Featuring the craziest pre-1960s femme fatale?

Night Editor (1946)
Starring: William Gargan, Paul E. Burns, Janis Carter, Frank Wilcox, and Jeff Donnell
Director: Henry Levin
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A homicide detective (Gargan) having an affair with a thrill-seeking married wealthy woman (Carter) witnesses a murder during one of their trysts. Even though he can identify and arrest the killer (Wilcox), he can't do so without causing a scandal, destroying his family and ruining his career. Will a good cop who made a bad call do the right thing, or go further down the path of corruption?

This is the stuff good 1940s film noirs and crime dramas are made of, and this is pretty good crime drama. Part proto-police procedural, part film noir, part melodrama, this film is fun! It gets really exciting when classism enters the picture, and the psycho dame the cop is fooling around with decides to choose between "her kind" and doing the right thing when the cop's conscience really starts bothering him. It's a nice twist that comes at just the right moment to kick the film's suspense level up even higher.

While the high quality of the film--with its perfect pacing, appropriately moody lighting, superior cinematography, and a cast that gives excellent performances all around--is to be expected from a major studio like Columbia, the film offers the surprise of what is perhaps the most sociopathic/borderline psychopathic femme fatale I recall seeing in a Hollywood movie made before the 1960s. From her demand to see the body of the murder victim to the icepick action late in the film, I was surprised by just how nasty she was. She makes the crazy scheming women of "Strange Woman" and "Lady From Shanghai" look like they should be selling Girl Scout cookies. While Janis Carter made a career out of playing characters like this, this is the most twisted character I've ever seen her play, and I wonder if this extreme character could be a reason the film sank from view after its initial release.

The only serious complaint I have with "Night Editor" is that they filmmakers, aside from the cars being driven, didn't make even a halfhearted attempt to match the look of the characters to the late 1920s time-frame the bulk of it takes place in. Would it really have been that hard for a major operation like Columbia to adjust the hairstyles of the women and get proper wardrobe for the entire cast instead of having everyone in contemporary mid-1940s styles?

A smaller complaint is that the film's resolution is ultimately predictable (doubly-so if you pay close attention to the exchanges that take place in the newsroom as the story unfolds). However, getting there is so much fun that it doesn't really matter.

Fans of film noir pictures, classic mysteries, and the type of crime dramas where the hero has to work backwards to prove the guilt of a murderer he has already identified will find plenty of entertainment here. This is one of the many movies that could do with a little more recognition from us film-fans.




Trivia: "Night Editor" was a popular radio anthology series where the editor of title would relate the "unreported facts" of some news item. It later became a television series.

'Blackout' may put you off the bottle

Blackout (aka "Murder By Proxy") (1954)
Starring: Dane Clark, Elanor Summerfield, Belinda Lee, Andrew Osborn, and Betty Ann Davies
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

An American drinking away his sorrows in London (Clark) is offered a large sum of money by a young woman (Lee) if he will marry her. He wakes up the next morning with a pocket full of cash, blood on his coat, and no recollection of happened after his "engagement" in the bar. However, his "wife" is nowhere to by found, and the newspapers are full of the news that her wealthy father was murdered the night before.

"Blackout" may be the best of the film noir-style pictures produced by the venerable British film studio Hammer, first with American B-movie producer Robert Lippert and later with Columbia Pictures. I haven't watched them all, but this one was by far the most interesting of a batch of films that are undeservedly obscure.

Dane Clark excels here as an Everyman who suddenly finds him thrust into a world of deception, intrigue, and murder. The script is expertly paced as the story of his efforts to find out what sort of trouble he is in, so he can find a way out, and the red herrings and plot reversals and surprise twists are all perfectly timed. This is one mystery that will keep you guessing almost up to the very end as to who is behind the killings and why.

