Decoy (1946)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Jack Bernhard

Writers:

Nedrick Young (screenplay)
Stanley Rubin (story)

Release Date:

14 September 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

She Treats Men the Way They've Been Treating Women for Years!

Plot:

A fatally shot female gangleader recounts her sordid life of crime to a police officer just before she dies.

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Gangster | Gas Chamber | Prison Doctor | Cyanide

Cast

Jean Gillie	...	Margot Shelby (as Miss Jean Gillie)
Edward Norris	...	Jim Vincent
Robert Armstrong	...	Frank Olins
Herbert Rudley	...	Dr. Craig
Sheldon Leonard	...	Sergeant Joe Portugal
Marjorie Woodworth	...	Nurse
Philip Van Zandt	...	Tommy (as Phil Van Zandt)
Carole Donne	...	Waitress
John Shay	...	Al
Bert Roach	...	Bartender
Rosemary Bertrand	...	Ruth

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #11768, Adult Audience)

Company:

Pathe Pictures

Trivia:

Director Jack Bernhard met wife Jean Gillie in England, where he was stationed during WWII. He intended this film as a vehicle to showcase her to American audiences, but they divorced a short while later, and she did only one other film before her early death at age 33.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Right at the beginning, when Dr Craig's reflection is seen on the mirror, the dark line behind him is a shadow from either the camera or a boom mic, as it moves when the camera pulls away.

Quotes:

Margot Shelby: Do you remember the first time I came to see you in your office? Your dingy, gloomy office in that dingy dirty street, the rotten smell of the factory chimneys pressing down on the shabby little houses, the slovenly old women, the gray-faced dirty little children starting out with everything against them. I remember that street.
Dr. Craig: Do you love me?
Margot Shelby: Yes, but I can't forget your street. I remember every little thing about it, and if I had never seen it, I still could have described it because that street runs all over the world. I know because that's the street I came from 6000 miles from here in a little English mill town. But it's the same rotten street, the same factories, the same people, and the same little gray-faced children!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Decoy: A Map to Nowhere (2007) (V)

Jean Gillie is an awesome Femme Fatale in this sci-fi flavored Noir.

(April, 2000): Just saw a rare print at the American Cinematheque Noir festival and the film knocked my socks off. As evidenced by this performance, Jean Gillie would have been one of the greats of Noir had she not died in 1949. She powers through this film, getting man after man to do her bidding, never taking no for an answer. And the obstacles that would stop a lesser character don't bother her in the least. The problem confronting her: her boyfriend is on death row. Only he knows where $400,000 from a robbery is. And she uses her feminine wiles to persuade him, and two other men, to discern the location of that dough because, *she wants that money.* Even the gas chamber doesn't slow her down ... which is where the slight sci-fi element is introduced. If this turns up on late-night video, set your VCR. You will be amazed.