Blonder Lockvogel

This movie, recently made available through a set of film noirs (Volume 4) packaged with two on each disc, gets points for originality. I mean, how many movies - much less film noirs - do you see someone executed, then brought back to life, then shot in the back minutes later? Now that's what you call having a rough day!

Robert Armstrong's "Frank Olins" had to endure all that one day. He's the crook who has the money stashed away somewhere and "Margot Shelby" (Jean Gille) is the woman who is bound-and-determined to get it - all of it. "Frank" claims a few times that if he isn't going get the money when he gets out of jail, nobody will and those aren't words that "Margot" wants to hear! Frank knew this dame and other members of his gang, most notably "Jim Vincent" (Edward Norris) were not trustworthy.

Well, he certainly was right about "Margot." She's the femme fatale - one mean mother - who has only one thing on her mind: money. She never wants to return to her old, poor, dingy ways of her youth in small town England. Now, she's in America, part of gang and she knows how to manipulate men. Of course it helps to be extremely pretty and have a great body, which she does. She plays the men and, well.....like most noirs, the ending is not particularly a happy one for most of the characters in this story.

Personally, in this film I enjoyed seeing a lot of familiar faces from TV programs and such of the 1950s, beginning with a young Sheldon Leonard who plays the tough, pursing cop in this movie. I also thought Armstrong sounded a lot better than in his early '30s adventure stories. Speaking of sound, the music in here was ill-timed, dominating some scenes which took away from the dialog.

Make no mistake, though: this is Gilles' movie. For classic movie fans and particular film noir buffs, this is worth checking out. It's always fun to see a new "face," and that certainly applies to Gillis, whose character reminded me a bit of Peggy Cummins' one in "Gun Crazy."

I thought the ending of this film - the final minute - was especially good. So many times, you get the ending that doesn't stay true to the main character, but this one did.

Given this film’s rarity (it went unseen for 30 years), I guess even self-confessed film nuts could be excused for never having heard of it – that is, until its announcement as part of Warners’ fourth “Film Noir Collection” on DVD. While some of the pairings in that 10-Movie 5-Disc Set were done without rhyme or reason – and it had seemed to me to be so here as well! – the film actually had a connection to its companion piece, CRIME WAVE (1954; which I’ve just watched a couple of days ago), via the credit on both of blacklisted scriptwriter/actor Nedrick Young (he appeared in the latter but only wrote DECOY).

Being a Monogram production, the film wears its Poverty Row status on its sleeve – with a bizarre plot (involving the re-animation of the dead: this has to be the only vintage crime outing to take the genre into the realm of sci-fi!), gritty look and second-rate cast – but which it generally manages to turn in its favor. In my review for CRIME WAVE itself, I had written how surprised I was that the film proved to be so good – this, then, came as even more of a shock (joining the ranks of such ramshackle ‘B’ noir gems as DETOUR, DILLINGER {both 1945} and GUNMAN IN THE STREETS [1950])! The film was devised as a showcase for British actress Jean Gillie by her husband, director Bernhard – however, the couple would divorce soon after and (even more sadly) Gillie herself would be dead of pneumonia in just a couple of years’ time! Still, hers is one of the most unscrupulous femme fatales ever conceived – ensnaring practically the entire male cast in her obsessive pursuit of money – and which she plays in a slightly overstated (but, under the circumstances, entirely fitting) manner.

The rest of the cast includes Edward Norris as Gillie’ crooked associate, Robert Armstrong as her ageing gangster boyfriend currently on Death Row and the only one who knows the location of a stashed cache' containing $400,000, Herbert Rudley as the small-town doctor enticed by Gillie into her unholy revivification scheme, and Sheldon Leonard as the cagey and dogged cop on their trail. Norris is somewhat stiff, while Armstrong (the original Carl Denham of “King Kong” fame) brings his typical zest to the role of love-struck and over-the-hill duped mobster – but both Rudley (bemoaning his betrayal of the code governing his profession) and Leonard (secretly enamored of Gillie himself, he’s willing to answer her plea at the moment of death to “stoop to her level”…but she just laughs in his face!) match the lady’s display of cool elegance disguising an essentially hard-boiled nature. Incidentally, Gillie’s character anticipated such celebrated noir bad girls of the ‘deadly sweet’ variety as Jane Greer in OUT OF THE PAST (1947) and Peggy Cummins (coincidentally, another British actress) in GUN CRAZY (1950) – but also Gaby Rodgers in KISS ME DEADLY (1955) in view of her similar histrionic outburst when finally laying hands on the long sought-after object of contention.

Unfortunately, it’s been revealed that the print of DECOY utilized for the DVD is slightly censored: one of the main characters is trampled no less than three times by a car which has Gillie at the wheel – however, we only get to see this once in the current version! For the record, Bernhard (whose first directorial effort this was) had been an executive at Universal – responsible for such popular ‘B’ horror outings as HORROR ISLAND and MAN-MADE MONSTER (1941; which I still haven’t managed to check out!). Finally, I’m to follow DECOY with another noir of his – the evocatively-titled BLONDE ICE (1948), via the “Special Edition” released by VCI…

(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.

I have to say that Decoy was one interesting cinematic experience. The story had a lot of holes in it and the plan that was made by the bad guys had a lot of faults in it.

But what makes this film get as high a rating from me as I give it is the presence of Jean Gillie who made only one more film after this one before dying at 33. Just like another British beauty Kay Kendall.

Gillie is one devil woman and she's got one devilish plan to $400,000.00 of stolen loot that Robert Armstrong has hidden away. She's been Armstrong's moll for years, but he's going to the gas chamber. Never mind Gillie's found a way to beat the gas chamber. But it involves getting a doctor and another hoodlum to pull it off.

The key is Dr. Herbert Rudley who supervises the executions. There's a chemical if administered within a short time that can counteract the effects of cyanide. Gillie puts on quite a campaign to vamp Rudley and soon he's just putty. Her other hoodlum boyfriend Edward Norris is amused at Rudley, but he's also thinking with his crotch.

Even Sheldon Leonard playing a cop instead of gangster for once is also not immune to Gillie when she turns it on. If some company could have bottled what Gillie had and sold it to the government it would be quite a formidable weapon.

The script isn't all that great, but Gillie and the cast of sex struck males really put this Monagram classic over.

What a great B movie. In the powerful opening minutes, a wounded man hitchhikes to a San Francisco hotel, where he shoots an unarmed woman (Jean Gillie) and dies. While she lay dying, the woman tells a police detective (Sheldon Leonard) the events that led up to this. Her killer was a doctor she had duped into helping her bring her executed convict boyfriend back to life (!) so she could find out where he had stashed some loot. All through her story, it becomes clear this woman is pretty heartless and sadistic.

Jean Gillie was married to this film's director. This was his attempt to make her a star. Unfortunately nobody really became a star making pictures for Monogram, no matter how good they may have been. A short time later the pair divorced and Gillie moved back to England. She died there of pneumonia at the age of 33, just 3 years after this was released. Gillie showed how much potential she had in this movie. It's a shame her life was cut so short. Nice to see Sheldon Leonard playing a detective. He was usually playing tough gangsters. He's plenty tough here, even if he is on the right side of the law. Edward Norris and Herbert Rudley are both good. Robert Armstrong, the biggest name in the picture at the time, has little screen time as the executed boyfriend but does well with what he has.

Exceptional film noir from Monogram, a Poverty Row studio not known for much that was exceptional. There are a lot of memorable moments in this one. The beginning and ending are really great. The atmospheric scene where Armstrong is brought back to life is another highlight. With a couple of changes this could have easily been turned into a horror movie like The Man They Could Not Hang. It's definitely one you'll want to check out.