Last night's movie was a hard-boiled espionage Noir entitled "World for Ransom"(1954), starring one of our favorite actors, the great Dan Duryea, as "Mike Callahan", a mercenary-turned-private-eye who's in Singapore working for his old flame "Frennessey March" (Marian Carr). Her husband (Callahan's war buddy) may be mixed up with a British gang operating in the country, except it's a whole lot worse than that: "Julian March" (Patrick Knowles), a travel agent, is not only working with the gang, which is headed up by a ruthless older chap named "Alexis Pederas" (Gene Lockhart), but they're planning to kidnap a nuclear physicist, one of only four men in the world who can trigger a hydrogen bomb.
Singapore, in those days, is portrayed as a nation of sin. On any street, prostitutes solicit you, and everything can be had for a price. Julian March is an easy mark for Pederas, who reels him into the scheme. His job will be to impersonate the British colonel who's supposed to escort "Dr. Sean O'Connor" (the physicist) to the city of Jurong, where he's scheduled to speak at a conference. The embassy driver will also be replaced, and the gang will hijack O'Connor to the warehouse district, where he'll be drugged and held hostage. But during the kidnapping, there's a screwup. While driving through a slum, the embassy car is spotted by a news photographer named "Lee Wong" (our buddy Keye Luke). Hungry for a scoop ("what's the embassy car doing in the whorehouse district?"), he snaps a picture, develops it, and sees his friend Julian in uniform. Knowing he can't possibly be with the embassy (Julian is a travel agent, remember), Lee goes to the cops to report a possible crime. "But," he adds, "Julian can't be in on it. He must have been coerced."
Back at his photography lab, Lee is killed by "Guzik" (Lou Nova), the behemoth enforcer for Pederas. Fearing he might be next, Mike Callahan hides out at the apartment of Julian's wife Fennessey, who used to be his girl before the war. He reports what he's found out (keep in mind that she hired him to tail her hubby): Julian is part of a kidnap plot involving nuclear weapons. "That's some husband you married," he laments, though Julian was once his pal. Mike's hoping, with the bad news, that Fennessey will ditch Julian and take him back, and it looks like she might. However, she says, "Look, Mike. I do still love you, and the truth is I never loved Julian. I only married him because we thought you were killed in the war. Now that he's involved with kidnapping, I want nothing to do with him, but, he's a good man at heart. I think he was forced into this, so we've got to get him out. Then it'll be us from now on."
Mike agrees to help, but he's gonna live to regret it. After hooking up with the real "Colonel Bone" (Reginald Denny from the hit show "Florence & Normandy"), who miraculously survived the kidnapping switch, the two of them set out to rescue O'Connor the physicist, who's been moved to a jungle location. In the bargain, Mike hopes to save Julian also, as he promised Fennessey March. Mike and Col. Bone ask for military assistance from the embassy chief (Nigel Bruce, aka Sherlock's Watson), who refuses. Indeed, he wants to arrest Mike for the murder of Lee Wong, on which the gangsters have framed him. The plot is more convoluted than it needs to be, and the movie would benefit from a 10 to 15 minute cut, down to around 66 minutes.
The bossman Pederas then barges into Bruce's office to announce his demand for five million lbs., in exchange for the return of Dr. O'Connor. "And if you don't want to pay it, I know several Eastern Bloc "shoppers" who will gladly hand over the money." Bruce calls him a maniac to his face. And now that Mike Callahan and Col. Bone have discovered the jungle hideout, they're gonna do a two-Irishmen rescue, Rambo style, with pin-pulled grenades. Mike's about to find out just what kind of friends he has, when Julian thanks him for the rescue by trying to kill him, saying "I cant let you steal my wife!" When Mike succeeds in getting free, Frennessey March turns out to be even worse than Julian. It turns out she was leading Mike on all along. "Go home Jake, it's Chinatown, forget it."
The same could be said about Singapore, is the message. Nowdays, though, it's a the opposite. Now they arrest you for spitting on the sidewalk, literally. It's become the most puritanical country on earth.
