Last night we saw an espionage flick called "Secret Command"(1944). "Sam Gallgher" (Pat O'Brien) gets a job at a shipyard during WW2 through his brother "Jeff" (Chester Morris), a foreman. Jeff thinks Sam is a loafer. "I'll get you in, but you'll have to work the 4am shift." "I'll be here." "Yeah, sure you will." Sam surprises Jeff by showing up on time. He needs the job because he's got a wife and two kids. But what Jeff doesn't know is that it's all a ruse. Sam's really working undercover as a government agent.
A year earlier, Sam was in a German prison camp. That's another thing his brother doesn't know. When he got out, he was recruited by the Feds for counterespionage, because he picked up lots of info in the camp. The Germans have infiltrated the shipyard. They have American names and speak perfect English in East Coast accents. He's there to rout them out. Some he recognizes from Berlin (pronounced Bear-LEEN). The Feds have given him a cover background with a ready-made family including "wife" (Carol Landis, a fellow agent) and two refugee kids. To all appearances, he's a family man making ends meet.
Shenanigans slow down the plot, such as punchouts with a co-worker, "Red Kelly" (the great Barton MacClane), which are meant to establish the two men as rivals-who-become-best friends, in the long held Motion Picture tradition. An Irish theme is involved, as it is in all Pat O'Brien pictures. He was the ultimate Irish-American actor and often played priests or cops. Irish heritage was stamped in his contract. So the rivalry takes up a fair amount of time (it's layered in), as does the light comedy hijinx from the pairing of Landis and O'Brien as man and wife. Because she's a fellow agent and the "marriage" is for show, at first she wants nothing to do with him. She makes him sleep in a separate room, which he doesn't like, but the friction of course will lead to romance, also in the Motion Picture tradition.
The point of the story is identifying and nailing the saboteurs. Equal time is spent documenting what it's like to work in a shipyard, and believe me, you wouldn't want a job there. I'd rank it second behind working in a steel mill. Man, those guys are some tough sons of b-words. Sam gets close to the German "American" workers who are out to blow the joint up, but before he can identify their leader, his brother Jeff is almost killed in a crane "accident". The culprits are rounded up, but other saboteurs remain loose. One sees Sam talking to a man from the security department, and recognizes him from the camp in Berlin. Figuring Sam as an intelligence agent, he goes to Sam's house with a gun. By now, the German saboteurs have rigged an aircraft carrier with enough dynamite to destroy the entire shipyard. Their leader turns out to be.......well, of course I can't tell you.
At Sam's house, Red Kelly shows up at the wrong time with some toys for Sam's "children". After several fistfights, he and Sam are now best friends. Unfortunately for Red, the gunman is still at the house. Their confrontation sets the stage for the shipyard explosion, planned for the following day. Will it go off as expected by the Germans, or will Sam and Carol Landis intervene?
There's a lot of actual shipyard footage in "Secret Command" that gives the film an authentic look. The workers are in the water under exceptionally dangerous conditions. The plot could've been tightened up by 7 to 10 minutes, but then we wouldn't have the "marriage" or the "buddy" subplots, which were designed to sell tickets, but also figure strongly in the ending. The movie was nominated for a "Best Visual Effects" Oscar and deservedly so. In fact, after watching, I couldn't tell where the effects were used, so they must've been seamless. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Secret Command". Bear with the aforementioned extracurricular stuff. The plot is well developed, it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////
Well, it's official : Hugh Beaumont is our new favorite Noir star. He's been great playing hard guys in one film after another, and the previous night he was an out-and-out psycho in Sam Newfield's "Money Madness"(1948), in which he tricks poor Frances Rafferty into marriage, then kills her elderly aunt in a scheme to launder money from a bank robbery. The movie gets off to a fantastic start, with Beaumont on a bus in the Valley. The bus driver says "next stop, Canoga Park!". Beaumont goes to a bank on what could be Sherman Way, to stash 200 Grand in a safe deposit box. Then he gets a job as a driver for Valley Cab. Everything's running like clockwork. His first fare is a drunk guy and his gal. Beaumont throws the drunk guy out and takes the gal for coffee. She's the young and impressionable "Julie Saunders" (Rafferty), who works at a malt shop and lives with her hypochondriac aunt.
The cunning Beaumont puts the make on Julie. He convinces her to marry him, then he does a 180 and tells her the marriage isn't legal because he's already married. He takes the money out of the bank and stashes it at the aunt's house. He's got every angle figured to make Julie look like a criminal. That way, she'll be afraid to turn him in. He tells her "a wife can't testify against her husband". "But you said the marriage wasn't legal". "Yeah, but the money is sitting in your auntie's closet. How are you gonna explain your way out of that"? The reason he didn't actually marry her is so he could keep all the money for himself. It's complicated to try and explain, better to let Beaumont do the talking. He's got the convoluted mind of a sociopath, and now he's going to poison the aunt. That will make Julie will look like an accomplice to murder, should she go to the police. "You served her the tea", Beaumont says. Boy is he evil in this movie. The problem kicks in when a lawyer (Harlan Warde) gets involved. Julie has to account for the money in the closet by saying her auntie was a miser. "She must have been saving for all those years". Beaumont is pressuring her to stick to the pre-planned story, but the lawyer - a handsome gent - is beginning to fall for Julie. "Who's this cabbie hanging around"?, he wonders.
Then, an old associate of Beaumont's turns up, one of his gang from the bank robbery. The guy wants his share of the dough, which throws a monkey wrench into the works. When he turns up dead, the robbery is rehashed in the news. An old picture of Beaumont is printed. The lawyer takes it to a photo lab for retouching. Voila! It's the mysterious cab driver. One last thing - Beaumont refers to his gun as "my little friend" not once but twice. Makes you wonder if DePalma, Oliver Stone, or Al Pacino (or all three of them) were fans of this movie, or Sam Newfield in general. "Money Madness" is one of his gems and gets Two Big Thumbs Up (Two Huge for Beaumont's performance). It's a must-see, though the picture is a little soft.
And there you have it. Two more good ones to start off the year. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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