By David in TN
friday, september 22, 2023 at 5:00:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Anthony Mann’s Two O’Clock Courage (1945) with Tom Conway, Ann Rutherford, Richard Lane, Lester Matthews, Emory Parnell and Jane Greer.
Film Noir Guide: “Conway plays an amnesiac who may or may not have killed a noted Broadway producer. He teams up with a helpful cabbie (Rutherford) in an effort to discover his real identity and to find out if he’s the killer the cops are hunting. Mathews is Conway’s playwright friend, Lane plays an idiotic reporter, and Parnell is an equally idiotic homicide detective.
“The film’s feeble attempts at humor fail miserably. The only thing noteworthy about this remake of 1936’s Two in the Dark is that it marked the screen debut of Jane Greer, who was billed under her real name, Bettejane Greer.”
David in TN: Amnesia type noir, 66 minutes long. Conway was actor George Sanders’ older brother, who died broke in 1967 of heavy drinking.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 a.m. ET is Lewis Seiler's Whiplash (1948) with Dane Clark, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Jeffrey Lynn, Eve Arden, Alan Hale.
Film Noir Guide: "Clark stars as a promising young artist who takes to the boxing ring because he feels rejected by the woman he loves (Smith). Between rounds of his championship fight at Madison Square Garden, we learn via flashback that nightclub singer Smith is married to wheelchair-bound ex-boxer (Scott) who is living vicariously through Clark's meteoric rise to the middleweight championship."
"Lynn plays the doctor who operated on Scott. leaving him a bitter cripple; Arden provides the comic relief as Clark's supportive and romantically interested friend; and Hale is Clark's crusty trainer."
"The good acting, especially by Clark and Smith, doesn't compensate for the overly dramatic, cliche-ridden script. Before turning to acting, Clark boxed a little, and it shows during the realistic fight scenes."
David In TN: According to Eddie Muller, Dane Clark was known as the "poor man's John Garfield," which Muller said Clark didn't like. In Whiplash, Dane Clark is playing a John Garfield-type role.
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