Tonight I watched another potboiler from Republic Pictures, the studio that brought us "The Man Is Armed" (reviewed in the last blog). Republic seems to specialize in Quality Quickies, low budget affairs that are nonetheless well put together and acted. The only problem, as evidenced by "Armed", was with the script, and the writing detracts again tonight from an otherwise tight film called "No Man's Woman"(1955). With "Armed", the trouble was with the suspension of disbelief (see review); with "No Man's Woman" it lies in a poorly resolved plot. It's as if the screenwriters on these films are being hurried to the finish line, perhaps by producers on a schedule, or maybe they don't care that much (not getting paid enough), and so they "tack on" an ending, as my friends and I used to say, meaning just "hurry up, pick one out of a hat and pin it on". In neither film has it been enough to ruin the movie, but you wonder why - if the writer could supply a crackerjack script for the first half of the picture, why couldn't he finish the job? It's gotta be either pressure from the studio or he just didn't give a hoot. One last thing about the pictures from Republic Pictures : they look great. As I may have mentioned in my review of "The Man Is Armed", Republic was the king of Poverty Row studios, and a respected independent. So despite the lack of budget their releases never look cheap, and they attracted good actors as well.
Marie Windsor stars as brassy dame "Carolyn Grant", the estranged wife of a wealthy businessman. He wants a divorce so he can marry a nice gal, but Carolyn won't give it to him unless he coughs up major cash. Her husband describes her as a "witch......no matter how you spell it", a classic line, and he's right on the money. Carolyn is strictly From Hell, played to the hilt by Windsor. She's a predator who hates to see anyone happy, so next she sets out to break up the engagement of the young lady who works as her assistant at the Beverly Hills art gallery she runs. She thrusts herself at the girl's fiancee, a sailor, but that's not all because she also has her art dealer business partner on the hook as well. Suffice it to say she's got a lot of enemies, but she's pretty sure she's got 'em all licked.
As awful as Carolyn is, the movie holds fast as long as Windsor is on the screen. I don't wanna tell you what happens, but after something does, the plot - previously very mysterious - slowly dissolves into the perfunctory. Still, as with Republic's "The Man Is Armed", the scriptural deficiency is not enough for me to disregard the film. Indeed, as it ended I found myself thinking, "another good one from Republic"! In other words, they give you enough Good Stuff in all other respects that you can overlook the half-baked writing, and also you should keep in mind that I'm a stickler for scripts. You might think the writing is okay.
But to sum up : with Republic you get your money's worth. You get a great looking flick, with big studio photography and even a few good sets. You only get one or two locations, but they aren't just somebody's Hollywood living room as in other Poverty Row movies. You get good actors like Dane Clark and Marie Windsor, and you get a script, and plot, that kicks butt for the first half of the film.
You could ask for more, but then you'd have to pay for the screenwriter to finish the film, and why would you do that when you're already getting your money's worth? As for me, I'm gonna be looking for more from Republic. Two Thumbs Up for "No Man's Woman", fast paced at 70 minutes. ////
And now, a short commentary about the current political situation. I don't know about you, but I was more than a little disturbed by General Flynn's "tweet", earlier today, in which he stated that Trump should declare martial law and then suspend the Constitution in order to stage a "re-election", a second election that would apparently produce the results that the Trumpers want, even though they got creamed the first time around.
But : does anybody find it a little spooky that this time it's an ex-General saying this? I mean, Steve Bannon or Roger Stone is one thing. But Flynn - though a confessed Federal criminal who plead guilty - is still a retired General, a military man, and his psychotic "tweet" today evokes, to me, a throwback to the insubordination of apocalypse kooks like Air Force General Curtis Lemay and the Army's Lyman Lemnitzer, both of whom wanted JFK to bomb the Soviet Union into the Stone Age in a first strike attack, in order to defeat communism.
Those guys were straight-up crazy. It's a shame that Lemay and Lemnitzer haven't been denounced in the past 60 years, and we are headed for a fall if we continue to allow people like General Flynn to spout their threats (and he did add a veiled threat to his "tweet"), without recrimination.
I suppose the Feds - the real Feds and not the Trumpian charlatans - know what they are doing. But again, I stress that in my opinion, it will be a huge mistake to allow all of this stuff to go unprosecuted.
These people are very dangerous, and they must be held to account. Not "maybe", but "must". ////
That's all I know. See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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