Last night we had a heist flick, British but not from The Butchers, in which the focus is on the investigation rather than the commission of the related crimes, but it's an interesting chess game of seeing who will capture whom. "The Gelignite Gang"(1956) are a group of thieves who blast their way into jewelry stores and warehouses, that tricky title word being the Veddy Brrrittish term for dynamite. A London private eye company called Anglo-American Investigators puts #2 man "Jimmy Baxter" (Wayne Morris) on the case. Needing a tip, he goes to see one "Mr. Populos" (Eric Pohlmann), a nightclub owner who Jimmy calls Mr. Populace. Mr. Populace seems crooked, in the way of all nightclub owners as proscribed by Motion Picture Law, but is he? At the very least, he knows everyone in the underworld, and warns Jimmy against going after the Gelignite Gang, who have no compunction about killing investigators. Mr. Populace's doorman is then shot dead that very night, in a phone booth, right after dropping a dime (or a tuppence) to call the coppers and tell them what he knows.
Because Jimmy is suave, there are breaks in the action so he can take his pretty secretary out to dinner, giving Mr. Populace's chanteuse a chance to sing. There's also an important subplot involving a kid named "Chris Chapman" (James Kenny) who works for Barton's Jewelers, the latest victim of the gang. Chris also hangs out at Mr. Populace's nightclub and bets on the dog races. Where does he get all that money on his clerk's salary? His Mom wants to know, and so do the cops, and when a diamond ring goes missing at Barton's, unrelated to the Gelignite heist, Chris is asked to come down to the police station for questioning. He's a small time thief who takes his pickings to a local pawnbroker, who always gives him a fiver for the dog track. But if Chris isn't part of the Gelignite Gang, why is Mr. Populace having him tailed?
We only see the gang pull one dy-no-mite! job, and they're made up of hired hands. One of our main characters is the man behind the scenes pulling the strings, so it's all about who's who, and the direction keeps things moving and alternating between scenarios. James Kenny is very good as Chris Chapman, whose subplot elevates the story above B-level. Veteran actor Pohlmann keeps you guessing as Mr. Populace. Wayne Morris was another one of those American and Canadian TV actors who earned a living working in England in the late fifties and early sixties, when Anglo-American productions were all the rage, and I see just now in reading his bio that he was a Navy Hellcat flying ace during WW2, who shot down seven Japanese fighters and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, a genuine war hero. He's very good in the movie, too. No wonder he's so doggone suave. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Gelignite Gang" with a very high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we had a good one from The Butchers, "Freedom to Die"(1961). "Craig Owen" (Paul Maxwell), is an inmate in the London slammer, but not for long. As the movie opens, while he's in the exercise yard, his cronies throw him a rope over the high wall, and he climbs, like Batman, to his freedom. He and his group speed away, with Craig driving. He runs over a little girl in the street and keeps going.
Once they ditch the getaway car, Craig (an American) figures he's in the clear, and he goes to see a man named "Felix" (Bruce Seton), an older gent who owns a boxing palace. Felix is the mastermind behind the mail robbery that got Craig put away for three years. Craig's not too upset about that; he took the fall and he's now out of there, so it ain't no thang, but he is concerned about collecting his 50k share of the mail job, which netted the gang 300 thousand pounds. Felix has been holding onto the dough in his safe. He does well enough with his boxing business that he isn't in a hurry to expose the hot money. But Craig is on the lam, and wants his share now. Felix goes downstairs to make a phone call, and calls "Mike" (T.P. McKenna), the member of the gang who threw Craig the rope to break him out. Felix wasn't told of the breakout, had nothing to do with it, and he's not happy that Craig is free. He tells Mike, "you caused this, you get rid of him," meaning "rub him out". Mike doesn't wanna do it, and his girlfriend is nagging him not to, but she wants their robbery share as much as Mike does, and he's caught in the middle, between his friend Craig and Felix the mastermind.
The whole movie takes place in one night, as Craig confronts Felix at the boxing joint. Felix has an innocent adult daughter (Felicity Young), who knows nothing of her father's crookedness. But tonight, Craig is there in her Dad's upstairs office, and Felicity senses something is wrong. Though Craig presents himself as a "business associate of your father's", she smells a rat. Later, as the cops close in, Craig (a sociopath who ran over a little girl at the beginning of the movie), makes a "bargain" with Felicity (who, it's hinted, is a virgin). "Sleep with me," he insinuates, "and I won't kill your Dad". There is no mistaking the message, or what happens after that, and it's brutal.
Outside the palace, Mike -who was on his way to carry out Felix's directive to kill Craig - gets picked up by the cops who think he's Craig. The cops have been on the lookout for Craig since he escaped earlier that day.
He eventually does get caught, but gets another light sentence for ratting out the rest of the gang. He's now got a prison rep as a stoolie, and when he gets his early parole, he gets his cumuppance, but not nearly in the way you expect. The ending to this Butcher effort is grim, grim, grim, as dark as Film Noir gets.
The Brits, and The Butchers in particular, seem to like a certain type of North American actor (Maxwell is Canadian), with kind of a "handsome, 45-ish guy who has to shave twice a day" look, and who has a Cary Grant vibe in a Gene Barry body. Guys with butt-chins. Guys who act suave one minute, then are desperate the next, with no gradations. Remember the very odd performance of Robert Ayers in "Delayed Action" last week? I'm beginning to think it was not his fault, that he was responding to his direction, aiming to please The Butchers, rather than his acting coming from his own idiosyncrasies. The Butchers seem to like and want this type of stereotype, a North American that doesn't exist. Think, once again, of the Italian/Spanish outlaw, playing a Mexican in a terrible Spaghetti Western, who has a too-loudly dubbed Brooklyn accent that not only doesn't match his lip movements but also doesn't match his body. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Freedom to Die", however. It's a very good crime flick and the picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is Stomu Yamashta's "Go", featuring Steve Winwood and Michael Shrieve and my late night is Handel's "Arianna in Creta" opera. I am currently processing two things I've learned about my life in recent weeks, one resulting from another, which are so monumental, Biblical in proportion really, that my entire world has been turned on its head. One of the things, as I have alluded to in a recent blog, took place on Rathburn Avenue and involved me. The other, which resulted from the first thing, took place at Northridge Hospital, over an extended period of time, and can only be described as profoundly evil. I think the that the people who did that second thing, to me, thought that what they did would be permanent. As of October 1993, it wasn't, which of course freaked everybody out. But even I, until two weeks ago, was not aware of the full extent of what they did, or of what preceded it, meaning the first thing, which happened on Rathburn.
I was not aware of the extent, the magnitude, of either thing, for all this time. For 33 and a half years. Until now. And so I'm trying to process it, and as I say, there is no way that no one could have known what I did (in reaction to two weeks of torture), or what was done to me after I did it.
There is simply no way, zero chance, that no one could have known. It is impossible that no one could have known about either thing.
Impossible, except in the case of myself. Ironically, I am the only one, who wasn't aware of either of the Two Things, because of what was done to me in the second thing.
But now I know.
And I wonder how the hell am I supposed to live my life with that knowledge, when no one will acknowledge it?
There's one person, of whom I wonder, "how the hell can she get up and go to work every morning?"
Just askin'.
I sure hope I get to talk to Lys one day. She is a righteous and outstanding woman. ////
Having said all of that, I of course wish everyone a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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