Last night's movie was a crime drama/hostage flick statement-titled "He Ran All The Way", starring John Garfield as "Nick Robey", a hoodlum who bugs out after shooting a cop in a botched robbery. This one's a little weird. As the movie opens, Nicks wakes up from a nightmare. It's 11am. His Mom, who he lives with, raps on his door. "Get up Nick! Ya can't sleep all day long"! "C'mon ma", he responds, "leave me alone". His dream has hung him over. Mom looks pretty wasted herself. She's a tough looking broad and hard as nails. When she enters his bedroom (a cluttered hovel), he says "if you were a man I'd knock your teeth out". That's no way to talk to your mother, especially this one. She slaps him hard upside the head. "Is that the best you got, Ma"?, he goads. "You're losing your touch". Nice folks, these.
Then Nick remembers he's supposed to meet a friend. "Al Molin" (Norman Lloyd, who died recently at the age of 106!) is his partner in crime. The two have planned to rob a factory owner in the railroad district in Downtown L.A. They mug the guy and steal his briefcase which has thousands of dollars in cash, but a policeman drives by unexpectedly. Thanks a lot Mr. Screenwriter. In the ensuing shootout, Al Molin is wounded. Nick Robey escapes through the trainyard, and Runs All The Way, as per the title, to the Long Beach Pike amusement park, which is 30 miles distant in real life, but just down the street in the movie.
At the Pike, he blends in with the crowd. The police have a dragnet out for him, so he hides at an indoor swimming pool called The Plunge, where he meets "Peggy Dobbs" (Shelly Winters). They bump into one another in the water. You're gonna have to suspend disbelief as to how quickly they hit it off, but because it's macho Garfield playing against naive, simple Shelly Winters, you can buy it without experiencing too much discomfort. Okay, so they meet in the pool, and within ten seconds they're a couple. Garfield walks her home where Shelly introduces him to her parents (Wallace Ford and Selena Royle). At this point, no one knows anything is hinky with Nick. He's moody but Shelly writes it off and her parents are glad to meet her new friend.
Little by little, though, Nick starts coming unglued, especially when the radio broadcasts the news of the robbery. Shelly's Dad says "oh yeah,we were talking about that at the paper". He's a printer down at the local gazette (think Herald Examiner). "We heard the story this morning. I hope they catch the bum who shot that cop". Nick's standing right there when he says this. Needless to say, it causes him to get even more nervous than he was before, and when Dad and Mom return from a trip to the movies, Nick peers out the windum and sees them talking to two men. "It's the cops"!, he exclaims. Shelly Winters is stunned. "What do you mean, Nick? Those are our neighbors". But it's too late now. Nick freaks out and pulls a gun. "So now you know. I'm the guy the police are looking for. Answer the door and let your folks in. But if those other guys are cops, somebody's gonna walk away with a bullet".
This is the point where the crime flick becomes a hostage drama, and unfortunately the action slows down. The plot becomes a series of personality conflicts in which Garfield is pitted against the different family members, including Shelly Winters' little brother. They're all holed up in the Dobbs' apartment, and nobody's going anywhere until the heat is off Nick Robey. The thing is, Peggy was starting to like him before she knew he was armed and dangerous. Even now, she vows to protect him. "Just leave us, Nick. The police don't know your identity and I won't tell anyone you were here". "What about your parents"? "I won't let them tell". Later her feelings will strengthen. She'll actually ask Nick to take her with him. By this point, her Dad's had enough. Even though he's older and out of shape, he'll try to take on the muscular Nick. He'll even get a punch in.
That night, Nick - in a magnanimous gesture - springs for a big turkey dinner for the family, paid for with the robbery proceeds. It's delivered with all the trimmings. Nick lays the food out on the table. "Okay everyone, let's eat! You see, I'm not such a bad guy after all". But no one will touch the food on Mr. Dobbs' orders. "It's paid for with blood money, by the man who's holding us at gunpoint". This really makes Nick mad, as he was trying to be generous. The situation deteriorates from this point. "Okay everyone! Listen to me"!, Nick finally says. "We can't all stay in here forever or someone is gonna get shot". He allows Mr. Dobbs and Peggy to go to work the next day, but says "if any cop knocks on the door, the Missus and your little son are dead". Of course, both Dobbs and daughter Peg are tempted to report him, and that's all I'll tell you about the plot.
Here's the deal : as the movie unfolds, there's a lot of action during the robbery and the chase through the trainyard, leading to the Long Beach Pike and the pool scene. There's a lot of amazing location footage of 1951 L.A., and you're expecting a fast paced crime story. But when everyone gets stuck in the apartment, the action bogs down and the heavy drama takes over. This gives John Garfield a chance to emote, and of course he was one of the best at this kind of character. The problem is that he's a little too edgy, sometimes when the script doesn't call for it. Don't get me wrong, he's excellent throughout (especially during the dinner scene, which is chilling), but it feels like he and the director weren't always on the same page. Shelly Winters is very good, though she's doing her thing, i.e. playing dumb or "simple". That makes her attraction to Nick feel plausible (just barely), but again the romantic aspect is stretched too far. Interesting that the screenplay was, in part, written by the great Dalton Trumbo. And it's not a bad script, nor is this a bad movie - quite the opposite - it's compelling and highly watchable. It's just that the characters' motivations don't seem to add up on a consistent basis, and John Garfield, in his final film, acts as though he knows it. He died a year later at the age of only 39. Wiki says he was persecuted by HUAC on suspicion of being a Communist (and of course Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted). Garfield goes out with all theatrical guns blazing in this performance, and while he's great, the whole thing's just the slightest bit........odd? Yeah, maybe that's it. Now, we haven't had for a while a movie that needed some trimming, but "He Ran All The Way", which at 77 minutes is not long, could still use a cut of maybe 7 to 10 minutes, just to speed things up during the lengthy standoff.
