Last night we had "The Devil's Sleep"(1949), a juvenile delinquent "warning" flick about rising narcotic use among teenagers. A slick hoodlum named "Umberto Scalli" (Timothy Farrell) is running an amphetamine and downers ring out of a weight-loss gym for women, his primary customers. He owns the gym and has his female trainer hook the ladies on a drug called neurofloramine, but a judge (Lita Grey, Charlie Chaplin's second wife) gets wind of an associated problem involving teens after a local high school kid robs a gas station while high on benzedrine.
Scalli's big seller is the nitroflouramine (never hoyd of it; sounds made-up), which the gym ladies gobble like candy. They're shown working out in their underwear and bras for exploitation purposes, and a big gal named Tessie T. Tesse (last name also pronounced Tessy) gets three minutes of hijinxs and looks like she was a professional comedian. The actors are amateur or semi-pro. Timothy Farrell (playing Scalli) was a court bailiff in real life, and went on to become a county judge. But in this movie he's breakin' the law, and when he finds out the judge's daughter is attending pool parties at a rich kid's house with the other teens, he sends his henchman out to set her up for blackmail. The "rich kid" with the party house pretends to have a rich uncle "who's out of town", but it turns out he's not a rich kid at all. His name is really "Fred Smith" (Stan Freed) and he's working for Scalli. He sets up a game of Blind Mans Bluff and "Margie Ballantine" (Tracy Lynne) falls into the pool while blindfolded. After removing her wet dress, she gets her towel pulled off before being back pushed into the pool, and there's about a half second of rear-end nudity. Scalli has prearranged for his henchman to take a picture of Margie when this happens, and he then blackmails the judge with the nude photograph. Meanwhile, Mr. Universe (George Eiferman) has been hired to take over the exercise training at Scalli's gym. I have no idea why he's there. Maybe Charles Atlas produced the movie.
There are many extraneous characters, including a second henchman with muscles for brains who swears he could "take" Mr. Universe. Maybe the director self financed this flick and used all his friends as the actors. Good guy teenager "Bob Winter" (Jim Tyde) is dating Margie the judge's daughter. Bob's sister "Jerri" (Laura Travers) is the wife of the lead detective (William Thomason) on the judge's anti-drug strike team. There's a huge punchout at the end, involving the teens vs. Scalli and his photographer, who have Jerri Winter and Mr. Universe tied up in the weight-loss gym. Ed Wood could've directed this film and made it weirder and less stiff (it's cue card city), but then it wouldn't have been as coherent. The anti-drug message does come through strongly, and it's all about pills and date rape drugs (which are nothing new, apparently), but not marijuana, which perhaps wasn't in vogue with the average teen until the late fifties.
At any rate, it's good for what it is, so Two Bigs, though it should've been 56 minutes instead of 71. The picture is very good. John Mitchum has a scene as an intern near the end, after young Margie overdoses on Nembutal trying to kill herself over the naked photo. He gives an anti-drug speech in which you can tell he's Robert Mitchum's son. After Lita Grey, he's the only quasi-famous actor in the movie. ////
Now then: sometimes you get an unheralded film that dares to venture outside the formula, in this case of the murder mystery genre. "Whispering Footsteps"(1943) mixes Noir style with World War 2 Americana. Living in Ma Murphy's boarding house, you've got a Whitman's Sampler of folksytypes: a gas meter reader, a milkman (Billy Benedict from The East Side Kids), a librarian (Grandmama), a screaming teenager (Juanita Quigley), and "MarK Borne" (John Hubbard), a handsome, friendly bank teller, who gets caught in a case of mistaken identity because he looks like a murderer.
The circumstantial evidence couldn't be worse. Borne gets off a train in an Indiana town an hour before a murder happens there. On another night, he's out walking in a park and comes back to Ma Murphy's with his shoes covered in mud. A body is found in the park the next day. But wait - in that investigation there's a twist because "Helen LaSalle" (Joan Blair), the new gal in town who Mark fancies, also has muddy shoes. Was she tracking him in the park, or is there a chance she's the killer? Cy Kendall is the lead detective (he's always a detective), but he's playing his cards close. Cy's a surrogate for the director, who is NOT gonna let you know his intention.
I have a small collection of movies I'm fond of (and sometimes mention) that have metaphysical themes submerged within what you think is a genre picture. Sure, a title like "The Enchanted Cottage" should tell you something, but the undercurrent in such a movie is still surprising for how deep the filmmakers explore it. You aren't expecting them to get that far out because it's a studio system film in an era when they stuck to formula for the resolution of stories; there were only so many ways to end a movie. But every once in a while, they made a movie like "Cottage", or "Portrait of Jennie", or "The Secret Garden", or "I'll Be Seeing You", where the director (or the producer) inserted a spiritual subtext that changed the film's meaning. In this one, you are deliberately kept wondering about the identity of the murderer. Surely it's Mark, the evidence says so, even he thinks so! "There have been killers who were two different people" he says to "Brook Hammond" (Rita Quigley), the daughter of bank president (Charles Halton). "What if I am myself by day, but kill by night and don't remember"? Another murder happens and Brook makes an alibi for him, but everyone at the boarding house is calling the police now, to offer clues. I was thinking it had to be a shell game plot, one of the typical murder mystery frameworks, and I thought the killer was gonna be Helene (Marc's girlfriend), or Cy Kendall, because it was too obvious that Mark wasn't the guy, even though everyone - including himself - thought he was.
Then the director and screenwriter pulled their rabbit out of a hat and made their movie different. It doesn't have the payoff you might be expecting, but instead has one of deeper meaning and consequence, and that's all I am going to tell you. BTW, Blossom Rock (aka Grandmama from The Addams Family) was Jeanette McDonald's sister. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Whispering Footsteps, with a very high recommendation. It's one to look for, and the picture is very good. ////
That's all for tonight. My blogging music was Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge" and "Tubular Bells 3", my late night is Handel's Serse Oratorio, I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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