In "Federal Agent at Large"(1950), viewed last night, the story is once again told in flashback, after a Mexican national enters the Los Angeles office of the United States Treasury Department to confess being part of a gold schmuggling ring. When the gentleman, a restaurateur named "Angel Badillo" (Frank Puglia), details his involvement, the agents in charge link his confession to the disappearance of another agent previously sent to Tijuana to investigate, and they assign a new man, "Agent Mark Reed" (Kent Taylor), to follow up. When Reed gets there (using an undercover name), he sets up credibility by pawning some "stolen" diamonds at an American-owned hock shop in TJ. The owner, a Red Zone honcho named "Big Bill Dixon" (Thurston Hall), tries to talk him out of engaging in crime in Mexico. "Look pal, you and me both know these diamonds are hot. Sooner or later the Federales will catch you and they will throw away the key." But Reed is supposed to be playing a hard case, so he just smirks and says "thanks for the advice."
He next visits Badillo's restaurant. Remember that we're in flashback mode, so this is before Angel went to Los Angeles to confess. Thus he doesn't know Agent Reed and assumes he's as shady as he claims. After getting cozy, Reed asks about "getting in on a job, if you know what I mean. I just got out of Quentin." While pretty "Lopita" (Estelita Rodriguez) sings and dances, he beats up "Nels Berger" (Roy Barcroft), an American thug, after Berger challenges him over a slot machine. This further proves his toughness, and he's noticed by yet another American, a cool blonde known as "Solitare" (Dorothy Patrick) because of her penchant for the game. Solitare is a female boss in a male-dominated smuggling ring run by a man known only as Mr. Upstairs.
But Mr. Upstairs is a silent partner. Solitaire runs the show at ground level, and it involves taking stolen gold, of all types - jewelry, plating, wiring, anything - and melting it down, then converting it chemically to gold dust, which is then schmuggled via an archaeological dig, by placing the dust beneath sealed artifacts, to be shipped to Southern Pacific University in Los Angeles by truck across the border. It's a complex setup, but it nets the gang millions. They even have a connection to the university dig, but we won't meet him until later. Most of the plot centers around two things: Agent Reed's growing attraction to Solitare, and Nels Berger's distrust of Reed. "That guy's either a double crosser or another Fed," Berger tells "Jumpy" (Denver Pyle), the gang's enforcer. But Jumpy disagrees: "Aww, he can't be a Fed. He did hard time in Q."
Angel Badillo confides to Reed that he only joined the ring to impress his daughter. "She don't know I'm involved, she only see the money. I always want to give her the best, you know, of everything, and I need a lot of a moolah to do that."
Though Reed is falling for Solitare, her former boyfreind shows up, and he just happens to be the university archaeologist who is fronting for the schmugglers. But he wants out, and so does she. That's when Reed tells them that he is, in fact, a Fed. "I can help you, but I need to know who Mr. Upstairs is. The Mexican court will go easy on you if you tell me." The ending is brutal and sacrificial, but the schmugglers all go down, dockside, just as they're about to launch out of TJ to Long Beach. Good location shooting at the Mexican border. A highlight is Estelita Rodriguez, the Cuban singer/dancer who plays "Lopita", whose beautiful voice and vivacious personality add zip to the proceedings. Roy Barcroft is Pure Evil as usual, cementing his position as a near equal to Charles King. Not a bad little Noirish crime flick, with an interesting lab scene showing the alchemical process of melting and refining gold jewelry. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is soft but watchable. ////
Our previous night's movie was "The Mugger"(1958), a police thriller starring Kent Smith as "Dr. Pete Graham" a New York police psychiatrist trying to stop a serial mugger. Graham came through the ranks as a detective before the department opened it's profiling division, so he's also a tough cop. But he's using that new forensic technique (profiling) to get an idea of who they're looking for, and so far, after 11 attacks, the mugger hasn't left a tangible clue. Interviewing his latest victim, a dizzy blonde who will serve as light comic relief, Graham notices something the detectives on the case have missed: she has a small cut on her chin. "He did it deliberately," says Blondy, "like he was marking me." The mugger's next victim also has a cut, and so on thereafter: "It's a form of sexual release for him," Graham advises his colleagues. The mugger never rapes, never hits, only makes these small, shallow cuts. Dr. Graham profiles him as an over-50 man, possibly wealthy. He wears sunglasses at night so his victims can't see his eyes.
