Last night, in "Wiretapper"(1955), pretty "Alice Vaus" (Georgia Lee), runs out her front door every day to meet the postman before he can put the mail in the box. He often has a letter for her from her husband "Jim" (Bill Williams), an Army captain who's being moved to bases all around the country for his expertise in electronics. Jim is a communications specialist. The war is on and he's needed domestically more than overseas, and just this month he's sent letters home from Maryland, Hawaii, New York and Kentucky. Alice is so proud to be his girl, and later that day her little sister calls her to the radio, where news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima signals that the war will soon be over: Jim will be coming home.
What we know, but Alice doesn't, is that - while Jim will indeed be returning - it won't be from any Army base. He's actually been in prison for the past two years, court martialed for stealing government property (it isn't specified what was stolen). The letters he's been sending have been false accounts of non-existent exploits, mailed as favors to Jim by fellow inmates who've been paroled to their home states, hence the various, wide-ranging postmarks.
But with the war over, Jim too is set free. The prison chaplain wishes him well and he comes home, where he continues to keep his incarceration a secret from Alice, fearing he'll lose her if he spills the beans. Hoping to support their marriage, he sets up shop as an appliance repairman: TV, radio, vacuum cleaners, etc., though knowing that his talent is so much greater than that. In the Army he was in charge of wiring radar and base-wide communications systems. Then he gets lucky when a chauffeur for high-powered L.A. lawyer "Charles Rumsden" (Douglas Kennedy) brings a radio in for repair. When Jim later delivers it to Rumsden's Bel Air house, he's invited to stay for a drink, and in the course of talking, he discovers a bug in Rumsden's wall. "Someone's been listening to your conversations, sir." Rumsden takes a liking to Jim after that, and hires him as a personal security expert. In snippets of backstory, we learn that Jim has had dishonest temptations dating way back to high school, and through an illegal wiretapping job, his first assignment for Rumsden, he helps the lawyer expose a rival: a female crime boss who's running heroin and prostitutes, whom the police are trying to nail.
Jim's wife Alice reads about the woman's arrest in the newspaper. He lies to Alice and says that he was working undercover with the cops, when actually he was a blind middleman, and this segment shows how the police work with wealthy shysters to catch other criminals. It's all dog-eat-dog: cops, criminals, lawyers, and big money. Jim is just an ex-con Army officer, who - because of his military training - has expertise that even the Mob envies. Jim wants to provide for Alice, who is now pregnant, so he gets caught up in taking jobs for lawyer Rumsden, who, because of his police connections and wealth, is semi-legitimate but evil all the same. Then, Jim takes a further step into the devil's den and hooks up with "Nick Castro" (Ric Roman), an L.A. mobster and Rumsden's top client. Now, he's setting up security systems at Nick's mansion in Beverly Hills. Nick is a tailor by trade. A Legitimate Businessman, donchaknow.
Jim is so busy working for these crooks that he misses the delivery of his first child, and Alice is ready to leave him. She's a good woman who places family over material wealth. "As long as we have each other, we'll be all right." Jim has by now confessed his prison time in the military, but tells her, "I want to give you the world. That's why I'm working for Nick". And he's got the West Side house, the high-styling 1950's sedans and a house full of expensive furniture to show for it.
Then Nick wants Jim to devise a scam for winning at the race track, and he comes up with a teletype gimmick that's exactly like the one in "The Sting", where guys in a back room have tapped into the teletype feed, in this case coming from Santa Anita, and they use their own teletype machine to delay the results to local bookmakers waiting on the race results. By doing this, an associate can run in to a bookmaking establishment and place a last minute bet on a long shot horse, and win gigantic dough. But Jim decides to shut Nick out of the operation so he can clean up and keep all the money for himself. He's now pocketing big cash, along with a subordinate of Nick's who Jim has chosen to assist him. But of course Nick finds out, and it obviously doesn't sit well with him and lawyer Rumsden, that Jim and his buddy have been making bank without telling them. Normally, they'd kill a guy who screwed them over, but they still need Jim for his electronic wizardry. Rumsden gives him a choice: "You either come with me to St. Louis (to set up a huge, regional teletype scheme), or I'll ruin you and you'll go back to prison where you came from."
Jim is terrified and can't believe the turns his life has taken. He's got a beautiful, adoring wife, and now two children, and yet his material success - which he's yearned for since high school - is all provided by the Los Angeles Criminal Fraternity. And he can't leave Rumsden, Nick and company because he's a valuable commodity to them, thus they feel they own him. What is he to do?
