is Another Day (1951), with Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Ray Teal, Lurene Tuttle and Hugh Sanders.
Film Noir Guide: “An ex-con (Cochran), imprisoned when he was thirteen for murdering his father because he ‘slapped my mother around once too often’ can’t seem to stay out of trouble. On the day of his release, after serving eighteen years, he’s almost arrested for beating up a reporter who befriended him simply to get a scoop.
“Cochran travels to New York, where he falls for a beautiful, but hardened, dime-a-minute taxi dancer (Roman). When Roman’s lover (Sanders), a jealous cop, shows up at her apartment and starts slapping her around, Cochran tries to protect her. When the cop pulls his gun, Cochran disarms him, but Sanders knocks him cold. While Cochran is unconscious, the panicky Roman shoots the cop as he approaches her, ready to administer another of his frequent beatings.
“When Roman realizes that Cochran doesn’t know what happened, she manages to convince him that he killed Sanders. They go on the lam, fall in love, get married and, amazingly, become lettuce pickers.
“All seems well until Cochran’s photo appears in a pulp magazine offering a thousand dollar reward for information leading to his capture, which causes their new friends (Teal and Tuttle) to start thinking how much they could use the reward money.
“Cochran is terrific as the recently released ex-con, and Roman is enjoyable as the repentant femme fatale. The ending, however, is disappointing.”
David in TN: Tomorrow is Another Day is another recycled film that was shown on Noir Alley two years ago. In his outro last week, Eddie Muller called Steve Cochran “the Elvis of Noir.”
N.S.: Red Eddie has to find some better films to showcase.
As for Steve Cochran (1917-1965), he had an interesting career, and a life that was at least as interesting as the mopes he played on screen.
In the Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the greatest talkie ever made, he played a WWII veteran just home from the war, who is a budding gangster who is openly sleeping with Marie Derry (Virginia “Ginnie” Mayo), who just so happens to be married to bombardier Capt. Fred Derry, “killer of a hundred men” (Dana Andrews), who is also just home from the war.
Cochran would be paired with Mayo half-a-dozen times on celluloid, most notably in the Cagney gangster classic, White Heat (1949).
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 am ET is Paul Wendkos' The Burglar (1957), with Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield, Martha Vickers, Peter Capell, Mickey Shaughnessy, Stewart Bradley. The screenplay was written By David Goodis, based on his own novel. This is the only time Goodis wrote the screenplay for a film based on one of his books.
Film Noir Guide: "Duryea and his gang (Mansfield, Capell, and Shaughnessy) burglarize a wealthy spiritualist's mansion and make off with a necklace worth 150Gs. They have to stay holed up in their claustrophobic apartment until the heat is off, when they'll be able to fence the necklace for half its value. Mansfield is in love with Duryea, but all he's interested in is keeping his word to her father, his late mentor, that he'll watch out for her. Shaughnessy, who has the unrequited hots for the blonde bombshell, attacks her, forcing Duryea to send her away for her own protection. The remaining gang member, Capell, simply wants his share of the dough so he can realize his dream--a luxurious and carefree life in Central America. To complicate matters, a crooked cop (Bradley) and a femme fatale (Vickers) begin to romance Mansfield and Duryea in a plot to pinch the necklace. This is an unsatisfying noir with too many weird camera angles and close-ups, little character development and even less action. The heist at the beginning of the film and the climax on Atlantic City's boardwalk are enjoyable, however. Mansfield is surprisingly good (compare to her lame performance the previous year in Female Jungle."
Despite Film Noir Guide, I think The Burglar is a good film of its kind. The crooks (and their living arrangements) are more realistic than usual. Also Jayne Mansfield showed she could act.
Several years ago, Eddie Muller was guest hosting one night and showed The Burglar. Eddie noted the legend that Jayne Mansfield had a "genius" IQ, but shows no sign of it in her surviving interviews.
Several months ago TCM showed Illegal (1955) with Nina Foch and Mansfield playing the two leading female characters. Foch played a lawyer and could have been one in real life. I had the DVD of Illegal with Nina Foch doing a commentary shortly before her death. Nina was still very sharp mentally, highly critical of the movie.
Was Jayne Mansfield as intelligent as Nina Foch? She might have been. Her father was a successful attorney. Mansfield played the dumb blonde bit to the hilt. Late in life Johnny Carson tried to get her to say something intelligent, but Mansfield kept pretending to be dumb.
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