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10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
I watched it. You don't need to., 25 August 2002
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Author:
Jim Tritten from Corrales, NM
Forgettable crime drama with hero newspaperman framed for manslaughter (he
really did not do it). Wise con tempts him to join an escape from County
Jail but during execution, the confederate gets left behind and our hero
actually steals a car. Our hero has obviously watched cowboy movies
because
he outwits the cops by pulling into a side road and watching the trailing
patrol car go by.
In meantime hero encounters the nicest folks in View Point - `The City
with
the democratic point of view, pop. 44,176.' His wife gives birth, they
stay
as a guest of the town doctor (for five years), and our hero becomes the
editor of the View Point News. The confederate escapes from jail, gets off
a
freight train, sees the hero and blackmails wife. Smart doctor suspects
something, gets the con's fingerprints and the cops come in to save the
day.
Wow, all in 61 minutes! Despite the breakneck speed of the story, there is
time to listen to child actress Patti Hale sing and recite multiple lines
of
poetry. How did she learn all those lines? And why does the final scene
need
to have the 5-year old daughter in the room while the police discuss her
father's past?
Obvious underlying themes of crime does not pay is worth at least one line
of dialog. Another theme is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks -
our
hero gets framed initially because he is going after a politico and he
repeats the behavior later in View Point.
okay war-time shortie, 23 March 2009
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Author:
ksf-2 from southwest US
Regis Toomey as "Bob", the newspaper editor, is the biggest name in this 1942 shortie. One of his reporters, Ken Marshall (Michael Ames aka Tod Andrews) gets a good photo of some shenanigans taking place, but the local mobsters catch him, destroy the photo, and try to destroy him and his career. The script and the acting are pretty cardboard and ordinary. The local cops are all on the take, so our hero can't get any help from them. It looks like Andrews did mostly television appearances. The wife, played by Julie Bishop, worked with all the biggies in numerous war-time films and westerns. Aldrich Bowker is the kindly old doctor who helps them out. Keep an eye out for Sam McDaniel as Doc Brown's servant. They gave him some of the best lines. The film devotes a whole lot of time to the couple's little daughter "Penny" (Patti Hale), and even has her sing a song. Turner Classics showed this at 3 am, which probably explains why, as of March 2009, there are only 25 votes. It's an okay story, written by Jerome Odlum, but the ending is a little too abrupt, almost as if the original ending were skipped for budget reasons. The U.S. HAD just entered the war...
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Could Have Been Nice, 10 March 2009
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Author:
Bacardi1 from United States
This COULD have been a nice tight - if poorly acted - little Grade B/C
film noir piece if someone had had the brains not to devote a solid
20-30 minutes to Patty Hale, whose poetry/song/supposed-light-comedy
stints brought me to the point of nausea. This entire film looks to be
nothing more than a vehicle for her. How very very sad.
I also found it unexpectedly funny re: the wife having her baby,
although she was slim as a green bean in all her immediate before birth
shots. I can only guess that it may have had something to do with the
censors at that time.
But still - nothing ruins this little flick more than little Patty
Hale.
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