On the eve of his departure to St. Louis, he tells Alice she's got to take the children and go stay with her mother. While he's driving them there, they pass a venue with a sign proclaiming a personal appearance by a very famous person, whose identity I'm not going to reveal because it comes out of left field and changes everything you thought you knew about this movie. I thought it was a tremendous twist, however. If the surprise involved anyone but this person, associated with his particular field (in which he's an icon), it would have less, or no impact, or possibly even a negative one, but because he's the real deal, it blows the movie out of the water. Two Huge Thumbs for the guts to pull this off, and an excellent crime plot in all respects. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, in "Blind Corner"(1964), William Sylvester of "2001" fame is "Paul Gregory", a blind pianist/composer whose wife is cheating on him. Gregory is talented enough for jazz or Tchaikovsky, "but pop is where the money is" he tells his prim, blonde secretary "Joan" (Elizabeth Shepherd), who adores him. His wife "Anne" (Barbara Shelly), on the other hand, can't wait to leave their high rise London apartment so she can be with her younger boyfriend "Rickie Seldon" (Alexander Davion), a painter without a dime to his name. Anne tells Rickie, "Don't worry, my husband will continue to pay for our lunches." Not that Paul knows it, and Anne isn't about to leave him. "I'm too accustomed to caviar and champagne." Indeed, Paul has just written another #1 hit for crooner Ronnie Carroll (playing himself), who has his own featured musical scenes and is quite good in a "Blue Velvet" way. Several scenes are set in a recording studio, with sessions being run by "Mike Williams" (Mark Eden), Paul's manager. Mike can't stand Anne, who he suspects of being a bimbo, and he also thinks she's taking advantage of Paul's money. Every time Mike comes over to talk business, he clashes with Anne, who mutually abhors him.
Then, one afternoon, Mike takes Paul aside to report some distressing news: "I'm sorry to tell you this, Paul, but I was at Ricardo's restaurant last night, and Anne and that painter fellow were at another table. They were acting 'overly familiar' if you know what I mean."
Paul thanks him, but won't believe Anne's cheating until he asks her himself. He still chooses to believe she's faithful and loves him, despite all evidence to the contrary. Anne, an actress before she met Paul, knows just how to play it when confronted with the restaurant news. She gives him The Breezy Brushoff: "Oh, that's nothing, Paul. Yes, I was there with Rickie, but just to celebrate the completion of my portrait" (which Paul had earlier commissioned).
With that, he's satisfied. Nothing will convince him she's unfaithful, even though it's been made clear now by his secretary, also, who tells him she saw Anne kissing Rickie in their house, and right in front of him (which he couldn't see because he's blind).
What we gather, because Paul is stoic and holding his cards to the vest, is that he probably already knows all of this stuff, and is just waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Anne, a witch's witch, can't take the tension anymore and pulls a Double Indemnity/Postman trip on Rickie: "If you want me, you've gotta kill my husband". Any man worth his salt would say, "See ya later" (and wouldn't have been with her in the first place). Newsflash: it ain't worth it, fellas. Wham, bam and it's over, and all you've got to show for it is a murder rap. Why any guy would go for a married woman is beyond me. Anyhow, the camera angles they use to depict Paul, staring blindly-but-knowingly into the distance, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, gives the impression, metaphorically, that he really can see, like he's looking through the walls of the Universe. William Sylvester plays it broad, like a combination of William Shatner and William Petersen from "CSI", both of whom he resembles.
Rickie the painter is a dweeb underneath his boy-toy usefulness for the viper Anne, so even though he, at first, says murdalization is where he draws the line (and it always has to be "draw the line"), he reconsiders when he realizes he'll go back to being destitute without Anne, and Paul's money. So he agrees to push Paul over the apartment's balcony, which will look like an accident because everyone who knows him knows that Paul's been a drunk ever since losing his eyesight two years ago (which is not explained). "He drinks out on the balcony. No one will question that he fell," Anne tells Rickie, who finally goes over to the pad to perform the deadly deed.
This is a Blind Person in Peril movie without the peril, because we see early on that Paul can navigate his surroundings for himself. But unlike Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", he's not intimidated when an intruder breaks in. Like her, he can hear every sound, even feet sliding cautiously, inch by inch on a smooth, tiled floor (stuff that no one should be able to hear, in other words). "Sounds are like paintings to me," he tells Rickie at one point during their confrontation. So we get all the usual blind person/sensory detail, and this movie was actually made before "Wait Until Dark". Paul's self-assurance and physical confidence scares Rickie as he tries to murder him, and a major-league twist is presented that you will 100% not see coming. Two Big Thumbs Up and a very high recommendation for "Blind Corner". The picture is razor sharp and in Cinemascope. Barbara Shelly, known for Hammer Horror, was a great actress and no doubt a nice lady, but boy could she play the world's worst women, lol. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Initiation" by Todd Rundgren. My late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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