Last night's movie was brutal. "Try and Get Me"(1950) tells the story of "Howard Tyler", a family man down on his luck in the fictional small town of Santa Sierra, California. Howard needs a job. His wife is pregnant, his son wants a bike (wait a minute, didn't some other kid want a bike a few weeks ago?). Well anyhow, the local chemical plant isn't hiring. Howard can barely bring home a bag of groceries. In town and aimless, he walks into a bowling alley. There he observes a slick looking guy rolling strikes. "Jerry Slocum" (Lloyd Bridges) seems to have all the confidence in the world. If you watched "He Ran All The Way", and saw how fast Shelly Winters cottoned onto John Garfield (ten seconds), this partnership doesn't take much longer to form. Slocum asks Howard to hand him his shoes, the next thing you know they're fast friends.
Howard walks with Jerry back to his apartment, where he's got the finest clothes in his closet. He's got an expensive watch too. "Wow", says Howard. "You're doing alright. You must make.....what?......at least twenty dollars an hour"? "Twenty dollars"?, replies Jerry, "ha! That's chump change. I make a lot more than that when I'm working".
"Well say, where do you work? I could sure use a job".
Jerry looks Howard over. "You know, I think I can get you in. Are you a good driver"? "I suppose", Howard says. Jerry slaps him on the back. "Alright then, lets go talk to the boss. All he needs you to do is drive for him". Long story short, there is no boss, no place of employment. Jerry is an armed robber. It is he who needs a driver, to make faster getaways. Howard says no. "I don't want to get in trouble". This is where Jerry first shows the signs of being a nutcase. He loses his temper and tells Howard to get lost. Howard dreads going home to tell his wife, yet again, that he didn't find a job, so after giving it a second thought, he reluctantly agrees to drive for Jerry. Boy will he ever wish he hadn't.
The first stickup goes smoothly. They hit a mom and pop store. "See how easy that was"?, Jerry says as they drive away. He shows Howard the wad of cash from the register. "I told you there was nothing to worry about". That night, Howard comes home late. But instead of sheepishly sneaking his way into bed, he surprises his wife with a big bag of steaks and another of new clothes. "Oh, Howard! You finally got a job! I'm so proud of you, where is it"? "Uh, I'm working at a warehouse. I'm gonna be on the night shift, but it pays more money". His son comes out to join the celebration. "Gee Dad, can I get that new bike"? "Of course, Tommy! And that baseball glove you wanted too".
Soon Howard is bringing home tons of dough, enough to send his wife on shopping sprees. "Nothing but the best for my family"! She and Tommy rarely see him, which she finds a little strange, but Howard says he's working overtime a lot. "It's okay, honey. At least we aren't broke anymore". But one night, he and Jerry rob a liquor store. The take is only 23 lousy bucks. The law of diminishing returns is kicking in. Their next few jobs net next to nothing. Then Jerry comes up with a big idea. Howard at first is very nervous. "Um, Jerry.......you said we were only gonna do stickups". "Don't worry, pal. I haven't steered you wrong yet, have I"?
Cut to : The driveway of a gigantic mansion. It's late at night. Howard and Jerry pull up. "Oh, Jerry", Howard says, "I don't feel good about this. How long will we have to sit here? What if someone sees us"? "Relax, will ya? There's nobody here but him. I've been watching the house all week. He leaves like clockwork at 11pm, every night. We've only got five more minutes". They wait, and a young man comes outside. He's "Donald Miller" (Carl Kent), heir to a fortune. Jerry kidnaps him at gunpoint. Howard follows in Jerry's car as they drive to an abandoned Army base. There, Jerry demands that Howard help him tie up the terrified Miller. "Wait, Jerry.....I thought you said we were gonna hold him at your place. What're we doing here"? "What're you, crazy? We can't take him to my apartment! What, and lead the cops right to us? Now just shut up and tie his legs". Jerry is getting a manic look in his eye. Howard's now as scared as Donald Miller. Jerry rolls Miller's tied up body down a hill, then he runs down beside him. "No, Jerry! What are you doing?! No, Jerry, no"!! Howard is screaming as Jerry picks up a large rock. This movie is brutal, as I told you.
