Shooting Straight

Richard Dix was one of those lucky players with a deep a resonant voice that easily made the transition to sound. Usually strong willed heroes occasionally he went over to the dark side. Here he kind of straddles the fence as a gambler on the run from the NYPD on a murder rap.

In a small whistle stop town he's mistaken for a well known reformer type and taken in by the local preacher James Neill. In his new guise but past skills, Dix turns out to be just the man to rid the small town of a bad element. He also wins the heart of Neill's daughter Mary Lawlor when he saves her from a fate worse than death. Her brother William Janney has run up some really big gambling debts in Matthew Betz's clip joint and Betz is willing to let Lawlor redeem them in kind if you get my drift. Very Victorian, the cad.

That Victorian type mindset that permeates this film plus a really bad and contrived cop out ending prevents Shooting Straight from being a great film. But it's reasonably entertaining.

While "Shooting Straight" is a film I might have scored a bit lower had it been made a few years later, I'm giving it an 8, as for its time it's a very good movie. Some of the predictability and familiar plot elements only became more familiar in later films.

The film begins with the professional gambler, Larry Sheldon (Richard Dix), getting into a fight. Soon the guy is found dead and Larry and the cops assume the victim had died from the beating Larry gave him...and Larry is on the lam. However, the train he's on has a wreck and Larry wakes up two weeks later! The folks caring for him think he's a preacher and they are honored to have such an esteemed man staying with them! Plus, it soon becomes obvious that Doris has fallen for him...and vice-versa. However, a problem soon arises--a two-bit chiseling gambler, Ace Martin, is holding a fortune in gambling notes...notes belonging to Doris' stupid brother. So Larry, now known as Reverend Walters, has decided to stick around and help Doris and her brother out of this mess...and this means a confrontation with the very dishonest and evil Ace.

This is a very enjoyable film...but it's not a big surprise because Dix was a really good actor--one of the better ones of the day. He not only does a great job but the director did an amazing thing--making the most violent fight scene I think I've ever seen from this era! It's exciting and rough...and sure looks real. Overall, an interesting film with an exciting finale.

Gambler "Lucky" Larry Sheldon (Richard Dix) confronts a gangster over the murder of his friend. The gangster ends up dead and Larry has to go on the run accompanied by sidekick Chick. Chick steals the wallet of minister Ted Walters. Before Larry could return it, the train crashes and an unconscious Larry is assumed to be Ted Walters. He wakes up in the home of Reverend Powell and he falls for the daughter Doris.

It's a fine gangster adjacent film, but I'm never completely rooting for Richard Dix. He looks more like a thug than a pretty leading man. The character would work better as an everyman trying to do good. Richard Dix is never completely away from his gangster looks.

...sang REM. Obviously, this inspired the film's setting. Gambling gangster Richard Dix (Lucky Larry) goes on the run and ends up in Rockville. Is there a link between Dix's character and real-life mobster Lucky Luciano and his gambling interests? Dunno. Whilst in Rockville, Dix falls for plain Mary Lawlor (Doris). I've seen her act in Good Times (1930) as well as this film. She was pretty rotten in that as well and guess what? ...............she never made any other films. What a surprise! So, Dix wants to stick around in Rockville and help the uninteresting Mary sort out a problem with her brother William Janney (Tommy) who is getting himself into gambling debts with local Rockville gangster Matthew Betz (Ace). And Betz wants payment from Mary in the bedroom if you get what I mean.

Unfortunately, the film is a bit boring and the way it ends is a complete cop-out with the policeman revealing some extra details to the story. Richard Dix is a manly lead with a big build and this just doesn't work for me. I need to identify with a skinny good-loocking guy and that wasn't on offer in this film. And the leading woman was just a complete wall-flower so there was no interest there either.

It borders on tragedy (for true film buffs, at any rate) that there aren't more Richard Dix films shown on TCM, and that the ones that are shown are mostly from the latter portion of his career (though there are a few gems there such as Death Ship). While not a Clark Gable or Spencer Tracy leading man, Dix had a special quality about him that gave many of his films an almost riveting simplicity and directness right out of the comkic strips of the day. The guy looked like the role model for Dick Tracy and Captain Easy. When his hair was slicked back against his scalp (Wildroot Cream Oil?) he looked positively two-dimensional: no-nonsense rugged and solid, nothing pretty pretty about him. When the bad guys worked him over, he had the mane of a wild man. With a hat on he was Dick Tracy's double.

In this film he gets to display all the best traits of a 1930s lead: He's smart with is adversaries, generous with his friends, compassionate with gentle folk and tough as nails with his enemies.

The plot is simple and generic as a biblical tale, moves along at a brisk pace, serves its purpose, which is to demonstate the workings of Good vs. Evil.

One thing did stand out for me. In a key scene on a train when he is leaving behind some unpleasant business, he introduces himself to a stranger as "Mr. Farnsbarns". The name rang a bell; I could hear another familar voice from the past saying it. Watching the remainder of the film, I churned through my mental vault of old films but it wasn't until I looked up the name online that I came up with Ricardo Cortez in The Phantom of Crestwood in which he spends the first half of that movie introducing himself as Mr. Farnsbarns. Phantom turned out to be directed by the same man as Shooting Straight: J. Walter Ruben. Turns out he directed another Richard Dix movie in which Boris Karloff temporarily identified himself as Mr. Farnsbarns.

Gotta love it.