Johnny Mack is back. In "The Crooked Trail"(1936), he's "Jim Blake", an ex-lawman from Texas, looking to pan gold in California. While scouting prospective sites, he comes across two unconscious men near Vasquez Rocks. They've been in a punchout and knocked each other cold. One is "Esteban Solano" (Ted Adams) a Mexican immigrant, the other is "Harve Tarlton" (John Merton), a criminal who was earlier chased into the desert by a posse. Johnny Mack is able to rouse them, and gives them water to relieve their dehydration. Each claims the other started the fight. Johnny doesn't take sides in the argument, and he believes Tarlton when he says he's been wrongly accused of the crimes. Another miner named "Tex" (John Van Pelt) rides up, and he and JMB take Solano to stay with a local Mexican family. Solano pledges to repay JMB for his kindness, no matter how long it takes. Johnny shugs and tells him "t'warnt nuthin'", then brings Harve Tarlton back to his mining camp, where he takes him on as a partner. Soon they are fast friends, though Johnny is unaware of Harve's connection to "Lanning" (Charles King), the town big shot. Lanning is also a crook who oversees the robbing of the gold miners. In the middle of the night, Harve sneaks out of the shack he shares with Johnny, to help Lanning carry out the robberies.
Lanning is also engaged, by coersion, to sweet "Helen Carter" (Lucile Browne), the daughter of the local hotelier. She wants nothing to do with Lanning, but he's got her and her Dad over a barrel with unspoken threats of violence, and uses their hotel safe to stash his stolen gold. Johnny knows and likes Helen, and Lanning resents him, but it upsets Harve even more because he sees Helen as coming between him and JMB. Viewed through a modern lens, one could say there's a suggestion that he has a crush on Johnny Mack. Some IMDB commentators think this is deliberate on the part of the screenwriter and/or the director, but I disagree. I see it as Harve's greed coming into play; he doesn't wanna lose his stake in the gold and thinks he'll be the odd man out if Helen dumps Lanning and marries JMB. But in any event, the reverse happens and it turns ugly when Helen does indeed marry Johnny after he kills Lanning in a shootout. He decides to keep Harve as his mining partner, and even offers to let him continue to live with him and Helen. She rightly sees Harve as a fifth wheel, and thinks he's a criminal (which he is), but Johnny Mack just can't see it. "I know he had a hard past, but every man deserves a second chance". He says he is trying to reform Harve and help him, by keeping him in the mining partnership. For his part, Harve does seem to be obsessed with staying close to Johnny, but he's also playing him because now that Lanning's dead, he's taken over the camp robberies himself.
Finally, Harve decides to kidnap Helen and make it look like she ran off with him on purpose. Tex the gold miner finds out about this and alerts Johnny Mack, but when he finds the pair, he falls for the deception and thinks Helen left with Harve of her own volition.
Meanwhile, a pack of robbers - unrelated to the town - have held up the mining camp and absconded with the collective gold. Johnny has to drop his confrontation with Harve and Helen, who he still thinks has double-timed him, because as the acting Marshal of the camp, it's up to him to track the gold robbers down. While he's away, Harve tries to marry Helen, who's hoping Johnny will return and come to her rescue. It's a very complex plot for a Johnny Mack Brown film. John Merton looks so much like regular JMB villain Harry Woods that I was certain it was him, until I checked IMDB. Lucile Browne seems fragile but turns out to be tough as nails as Helen, the beleaguered bride. Several great Western bit players such as Dick Curtis and Ed Cassidy have roles that allow for exposition, to clear up the plot transactions for those of us bewildered in the audience. But as is always noted, if it's a Johnny Mack Brown film, you don't have to ask if it's great. I'm calling again for a Criterion job on all his movies. This one was produced by a company called Supreme Pictures, and was shot at Walker Ranch and Vasquez Rocks. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Crooked Trail". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good for being 86 years old. ////
The previous night, we saw a British/American Noir called "Paid to Kill"(1954). Noir stalwart Dane Clark is "James Neville", the CEO of Amalgamated Enterprises, an undefined investment group. He's bet the house on a brutish, veddy Brrrittissh explorer, who's excavating a pyramid in Mexico. There's no info on what the investment is, but the Brit backs out of the deal, and Amalgamated is about to go bust. As the Chief Cheese, Neville is on the hook with his board of directors. They're gonna go down with the ship too, and they want his head on a platter. He feels guilty, especially toward his wife, because she's going to lose the lifestyle she's accustomed to. So, he does the only thing a failed CEO can do, he hires a hit man to kill him, so his wife can collect the life insurance.
