Half a Sinner

Heather Angel was an exquisite actress who just seemed to slip through the cracks. By the time of "Half a Sinner" she was quite at home playing young heroines in light hearted mysteries. But her career had started out differently - she was the wistful and lovely girl Leslie Howard loved when he went back in time in "Berkeley Square" (1933). Over the next couple of years she played a mousey murderess in "Springtome for Henry" (1934) and a "sorrowing sister" in "The Informer" (1935) and then nothing more of note. She did become "the girl" in the Bulldog Drummond series and she was remembered (by me) as being quite feisty and intelligent - unusual for those types of roles!!

A prim school teacher has a secret desire to kick up her heels and leave her small town behind her. She does the next best thing - buys some silk stockings, a new hat and goes on a spree for the day. She gets some unwanted attention from a hood, "Handsome", and in her haste to escape, pushes him over and steals his car. Unbeknownst to her, there is a body in the back. She picks up a hitch-hiker, whose car has broken down, and a romance begins. Larry (John "Dusty" King) soon discovers the body but when a policeman starts chasing them, Anne is more concerned about the car being stolen - she doesn't know about the body!!

Heather Angel is great as Anne - she really gets into the spirit of the film. Another great player is Constance Collier as the dowager whose chauffeur takes the wrong car. She really livens up the last part of the movie. Henry Braddon plays "Handsome". The original story is by Dalton Trumbo.

Recommended.

I'm sure this little comic piece was never meant to be taken seriously. It involves a snowball effect caused by a young schoolteacher out on a lark. She ends up with a car carrying a body and evidence against a crime boss. It's a series of escapes and puzzled cops, running back and forth, chasing the young woman and her wealthy handsome new acquaintance. The police are good hearted buffoons. The crooks are silly and pretty ineffectual. There are some narrow escapes, but no one ever seems to get all that flustered over the events. Reality takes a holiday in this one and that's OK. It's just so darned tongue in cheek and over the top that we never really feel much for the plight of the characters.

What a delightfully, harmless, innocent, fun movie discovery! Every once in a while, we give up trying to find some new movie we haven't seen that will grab us and hold us until the end. Usually, we come up terribly empty. And then...

You find THIS movie. It is no blockbuster. But why must every movie be one? I came upon this movie tonight on YouTube and was so pleasantly surprised at the whole thing.

The stars are hardly on the tips of our tongues except the wildly amusing and very posh CONSTANCE COLLIER. I don't know what it is about this actress, she delights me at every turn. There are others like the perennial old man, character actor, Clem Bevans! It's amazing how a man at only 63 could play the same part in movies for so many years...but there were such talented men, many years ago.

I recommend this movie if you are looking for a fun, Saturday afternoon movie to enjoy. You won't need to scratch your head at this comedy-murder-mystery, just delight in the entirely implausible plot and you will be handsomely rewarded with an hour of fun!

Spring fever hits school teacher Heather Angel hard. She buys a nice frock and silk stockings, and walks to the park. She's enjoying herself until gangster Henry Brandon tries to pick her up. She sees his gun, panics, knocks him down, and steals his car. She doesn't notice the stiff in the back, but Brandon's boss wants the body dumped and his overcoat returned, so off they go. The appearance of John 'Dusty' King in the car puts them off. Hardly surprising given that he confesses to Miss Angel that he's a hardened criminal.

It's directed by Al Christie, who'd been in the motion picture racket since 1909. He mostly produced and directed for his own company with brother Charles, particularly short comedies. The coming of sound had made those less profitable, so he did this one for Universal, using some of their contract stars, and some people he'd known for a long time. The script is good enough, but the leads seem to be speaking their lines too fast for any impact, and some of the characters (like Clem Bevans) look interesting, and then disappear. Most of the real fun is delivered in the second half by Constance Collier, as a snooty busybody who takes a shine to the youngsters. The result is an okay little film that takes only an hour.

A bored school teacher gets mixed up with the mob. She's decided to get out and see life, so she buys fancy clothes and drives off in a car the killers were using to dispose of a body. She meets a handsome stranger along the way, and they decide to return the car. After lunch, of course. All pretty unlikely, but if we just go along, it'll be an adventure. It's pretty silly. A 59 minute shortie B film from universal. From a story by dalton trumbo, whose life was turned upside down by the huac in the 1940s. Directed by al christie. This appears to be the last full length film he directed! The very last short christie directed was an odd little eleven minute bit with bob hope and friends called "bob's busy day". Apparently that was part of a larger film but has been sliced and diced into a tiny little short.