"Why'd you have to kill him, Jerry? Why? Why? You said it was just a kidnap"! "What? And have him identify us later? Good thing I'm the brains in this operation, Howard. Now let's get the hell outta here".
There's another plot thread that's been previously introduced, that of a newspaper columnist who's been covering the string of robberies. His name is "Gil Stanton" (the legendary Richard Carlson). His style is alarmist, bordering on yellow journalism, but he's got a large following and sells a boatload of papers. At a dinner party shown earlier, Stanton is talking to his friend, a renowned scientist. "You're a good writer", the man tells him, "but you shouldn't lead with emotion. It fires up the public. This can have repercussions in the long run". "Ahh, maybe so", Stanton replies, "but it sure keeps my publisher happy".
Meanwhile, Jerry Slocum has cooked up a plan to deliver the ransom note, which he's pieced together, as kidnappers do, from individual letters cut from magazines. He has Jerry drive him, with two women in tow, to the next town over. "We'll mail it from there to throw off the cops. Then we're going to a nightclub, my treat. By the way, Howard, this is Judy and this is Hazel". She's Howard's blind date. When they get to the club, he's so sickened by the murder that he gets hammered, becoming even sicker. Unable to go home when they drive back that night, he crashes at Hazel's pad. When he wakes up hung over, he starts hallucinating. Hazel asks him what's wrong, and Howard confesses everything. He and Jerry are then caught and taken to jail. Enter columnist Gil Stanton, who now has something to truly inflame his readers. This is where the scientist's warning will prove prophetic : "You shouldn't lead your columns with emotion".
Stanton has Jerry and Howard convicted with his words before they ever enter a courtroom. We all know they're guilty; that's not the question. But the screenwriter is out to examine the problem of the press as it relates to mob rule. At what point do editorials lead to vigilante justice? This is some scary stuff, as a crowd gathers outside the jail. Shouts are heard. A charge is led to storm the building that reminds one of January 6th, but then things get even worse, and that's all I'm gonna tell you. "Try and Get Me" (originally titled "The Sound of Fury") is some grim, shocking stuff. Ultimately it's more about the responsibility of the press than it is about Howard and Jerry, though their story takes up the bulk of the movie. Though not an easy watch, it's got great performances by Frank Lovejoy as the remorseful Regular Joe and Lloyd Bridges as the psychopathic Pied Piper who leads him to ruin. Richard Carlson is good as the columnist Stanton, Kathleen Ryan sad and sweet as Howard's loving wife "Judy". Also noteworthy is Katherine Locke as Howard's date "Hazel". She gives a highly nuanced performance dependent on her eyes and facial muscles. It's the kind of role that wins Best Supporting Actress Oscars. Though it's not for the squeamish, I give "Try and Get Me" Two Huge Thumbs Up. According to IMDB, Martin Scorsese own the only surviving print. He made it available for restoration in 2013, so the picture is razor sharp. It's very highly recommended. ////
The previous night's flick was a hard-boiled cop story from the legendary Don Siegel, whose "The Lineup" we saw and reviewed recently. That film, you might recall, was a procedural with a TV grade plot, which didn't make it bad. It was just more about Point A to Point B police operations and less about layering in mystery or suspense, although because Siegel was the director, it did have spectacular action sequences. This movie, however, with the strange title "Private Hell 36"(1954), was an out and out crime classic with all kinds of detail in the script, perhaps because it was co-written by Ida Lupino who also stars.
Let's start at the beginning. In New York City, a thief makes off with a suitcase full of marked money, some which of which ends up in Los Angeles. Cut to : late night L.A. "Sergeant Cal Bruner" (Steve Cochrane) is on patrol. He passes a storefront that looks iffy. Stopping to check, he sees it's been broken into. He enters the joint and a shootout ensues; a punchout too. The shot guy dies. Sgt. Bruner takes the other crook to the station, bloody nose and all, and presents him to "Captain Michaels" (Dean Jagger, Mick's brother). The Captain examines his wallet and finds a Fifty Spot. "This is from that hot dough that was stolen in New York".