The hitman Neville hires is an old buddy from the days when he was a criminal. We don't get much info on Neville's past, but we do learn that his pal has killed before, and that Neville has remained his associate. "I won't do it", the pal says. "You can't make me kill you". "Oh yeah?" says Neville."If you don't kill me, I'll tell the police about all the murders you've gotten away with and you'll hang!". In England they were still hanging folks up to 1964. Yikes!
The bottom line is that Neville really, really wants the guy to kill him. He even beats him up when he continues to say no. Finally the guy leaves and goes to a bar where he gets hammered. Then he disappears. He hates Neville now, for trying to force him to kill him (and for beating him up), but there's no indication he's actually gonna do the deed. Somebody tries to kill Neville, however. He gets shot at in the middle of the night, then an unseen driver tries to run him down in Whitechapel, in a Jack the Ripper alley. He has a prim and proper, repressed secretary (a great actress named Cecile Chevreau, who we saw in "Spaceways") who's fixated on him and seems to hate his wife. Could she be trying to kill him for some twisted reason?
And what about the old buzzard on the Board of Directors, the guy who tried to usurp his chairmanship at Amalgamated? Neville corners him in a sauna down in Soho, but the guy's gigantic masseuse provides him with an ironclad alibi.
Suddenly, Neville gets an amazing piece of news: the bulging Brrrittissh explorer who backed out of the investment at the beginning of the movie - the investment we have no info on - has now returned from Mexico, and, having unearthed a Valuable Vase (prnounced Vahz), is all smiles as he throws his dough behind Amalgamated after all. The company has been rescued and Neville is off the hook! But what about his contract with the pal who's supposed to kill him? "Boy oh boy, I'd better call him off in a hurry!" There was another movie with a similar plot, and I wanna say it starred Edmund O' Brien. not "DOA" but something else. Anyway, Neville has to find his buddy and call him off before he kills him, because now he doesn't want him to kill him, because now his company is solvent again, and he's filthy rich. Meanwhile, his secretary is becoming overly attentive, and Neville, who can't stay away from the office, has sent his charming and handsome board mate and friend (Anthony Forwood) to look after his wife. "I'm going to be busy for a while. Take her out to dinner, would you? And to the theater and all the things she enjoys". Forwood pretends to beg off, but really he likes taking Neville's wife out. She appears to love the attention, and tries to make her husband jealous. Meanwhile, the attentive secretary sticks to Neville like glue. She hates the wife with a passion, because she's in love with Neville, but she can't tell him because she's totally repressed.
Neville finally goes home one night to discuss the situation with his wife. He apologizes for being so neglectful and promises to make it up to her. But after he explains the whole situation - i.e. the bad investment, the plan to have himself killed, the rescue of Amalgamated and his attempt to call off the killer, someone tries to kill her! Neville then runs to the greenhouse, because......
because it always happens in the greenhouse in these British crime movies. So he runs into the greenhouse to save his wife, and there he finds......(who?).....(the secretary?)......that's what I thought. I suspected her all along, but I can't tell you if she's the culprit. You'll have to see for yourself, and don't forget that the pal who was the original contract killer is still on the loose. A surly barmaid may know where he is. Could she be involved in the attempt on Mrs. Neville? Watch the movie. The final twist is a good one. I promise you won't see it coming, and you get a great Dane Clark tough guy performance in the bargain. Who else would beat a guy up because the guy won't kill him? Two Big Thumbs Up for "Paid to Kill". The picture on this one looks brand new. /////
That's all I know for tonight. I'm listening to Lara Downes, the host who took over from Jim Svejda at KUSC. She's good, and appropriately reserved, as was Jim. And while no one can replace him, she has a good voice for this time of night, and knows a lot about the music. And, she's been playing a lot of piano pieces. Give her a listen, 8 to Midnight, 95.5 fm in Los Angeles.
I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment