The Luckiest Guy in the World

Director Joseph Newman's "The Luckiest Guy in the World" is, quite simply, a too-long neglected masterpiece of film noir. Like a previous poster, I, too, saw this recently on Turner Classic Movies and it grabbed me right from the beginning, a compelling story of an "average Joe" whose life spirals out of control when he desperately needs money to pay off gambling debts.

Baby-faced Barry Nelson, one of the screen's best portrayers of Mr. Nice Guy types, turns in a solid performance of a man caught in an inescapable trap of his own making. Also excellent, in the only other roles of any size, are Eloise Hardt as his long-suffering wife and Henry Cheshire as his sympathetic, unsuspecting boss. Max Terr's taut musical score is a plus, too.

Almost all the entries in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series were good little crime dramas. Like many live-action shorts of the period, they served as a valuable training ground for promising writing, acting, and directing talents that the studio was trying to develop. "The Luckiest Guy in the World" is, far and away, the best, an outstanding short and a lost classic of film noir.

Barry Nelson has been embezzling. His wife walks out on him. Then his luck begins to change, and he sees a way to start all over again. He only needs to get away with murder.

The series of crime two-reelers had been running for a dozen years at this point, but they had gotten a bit stale, and did not comport well with MGM's post-War optimism. In the 1930s, everyone was worried about crime and gangsters. In the first half of the 1940s, it was foreign spies. Now they figured the string was run out, and that CRIME DOES NOT PAY now longer paid. Good thing they went out on a high note.

"The Luckiest Guy in the World" is one of a series entitled "Crime Does Not Pay"--and every one I've seen has been enjoyable and well made. This particular one stars Barry Nelson who gets shot by accident when the film begins! He begins thinking back about his life and you see that Nelson was an inveterate gambler--a man in deep with his bookie. So deep that he ends up gambling with his company's funds and ends up destroying his life. How exactly this happens, I'll leave for you to find out--but it is pretty dandy little film where there are many interesting plot elements is a pretty cool twist--improbable to say the least, but still pretty cool. Like the other films I've seen, well worth your time and with very nice production values for a B-movie.

By the way, this was included on the DVD for "Ziegfeld Follies". This isn't surprising, as the audio for Red Skelton's skit about gin that you hear on the car radio is from a skit used in the film. Also, Nelson's boss is played by Milton Kibbee--the brother of familiar character actor, Guy Kibbee.

"Vurn" (Barry Nelson) is $150 in the hole to his bookie and so borrows the proceeds of his insurance job to settle the debt and back some horses. He regularly fobs off his boss (Milton Kibbee), but this time he wants the cash - and next day, too. Luckily, his wife (Eloise Hardt) has a nest-egg from her late mother, but she isn't about to hand it over to this wastrel and so a scuffle ensues with tragic consequences. Rather than face up to those, he decides to abscond but before he can board the bus he realises that there might just be a better, and much more lucrative, solution - but what chance he can get away with it all? You do have to suspend reality a bit with "Vurn" as he acquires some rather unpleasant skills a bit too readily and the story becomes just a little too contrived so as to tee up the denouement, but on that front he does rather prove the point of all of the previous editions of this "Crime Does Not Pay" series and I did find the ending really quite fitting.

It's an MGM Presents A Crime Does Not Pay Subject. Charles Vurn is always looking for easy money and he's feeling lucky. He's falling behind at his job and with the rent. He demands $500 but his wife Martha refuses to give him the money. He digs through her drawers and finds the money. In the process, he pushes her into the radiator and kills her. His landlord comes to give him a large commission check. It's too late for his wife but for him, he has one more scheme. He starts getting lucky until he doesn't. It's short and sweetly bitter. It's fun to have the poetry of comeuppance. It's a great little short. It's fun to see a bad person get their due.