After all this criticism, you may be thinking I won't recommend the movie but I'm going to. And despite what I've said, I'm even gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up, just for it's uniqueness. It bogs down in places but then it perks up, and it's a little weird as noted but the acting is really good, and the locations and photography are excellent. The picture is so sharp that it looks like a Blu-ray, so give "He Ran" a shot and see what you think. Overall you'll probably like it. ////
The previous night we found a Noir called "Million Dollar Weekend"(1948), written and directed by Gene Raymond, who also stars. You might remember him from our recent heist flick "Plunder Road". Raymond began his career in the pre-code era and was a crooner as well as a box-office draw. He was married to early musical legend Jeanette MacDonald (of MacDonald and Eddy fame), whose sister was Blossom Rock aka "Grandmama" on "The Addams Family". I mention these connections because Hollywood history is fun. As for Gene Raymond, he was quite popular for a time but has since faded into partial obscurity.
Here he plays "Nicholas Lawrence", a stockbroker who high-tails it to Hawaii after ripping off his firm for a cool million. With the stocks, bonds and cash in a briefcase, he hops a flight to Honolulu, where he finds himself sitting opposite a beautiful woman. "Cynthia Strong" (Ona Massen) is stunning but distraught. That's because the man in the next seat is blackmailing her for the murder of her husband. That man, "Alan Marker" (played with sneering glee by Francis Lederer) was an acquaintance of her late hubby who was present the night he died. Marker saw Cynthia push him over their balcony and is now demanding half the life insurance, but that's not all. "I want you as well", he tells her. Cynthia naturally wants Marker off her back, so when he gets up to use the restroom, she leans forward to ask Nicholas Lawrence for his help. "I'm sorry to bother you but I'm in trouble. Could you pretend you know me? That man who was sitting next to me, I want him to go away. We can pretend we're old friends. Maybe he'll leave me alone". Raymond agrees to help her, but Alan Marker doesn't buy it.
"So, you two are 'old friends' "?, he says, smirking. I'll state right off that you're gonna love this performance by Frances Lederer. He steals the movie as the smarmy, innuendo spouting blackmailer. He sees right through Cynthia's attempt to get rid of him, and wonders what's in it for Mr. Lawrence. Sure, she's beautiful, but doesn't Lawrence wonder why she's in danger? From his appearance, he looks like a middle aged businessman. Why would he stick his neck out to protect a woman he only just met? Could he be hiding something too?
It's a great set-up. The stockbroker/embezzler gets away with his heist, only to be seated by a woman who's being blackmailed for murder. Now he's pretending to be her "old friend". Alan Marker isn't that stupid, as he takes great pleasure in letting them know. When the plane lands in Hawaii, he will dog the pair at every turn, following them to their hotel, to the bar (where he will only drink Napoleon Brandy, an important clue for later on). Marker finally learns why Lawrence is on the run - which he always suspected - and now he's going to blackmail him too! "Ahhh, isn't this fun"?, he asks them.
Though the direction is flat in places, you'll still have a blast with "Million Dollar Weekend". Gene Raymond is steady as the older man, wanting to safeguard the damsel-in-distress as well as his stolen money. Ona Massen, a Danish actress that director Raymond loves to show in close-up (and you can't blame him), is touching as the weepy Mrs. Strong, who ultimately confesses to Nicholas Lawrence that she did indeed kill her husband, but in self defense. But the picture belongs to Francis Lederer as noted. As "Alan Marker", he couldn't be more entertaining as he rakes Cynthia and Nicholas over the coals. He gets an absolute kick out of teasing out their secrets and putting them on the spot, and he's downright friendly about it. He wants the audience to share in his delight, and I must say it's infectious. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Million Dollar Weekend". The picture is low contrast but watchable. It's highly recommended. ////
That's all I have for this evening. In addition to "Coup in Dallas" (the JFK book), I also started reading "Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen" by Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill. Still hard to believe he's gone, harder still that 45 years will have passed, this New Year's Eve, since the first time I saw Van Halen in concert. Man oh man, there's that weird Time Thing again. I've been listening to my new 2cd collection of the two albums by National Health. For me, this has been another year of musical rediscovery. In 2020 it was Gentle Giant. This year I got back into Caravan in a huge way, but I also rediscovered National Health, whose music I didn't completely "get" the first time around. When their first album was released in 1975, it may have been too complex or jazzy to my fifteen year old ears. I bought the album, listened to it once or thrice, then put it away. But then this year at Pearl's, I was looking for music to liven things up at breakfast time. The stuff they play at KUSC at that hour is too sedate, and I wanted Pearl to have energy to start the day. Metal was of course out of the question, as was hard rock, but then I thought "what about Canterbury"? It's progressive, melodic and light, with flutes and an English sense of humor. As it turned out, Canterbury music worked out well. It kept Pearl's toes tapping. The only problem was, we ran out of Caravan albums to listen to. So after playing them all through several times, I thought "what else can I find"? That led me to Hatfield and the North, which led me to Egg and Dave Stewart, which led me to National Health. I played both their albums at least ten times this year for Pearl and I at breakfast. Not blasting, but in the background. After listening to their music over and over again I became a huge fan. For me, besides Caravan, 2021 will always be the year of National Health, and overall of the music of Dave Stewart and Phil Miller, guitarist extraordinaire, who played for Hatfield as well as NH.
I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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