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "World for Ransom". You can't miss with Dan Duryea, whose theater training shows in this role. He's one of my ten favorite actors. Director Robert Aldrich was known for his brawny, two-fisted movies (and Baby Jane). This one's a tad long, with too much romance, but a little trimming up would make it a minor gem. The camerawork is by Joseph Biroc, one of cinema's greatest Black and White photographers, and the picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we watched "Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher"(1943), in which "Cosmo" (Ben Stiller lookalike Frank Graham), a self-appointed "mail-order criminologist" steps in to help the police solve a big city gang war. Two chieftains are battling over turf. The more violent one makes the rules - "Stay below 36th street, got it?" - and when his boys see the other guy striking it rich, with a 20K win at a casino, he sets up an excuse to rob that guy, abducting him on his way home, and then "borrowing" his twenty thousand. "See? I play nice," he says. "I'm not stealing your money, I'm borrowing it." Maybe so, but good luck getting it back. Then one of the Alpha Guy's henchmen turns up dead. It looks to the cops like the other boss did it, in retaliation for the 20K rip off. But he swears he's innocent, and "Sergeant Pat Flanagan" (Richard Cromwell), who let the shooter get away, is demoted to foot patrol by "Chief Murphy" (Edgar Kennedy), a buffoonish Irish giant.
The police commissioner castigates Murphy for letting the gang war escalate. "We need an arrest in that shooting!" In walks Cosmo Jones, with his PhD vocabulary. Chief Murphy can't stand him. When he promises to solve the case, Murphy throws him out, and provides no police assistance when the commissioner appoints him. So Cosmo enlists a janitor at the club where the gang shooting happened. He's played by Mantan Moreland, doing his usual bug-eyed thing, hilarious as always. "Sho 'nuff!" mixed with malaprops and superstition.
Now, in retaliation for the shooting, Segeant Flanagan's girlfriend has been kidnapped. She just happens to be the daughter of the biggest newspaper publisher in the city. The kidnappers want a shipload of ransom. Chief Murphy is up in arms. Only Cosmo and Mantan can solve the case, which they do by deception, when Cosmo impersonates several of the gangster's voices on the phone, to set up a meeting between them.
Compared to what we've been watching lately (90 minute pictures from Lippert and the bigger studios, with brand-name stars), this flick's more a reversion to last year, when we pounded the Poverty Row beat. It's from Monogram and runs 61 minutes, like many of last year's Westerns, but as you'll remember, both Poverty Row and Short Movies rule. Yeah, it's static, and has no soundtrack, but it's funny, and only cost 26 bucks and change to make, so Two Bigs. If you don't like it I'll give you a free popcorn at the next one. The picture is slightly aged. ////
And that's all I know. Let's do some burgers real quick. What are your favorites? I'll go with In-N-Out's Double Double w/Cheese, then a Big Mac. A Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. and then the Athletic Club again. Their triple cheeseburgers in the 3rd floor restaurant are off-the-charts good. Habit's Char Burger and Avocado Burger are huge and delicious. And maybe best of all is the classic Bob's Big Boy.
Now, I've gotta ask: where can I buy a box of Hydrox cookies? I mean, ya go in the store and it's lousy with Oreos. Oreo this, Oreo that. But not a Hydrox to be found. I know that Leaf Co. makes 'em these days, and you can buy them on Amazon, but I'm looking for a store. Sure, Oreos had more filling, but Hydrox were crunchier and had a darker chocolate taste. I want a box of Hydrox, and I also want a bottle of Diet Rite. Anyone know where to get those? I just found braunschweiger at Ralph's. I didn't buy it yet, but I'm going to. I loved braunschweiger sandwiches on white bread as a kid. Just don't call it liverwurst and I'm fine.
My blogging music is Klaus Schulze's "Irrlicht" and "Blackdance". My late night is "Tristan und Isolde" by Wagner. I hope you had a nice day (the last day of Summer), and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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