Last night's movie was "The Villiers Diamond"(1938), a compact Brrrittish crime dramedy, set in "everyone's-in-the-house" mode. As it opens, jewel thief "Barker" (Leslie Harcourt) is paroled, having served his sentence without ever revealing what became of the Villiers diamond, a large piece of ice. Skeertlnd Yeerd decides to follow him as he leaves The Slam, thinking he'll lead them straight to the Villiers, but he's more cagey than they assumed. He goes straight to the mansion of "Silas Wade" (Frank Birch), a wealthy businessman and jewel collector who was going to fence the diamond for Barker before he went to prison. Barker wants his payoff, 150 pounds. Wade tells him he can have ten pounds now and the rest later because he hasn't sold it yet: "It's still too hot." Barker says okay, but demands to stay in Wade's house and watch over it, "Because I don't trust you". Wade gives him a pretend job as his butler so no one will question his presence, much to the chagrin of "Ma Benson" (Margaret Davidge), Wade's protective Irish cook.
Then Wade's niece "Joan" (Evelyn Ankers) returns from her finishing school in France, accompanied by the headmistress. Joan's been expelled for having love letters in her room. The headmistress claims she was planning to elope. Wade is miffed but takes her in, and she asks him about her ten grand in investments, which he's been in charge of. He can't tell her the truth, that it's all gone because he mismanaged it, so he enlists Barker in a scheme to recover her money, which involves faking the theft of his jewel collection. This will also allow them to "vanish" the Villiers diamond and fence it in the process.
To set it up the plan, Wade answers the ads in the "Agony Column" of the local paper, a list of monetary requests from the poor. Wade invites several of them to a charity dinner, so he can use one as a patsy to take the fall for the faked jewel theft. But the guy he picks is - unknown to him - his niece's boyfriend, whom he's never met, the guy who got her kicked out of school with his love letters.
Meanwhile, two of the "Agonized", a couple who wrote assistance letters to the column, have heard about Wade's jewel collection and are planning to rob his safe. When they arrive for the "charity dinner", they hide in the anteroom behind the floor-to-ceiling drapes so they can watch him turn the dial and steal the combination. But when Wade's fake robbery scheme goes down, their plan gets mixed up with his and now nobody knows who has the Villiers diamond. There's a twist at the end, which you may not see coming. It's only fifty minutes long but tight as a drum, a charming and fast moving puzzle. Two Bigs, though just regular Brrrittish instead of Veddy. ////
The previous night, we found an odd potpourri of a movie called "Mr. Reckless"(1948). This one you haven't heard before. Tyrone Power lookalike William Eythe is an oil roughneck, originally from Lowss -ANGless but working in Loozy-Anna. When he comes back home, he and a rigger pal commandeer a taxi because the cabbie sings tenor. They belt a few tunes while Eythe is driving "recklessly" (cause he's Mr. Reckless, get it?), and while avoiding a head-on with a bus, he crashes through the wall of Gus's #1 Cafe and Eats. Eythe was planning to visit "Gus" (Nestor Paiva) anyway (they're best friends), and now's as good a time as any, while the taxi is parked in the dining room of Gus's restaurant. And Gus don't mind; "the joint is a-gonna be-a torn down anyway, for to put in a skyscraper".
Eythe only has a couple days, then he's gotta head back to Loozy for work. Gus wants to go with, so he can be with his friend. Gus is a 100% caricature, but we like caricature characters, and he's about to marry "Betty" his cook (Barbara Britton). Betty is half Gus's age, and Eythe is bummed because she was his gal before he left for the oil field. But he's got "wings on his feet", he can't stay in one place, and he tells he to "go ahead and marry Gus. You'd never be happy with me."
But the marriage is on the back burner for the next 45 minutes, because there's hijinx and other stuff to attend to. The whole gang moves to Louisiana, including Betty's Dad (Lloyd Corrigan), a heart-of-gold gambling addict, whom she supports on her cook's salary. Dad does get a job, at the fields, but is soon in debt to a fellow 'neck, a big dude who locks him in a storage tank for failure to pay his poker debt. That night, the tank starts filling up with oil. Dad is about to drown. Gus shows up after hearing about it, and beats the tar out of Dad's tormentor, but takes a few lumps in the process. Then Eythe arrives and pounds the guy some more, but the dude is big and mean, and it takes a lot to keep him down. The end result is that Betty's two suitors (William Eythe and Gus) are now both laid up in the hospital with a host of injuries. She doesn't love Gus, but he's loyal, he's her boss, and he's good support for her and her wayward father.
Later on, the big oil roughneck returns to the drilling site to sabotage Eythe on the job. He trips a steam valve, causing a heavy pipe to fall on Eythe's leg. Gus and Eythe later catch him, but then Gus finds out that Betty is in love with Eyeth, which results in a rather unusual ending to the movie: a horrific fight scene, atop an oil derrick (of course), followed by a romantic kiss-off and a marriage, as if Gus was a monster all along, instead of a sympathetic character. I told ya it was a potpourri. It's a good one, though, and gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good also. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "H to He" by Van Der Graaf Generator, my late night is the Ezio Opera by Handel, I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxo :):)
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