By David in TN
Friday, April 29, 2022 at 8:18:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 and 10 a.m. ET is Edwin L. Marin’s Johnny Angel (1945) with George Raft, Signe Hasso, Hoagy Carmichael, Marvin Miller and Margaret Wycherly.
Film Noir Guide: “A two-fisted sea captain (Raft) tries to unravel the mystery of his father’s murder. The only witness to the crime is a beautiful French girl (Hasso), who was a passenger aboard his father’s ship.
But she’s making herself scarce in New Orleans. With some help from a friendly cab driver (Carmichael), Raft tracks her down and convinces her to help.
Meanwhile, Raft must fight off the advances of his boss’ wife (femme fatale Trevor), who’s disgusted with her weak husband (Miller) and his overly protective ex-nanny (Wycherly).
There’s too much talk between fistfights and too many women throwing themselves at Raft, who gives a stiff performance. Hasso is bland, but Miller (from TV’s The Millionaire) is enjoyable as the spineless cuckold.”
David in TN: Raft “gives a stiff performance.” As noted previously, the saying was “Raft couldn’t act.” This was the type role Raft got after turning down High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), etc.
This time Hoagy Carmichael plays a cab driver rather than a piano player who is a friend of the star.
N.S.: Imagine if Raft hadn’t had such poor judgment, and had taken those roles? He would have precluded Bogie’s career as a leading man (i.e., nobody would have even spoken of “Bogie”), and turned the two aforementioned masterpieces into hack work.
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TCM is showing Gordon Douglas' I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951) on Friday Morning at 9:15 am ET! They rarely show it.
Last year Eddie Muller had another Gordon Douglas film, Walk a Crooked Mile (1948) on Noir Alley. Eddie said Douglas was also the director of "the infamous" I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.
Frank Lovejoy gives one of his best performances as a man working undercover pretending to be a Communist. Dorothy Hart plays a teacher who leaves Communism. Edward Millican portrays a Communist operative cynically using the dupes who fall for the party line and looking forward to the day the Communists own America.
More than almost any film it gives a picture of how Communists operate.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 am ET is Mitchell Leisen's No Man of Her Own (1950) with Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Henry O'Neill, Lyle Bettger, Phyllis Thaxter, Richard Denning.
Film Noir Guide: "Stanwyck (43 at the time) plays a young woman expecting a child out of wedlock (gasp!). The father (Bettger, in his screen debut), a real louse, slides a ticket to San Francisco and a five-dollar bill under his locked door as Stanwyck stands outside his apartment sobbing hysterically.
On the train she meets a young married couple (Denning and Thaxter) who take a shine to her. Unfortunately, there's a terrible wreck and Denning and Thaxter are killed. In the hospital, after giving birth to a boy, Stanwyck realizes that she's been mistaken for Thaxter, who was seven months pregnant, and that Denning's wealthy parents (Cowl and O'Neill), who have never met their daughter-in-law, want her to come live with them. Penniless, she goes along with the impersonation for the sake of her baby.
Denning's brother (Lund) suspects that she's not really his sister-in-law but falls in love with her anyway, making her guilt even more unbearable. Things heat up when she receives an anonymous telegram ("Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you doing there?").
Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel I Married a Dead Man, this soap opera noir is entertaining but dragged-out. Denning went on to star in TV's Mr. and Mrs. North and Michael Shayne and played the Governor in Hawaii Five-O. In 1996, No Man of her Own was remade as a comedy (Mrs. Winterbourne) starring talk show host Rikki Lake."
Before Noir Alley on Saturday Night, TCM has a Gary Cooper Thirties Epic Adventure Stories double feature. At 8 pm ET, Beau Geste (1939), followed at 10:15 by The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).
David In TN: Beau Geste, the 1924 French Foreign Legion novel by P.C. Wren, which the movie was based on, was my Dad's favorite book.
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