It’s odd at first to see Betty Grable in a non-colour non-musical for 20th Century Fox, but then this was at the beginning of her stardom reign. She’s very effective, though, playing a part very much within her range – a sweet, loving if none-too-bright stenographer whose sister (Carole Landis) is murdered. The police suspect her boyfriend (Victor Mature) who Grable has a yen for – she ends up helping him escape from the cops and solving the mystery.
This actually would have been a better movie had Grable been centre stage, investigating as a plucky heroine, and with us never quite sure if Mature was innocent - but instead hero duties are split between Grable and Mature and we never really suspect him. Which is a shame since Mature would have made a good villain – he had an egotistical, sinister, charming quality.
As it is this is still pretty good. 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' plays incessantly on the soundtrack. The black and white photography is stunning – film noir before film noir officially came into being: nightclubs, police interrogation rooms, dark alleyways, dingy diners, cinemas, swimming pools, apartments, stairways. As a studio picture, it benefits from a terrific supporting cast including the ever-reliable Elisha Cook Jnr and the magnificent Laird Cregar. The scene where Mature wakes up and Cregar is watching him sleep is chilling. Landis is good, too – her performance has extra resonance because she herself died young, a suicide.
Mature and Betty have good chemistry, which spilled over into real life for a time. The scene where they go for a night swim together (New York is a town of a lot of 24 hour activities in this film – late night movies, diners) makes it clear they’re really into each other physically in a way many Hollywood stories of the era didn’t. There’s an unfortunate moment where he tells her that when a man really loves a woman he doesn’t want to plaster her all over the place, he wants to keep her for herself (i.e. “stay at home and look after the kids while I go out and have affairs”). And I laughed where the cops give Mature five minutes alone with Cregar at the end because they figured he’s owed it. Good old Hollywood law enforcement!
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