There was a lot more where that came from, 300 Gees worth. Captain Michaels assigns Bruner and his partner "Sgt. Farnham" (Howard Duff) to the case. In tracing the tainted Fitty, info from the bloody nose guy leads the detectives to nightclub singer "Lilli Marlowe" (Lupino). Sgt. Bruner enlists her to find the man who passed her the bill as a tip. They stake out horse racing tracks - his milieu - and fall in love in the process. Now, Sgt. Bruner is a maverick. His partner Farnham is a straight cop and family man (a similar pairing to that of Jerry and Howard in our first movie). One day at the track, a car speeds out of the parking lot. Bruner and Farnham think it might be their guy and give chase. The speeder goes off road on a dirt track near Mulholland Drive, where he rolls off a cliff and dies. Fluttering in the breeze is the 300 thousand bucks. Here's where things get dicey.
As noted, Sgt. Bruner is a lone wolf cop. He gets results but does things his way. Captain Dean Jagger (Mick's brother) gives him some leash, but partner Sgt. Farnham is wary, And now, at the crash site, as they're gathering up the blowing cash, Bruner grabs a couple bundles from the suitcase : eighty thousand bucks worth! "What in the wide world of sports are you doing"?!, exclaims an incredulous Sgt. Farnham. "Take it easy, buddy", says the cool, collected Bruner. "You can use this cash as much as I can". Thus begins the odyssey of the double dealing cops. Like Howard and Jerry before them, one is reluctant, the other the ringleader. Bruner also insinuates to Farnham that he'd better go along. "If I get caught, it won't matter what you say. Captain Jagger, you know - the brother of Mick - will believe you're in on it too".
Sgt. Farnham keeps his mouth shut but feels guilty. Meanwhile, the freewheeling Sgt. Bruner makes plans to run off to Mexico with Ida Lupino when the coast clears. Then one night the phone rings. Bruner picks it up. "Hey Sergeant. You know that funny money you turned in? Yeah, $220,000. That was a record haul, am I right? You'll probably get a promotion. The only trouble is, I know there was more in that suitcase. I know you took eighty thousand bucks. If you don't give it back, I'm gonna have to tell the teacher. You should meet me in that bar near your apartment one hour from now, with the money. Just think of me as a friend". Bruner has hidden the dough at a trailer park near the beach. It's inside Trailer 36, hence the movie's title. He and Sgt. Farnham drive there to retrieve it and that's all I'm going to tell you.
In the list of Don Siegel films, everyone knows "Dirty Harry". No one's ever heard of "Private Hell 36", which is a crime because it's just as good. You're gonna love Steve Cochrane, who - if you don't know him already - is a combination of swarthy man's man and lady killer incroyable. What makes him different from the average macho hunk is that he can really act. He brings complexity to Sgt. Bruner, who's conflicted about involving Sgt. Farnham. They're off duty friends as well as partners. Bruner tries to justify the theft to Farnham - "c'mon, Farn......we deserve it. Dealing with the worst of the worst every day for years, who else is gonna do it but cops? And what do we get paid for our trouble? Hardly more than peanuts. Just take your half and spend it any way you want. Take your wife on vacation, buy yourself a new car. You deserve it and no one's gonna know the difference. The bad guys will end up in jail and I'll handle the paperwork. Leave everything to me". He wants his partner to appreciate what he's doing, but Farnham is by the book. He only wants money he's earned. Howard Duff was also a very good actor who played a lot of tough guy roles, but his trademark was a serious face and that baritone voice. He's the perfect foil here to Cochrane, whose jutting jaw suggests overconfidence, calculation. Ida Lupino at this point was in the middle of her career and had already moved on to directing. She's excellent as the cynical singer Lilli Marlowe, who doesn't want Sgt. Bruner as much as she wants his money. I didn't know it before the film, but in real life she and Howard Duff were married. Their little daughter is in the movie too.
I give "Private Hell 36" Two Huge Thumbs Up. It's an acting triumph with one of the best Noir scripts you'll ever see. Once again we have a blog where both films are outstanding, though "36" is the more traditionally entertaining of the two. Still, don't miss "Try and Get Me", either. Watch 'em two nights in a row.
That's all I've got for the moment. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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