After interviewing the blonde gal, Graham takes a cab home with his regular driver, "Eddie Baxter" (James Franciscus). They shoot the breeze, then Eddie asks a favor. "Say Doc, would you mind if we stopped by my house? My wife's sister is staying with us. She's 18 and a handful. She's working in a dance hall, one of those 'dime-a-dance' joints. We're worried she's gonna take the next step, if you get my drift. Would you mind talking to her, just for a few minutes?" Graham has a dinner appointment with his girlfriend "Claire" (Nan Martin), a policewoman, but he reluctantly agrees. When they get to Eddie's house and he talks to "Jeannie Page" (Sandra Church), he finds her as sullen and secretive as Eddie indicated. "Well, I tried," Doc tells him. But, as a courtesy, he reminds Jeannie to keep in touch if she needs help, but more or less writes her off as an 18 year old trying to find herself.
Meanwhile, the muggings continue. Then, one of the detectives gets a break. A lead from Chicago says that a convicted mugger was released from Joliet on the day before the first mugging took place in New York. Graham arranges to locate this guy, through a setup with a Turkish bath owner. In the bathhouse, the owner reveals a back room craps game at which the former Chi-town mugger is always present. Graham is introduced at the craps game as an ex-con himself (the usual ruse), and he later gains the mugger's trust in a split-second robbery of the till.
In a coffe shop, they talk. Graham builds his creds: "Besides doin' a five-to-ten stretch, I was also a Marine, at Iwo." "Marine, eh? I thought so, by your judo moves back there" (during the card game robbery). I must cut in here to say that I took judo lessons for two years, at the Los Angeles Athletic Club from the great George Damon. However, I only ever attained a yellow belt, and I ended up quitting, and switching to handball lessons, because I got thrown over the shoulder of a taller, and stronger, twelve year old girl. I was ten. But what I learned from George Damon is that judo trumps karate and all the other martial arts, and I still remember the judo hold, a "pin" from which no adversary can escape.
In the movie, the Chicago mugger turns out not to be the guy the NY cops are looking for, which puts Dr. Graham and company back to square one, and now, the mugger has struck again, this time escalating to murder. His victim? Jeannie Page, who apparently fought back. "That may be why he killed her," surmises Graham. The police decide on using Graham's girlfriend Claire as bait. She's packing a .38 in her purse, and she's got another detective following her on the sidewalk. They're also connected via transistor microphones. Claire is dressed provocatively to entice the mugger, whose psychological proclivities are now well defined by Dr. Graham: an older man, likely wealthy, but with tension-release issues, and possibly a mother factor.
Lo and behold, they catch the guy, not because they nab him on the schtreet, but because of a dropped cigarette, a rare brand only sold at one place, a nearby restaurant. The owner knows the smoker and points him out to Graham. He's arrested, and as Dr. Graham had predicted, his capture is a relief to him. "I was waiting for you to find me", he says. He's a rich businessman, dominated by his wife. At the station, he's identified by all his victims, but - even under tough, third degree grilling - he swears he didn't kill Jeannie Page. "I never kill! Never violate!" The cops believe him, and his prints don't match those on the sunglasses found at Jeannie's murder site.
The news is thus good and bad. The police have their mugger, but the mugger isn't the murderer. Evidence now suggests looking at Jeannie's most recent suitor, a creepy neighbor boy who, though handsome and normal-seeming, kept stalking Jeannie even after she turned him down.
I can't tell you any more, but when the murderer is discovered, it's one of the eeriest performances of this type that you will ever see, and totally realistic, exactly what you'd expect this person to do. Man, it's unnerving. Two Huge for the performance, and Two Bigs with a high recommendation for the movie, shot on location in what looks like Queens. This is how you do a cop movie, grade A. The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Secret Treaties" by Blue Oyster Cult. My late night is Lohengrin by Wagner. I wish you a nice Labor Day weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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