The rest of the cast also does a fine job, although Belinda Lee--who plays the girl who marries Clark, either to escape impending forced nuptials or to frame him for murder--was probably hired more for her beauty than her acting talent. She is perfect at playing a distant upper-class snob, but falters when called upon to do anything else. Of course, Lee might just be suffering in comparison to strong and experienced character actors like Clark and Elanor Summerfield--who plays an artist who helps Cook on his quest of discovery, and whose performance and character is so much more lively than Lee's that one hopes that she is the Clark will end up with in the end--as she was just 19 and this was her first major film role.

Then again, good performances from the actors, along with plenty of striking visuals, are to be expected when Terence Fisher is at the helm of a picture. He rarely disappoints, and he doesn't do so with this one, either.

Fans of film noir pictures and well-crafted mysteries will appreciate this film... especially since it comes bundled cheaply with other neglected Hammer Films mysteries.

Doc has ultimate ethical conflict in 'Shock'

Shock (1946)
Starring: Vincent Price, Lynn Bari and Anabel Shaw
Director: Alfred Werker
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Dr. Cross (Price) faces the ultimate ethical conflict when he is charged with the care of the woman who can indetify him as a murderer (Shaw). Will his coldhearted mistress (Bari) spur him to committ another murder, or will he find his humanity again?


"Shock" is a thriller with an average, predictable storyline. The actors all give some pretty good performances (with Price, as the conflicted and ultimately spineless Cross, and Bari, as his evil mistress, being particularly strong), and the lighting and camera work is also decent. However, although the film only runs 70 minutes, there isn't enough story to fill it, and things start to drag very early on.

With a few more twists and turns, and perhaps a little more action than Cross and his floozy plotting nefarious deeds within earshot of a semi-concious Janet, "Shock" could have been a fun little suspense movie. Instead, all we have here is a B-movie where the B stands for "boring."

'The Great Flamarion' is a tale of lust and tragedy

The Great Flamarion (1946)
Starring: Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea and Stephen Barclay
Director; Anthony Mann
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Reclusive marksman and vaudeville entertainer (von Stroheim) comes out of his shell when he believes the beautiful assistant in his act (Hughes) loves him and wants to be with him instead of her husband (Duryea). However, the coldhearted, manipulative woman simply wants the Great Flamarion to "accidentally" shoot her husband during the act, so she can run off with yet another man.


"The Great Flamarion" is an utterly predictable film, although it might not have been so in 1946 when it was made. The story never misses a chance to go exactly where you'd expect it to go, and the characters never move beyond complete and total cliches.

However, there is still a degree of enjoyment to be derived from this film if you just sit back and go with it. Hughes' performance as the black widow who should make black widows feel uneasy is so over-the-top that it fits perfectly with the nature of the script, while Von Stroheim takes an interesting term as a man who moves from an obsession with lethal guns to a lethal obsession with the woman who took his self-respect and his honor.

Don't duck 'Shoot to Kill'

Shoot to Kill (1947)
Starring: Edmund MacDonald, Russell Wade, Luana Walters and Robert Kent
Director: William Berke
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A corrupt Assistant Distric Attorney (MacDonald) starts to aspire to true political and criminal greatness when his new secretary (Walters) encourages him to think big. But, she has an agenda of her own, and even as the ADA is playing various criminals against each other so he can emerge as the last man standing, other plans are being set into motion.


"Shoot to Kill" is a fairly standard crime drama that's made interesting by some nice plot twists and a Big Reveal that is actually rather surprising. (I spent most of the film thinking that it was borrowing from Shakespear's "MacBeth", but it turned out I was wrong.)

With fine performances by all actors (MacDonald and Walters in particular excel as a pair of devious, two-faced schemers that can't be trusted under any circimstances), and a fast-paced, clever plot where the standard issue wise-cracking reporter (Wade) has mercifully little actual screen-time, I think fans of classic crime dramas and film noir will find this a nice way to spend an hour.

'Woman on the Run' is worth chasing after

Woman on the Run (1950)
Starring: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith and Ross Elliot
Director: Norman Foster
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When artist Frank Johnson (Elliot) witnesses a gangland slaying and is subsequently target by the killer, he panics and goes on the run. When the police detective (Keith) in charge of the case contacts his wife, Eleanor (Sheridan) he finds an imbittered woman who is strangely uninterested in helping to locate him. But, once the police are gone, Elanor sets about tracking down her husband herself, first alone, then with the help of scoop-seeking reporter Danny Leggett. But, as Elanor draws closer to finding Frank, she unknowing leads the killer to him as well... a killer who is desperate to eliminate anyone who might identify him.


"Woman on the Run" is a well-scripted, perfectly paced film-noir style crime drama. The dialogue is particularly well-crafted, as is Elanor's gradual transformation from a surly film-noir dame to a wife who discovers that she and her husband still have a marriage worth saving. The way the film reveals the identity of the killer--who is much closer throughout the film than anyone suspects--and the casual way it demonstrates exactly how murderous and coldblooded he is, are also stellar examples of quality screen-writing and filmmaking.

With fine performances by all actors featured, an excellent script, great photography that takes full advantage of the black-and-white film medium, and a perfect music score to round out the package, "Woman on the Run" is a film that's undeserving of its obscurity... and it's a film that makes the 50-movie DVD collection "Dark Crimes " (which is where I saw it) worth the purchase price almost all by itself--another reason why it's such a shame its going out of print.

One of the finest thrillers ever made

The Amazing Mr. X (aka "The Spiritualist") (1948)
Starring: Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, and Cathy O'Donnell
Director: Bernard Verhaus
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Greiving widow Christine Faber (Bari) finds herself haunted by her husband's ghost. In a fortuitous coincidence, Christine meets Alexis (Bey), a psychic who offers to help her contact her husband's spirit put it to rest. But Christine's younger sister (Cathy O'Donnell) and Christine's would-be new paramour thinks that the meeting with Alexis was too fortuitous, and they suspect that perhaps he is part of a scam to defraud the emotionally frail Christine of her inheritance. Meanwhile, the haunting grows more intense, and the ghost seems to want to drag Christine to a watery grave....


This 1948 B-movie is an excellently made thriller. It is well acted, well filmed, moves briskly, and keeps the viewer engaged with clever plot-twists and a couple of nicely done double-reversals of expectations. There are films with perhaps twenty times the budget of "The Amazing Mr. X" that aren't half as successful at telling the kind of story that this film features--which, I admit, was pretty well-worn even in 1948. Modern filmmakers trying their hands at thrillers with supernatural overtones would do well to study this film, as it shows exactly how that kind of film is made.

Don't let the cheesy title fool you. This is a top-notch thriller that's well worth a look by any lover of the genre.

'The Chase' is an interesting, if incomplete, experiment

The Chase (1946)
Starring: Robert Cummings, Peter Lorre, Michele Moran, and Steve Cochran
Director: Arthur Ripley
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Chuck (Cummings), a down-on-his-luck WW2 vet, is hired as a driver for a psychopathic gangster (Cochran) and his morose, penny-pinching sidekick (Lorre). When Chuck takes pity on the gangster's wife (Moran) and helps her flee to Cuba, he finds himself framed for her murder. Or does he?


"The Chase" is an interesting experiment in filmmaking and storytelling that will draw you in with its moody lighting, quirky characters, and good acting. The film will then confuse you when it takes a sudden turn, revealing that part or all of what you've just witnessed was a fantasy had by someone in the throws of a psychotic break. Finally, it will frustrate you by muddling the lines between the film's reality and the dream sequence, and completely blowing the ending with one cop-out piled upon another.

The end result is a film that's worth seeing, even if the experience will be somewhat dissapointing. It teeters on the brink between a 5 and 4 rating, mostly because of the botched ending. If a stronger finale than a car crash and a stronger resolution of Chuck's mental situation had been offered, this could have been a 6 or perhaps even a 7, because everything leading up to the end is pretty good. Lorre's performance is particularly noteworthy. Watch him closely during the scenes in the car for a demonstration of how little a good actor needs to do to establish a character's feelings.

'A Life at Stake' stars a miscast Angela Lansbury

A Life at Stake (aka "The Key Man") (1954)
Starring: Keith Anders, Angela Lansbury, Claudia Barrett, and Douglass Dumbrille
Director: Paul Guilfoyle
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

An architect (Anders) attempting to come back from a business failure is approached by a wealthy couple (Lansbury and Dumbrille) who claim they want to help him get back on his feet so he can build houses for them. The husband insists the architect takes out a large insurance policy so their investment can be recovered if something should go wrong. When the architect starts having unexplained accidents, he starts to fear that he is the investment, and that his death is the pay-off.


"A Life at Stake" is a slow-moving, completely predictable (despite the far-fetched, convoluted nature of its plotline) film with a fairly dull main character and a pair of villians who aren't much better. In fact, the only performer here who displays any charisma whatsoever is Claudia Barrett, who is featured as the innocent younger sister of Lansbury's character.

"But what about Angela Lansbury?" some of you ask.

Well, I think she is horribly miscast here. She simply isn't the slinky, femme fatale type. This part required either a Lauren Bacall-type, or, at the opposite end of the scale, a Heather Angel-type. Lansbury is neither, and she is terribly miscast.

That said, she was more convincing in a similar role in "Please Murder Me", because she wasn't playing a straight-up "scheming trophy wife" as she is here. In the other film, Lansbury WASN'T playing an evil hussy... or so it seemed....

"A Life at Stake" is deserving of its obscurity. It can be found with 49 other black-and-white film noir/crime dramas, or on a double-feature DVD with the above-mentioned "Please Murder Me". As such, it's harmless filler. It's not a film worth seeking out, unless you're the president of the Angela Lansbury Fan Club.

'The Naked Kiss' is interesting but flawed

The Naked Kiss (aka "The Iron Kiss") (1964)
Starring: Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante and Patsy Kelley
Director: Samuel Fuller
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Kelly, a reformed prostitute turned nurse's aide (Towers), finds her struggle for a new life and self-respect negated when she is arrested for murder and past deeds come back to haunt her. To make matters worse, the chief investigating officer is Capt. Griff, the man who was her final "trick" (Eisley).


"The Naked Kiss" is a startling movie from beginning to end. It starts so abruptly that I thought the DVD might have somehow skipped, but, no... the very first image of the film is a sharp-featured woman beating the hell out of a man using her shoe.

The film's approach to such topics as prostitution and pedophilia is equally startling and shocking, because neither topic has rarely been dealt with in such a realistic fashion--the way the romance between Kelly and millionaire J.L. Grant (Dante) develops and turns out is probably far closer to what the truth would be than any other of the various movie treatments of such, with "Pretty Woman" being the stupidest of the lot--and I dare say that few films even now have dealt with the topics so frankly and realistically.

The realism of the film also helps keep the final resolution in doubt. In most movies, some form of "Hollywood Ending" can be predicted from other elements of the movie--either everything will work out for the main character , or everything will be utterly miserable and everyone dies --but in "The Naked Kiss" is so matter-of-fact that one can't help feel the outcome is in doubt until almost the very end.

The film is far from perfect, however. There are some scenes that are strangely, abruptly edited--such as the one covering the night Kelly spends spends at the house of Griff, and the visits of Griff and Kelly to a "gentleman's club" across the river. There's also a scene where Kelly records a song with the little children who are her patients at the hospital; while this scene is crucial for developing Kelly's character and is a key element in the tragic events that follow, it goes on for too long. These weak points prevent this film from getting an Eight rating.

"The Naked Kiss" is a film that deals frankly with mature subjects... and it does so without lots of cursing and sex to ensure an R rating. It's the sort of movie that all those contemporary filmmakers running around congratulating each other for being edgy and for pushing the boundaries can only dream of making.