Sumpf des Verbrechens

Did, as some people think, "Scene of the Crime" invent the cop drama clichés that have been a mainstay of television and film for so long? Or were they already established and just copied by this film? Not being an expert in the genre, I don't know. I do know that despite attempts by some people to elevate this movie to film noir status, it's not that great. Dore Schary put this into production when he took over MGM. I guess he wanted MGM to be more like Warner Brothers. It stars Van Johnson, Arlene Dahl, John McIntyre, Leon Ames, and Gloria DeHaven.

When a cop is killed with a roll of dough found on him, his fellow officers set out to investigate the crime and clear the man's name.

"Scene of the Crime" is similar in its way to "Dragnet" - it shows the daily grind of detectives as they put together a case. There are a couple of very good scenes, including one in which Mike (Van Johnson) arrests a suspect, and shooting starts when they get outside of the apartment building. Still handcuffed to Mike, the perp jumps into a building stairwell. There's also a good car chase.

For some reason, Van Johnson did these baby-faced tough guys well - perhaps it was his New York accent, but he pulls off the role of the dedicated Mike. He was set to be Elliot Ness in the TV "Untouchables" when his wife Evie called Desi Arnaz the night before and held him up for more money. Arnaz called Robert Stack and told him to report to the set the next day. A friend of mine who has lived in LA for over 50 years and socialized with many stars said that Arlene Dahl was the most beautiful woman of everyone he had met. Seeing her in this, you can believe it. She is a spectacular beauty if her acting in some spots isn't the best. Gloria De Haven, usually a vibrant ingenue, plays against type as a tramp, which makes it interesting.

"Scene of the Crime" is gritty-looking enough but suffers from being slow in spots and loaded with clichés. There isn't anything to make it truly special. That could be because by now, we've seen it all before. Perhaps in 1949, it was fresh. But I have my doubts that even back then, it broke any new ground.

Two veteran Los Angeles police detectives and a well-meaning rookie set out to find the killer of an off-duty fellow officer who may have been on the take. This is an L.A. filled with dangerous broads, bookie joints, ex-bootleggers in on a new racket, and cops in natty suits and broad-billed hats. The pulpy, slangy dialogue is fun at times, as are the performances from Van Johnson and Gloria DeHaven (playing a chanteuse "with a figure like champagne and a heart like the cork"). Other, later crime-dramas would quickly up the ante on such a scenario, but this one is a fine example of the compact policer. M-G-M was downsizing their budgets at the time and trying their hand at different types of films--which provided the perfect opportunity for matinée idols like Johnson to stretch their acting muscles. The results here are not exactly noir, but more from an overtly-ordinary, overtly-jaded mold, with everyday people going about their business and getting the job done. If it isn't exciting, at least it's highly competent. **1/2 from ****

An LA police detective (Van Johnson) investigates the murder of another detective and gets involved with night club singer and stripper played by Gloria De Haven. The story has a neat double cross. A criminal organization from "down south" sends a couple of "lobos" to LA in order to take over a bookmaking syndicate. Corruption is at the center of the story as the dead detective was carrying a wad of cash. Johnson's out to prove that he (dead detective) wasn't on the take. His street contact Sleepy (Norman Lloyd) provides some of the films more vivid moments, and Jerome Cowan (Sam Spade's partner in Maltese Falcon) has a great part as "fixer" Arthur Webson. Johnson does very well in the part, combining breeziness that he honed in earlier films with sufficient grit to be believable as a tough detective. His wife played by Arlene Dahl looks great and they share some pretty good chemistry in their scenes. The film does a good job of capturing the story's different elements and cohesively combining them. The action doesn't always come, but when it does it is surprisingly sudden and brutal for the times.

I guess the lesson here is that you can take the crime drama out of MGM, but you can't take MGM out of the crime drama. With noirish location shots, the new Dore Schary regime changed the usual MGM look somewhat, yet the movie still boasts a string of stars and star power for which the studio was known. The trouble is that working Van Johnson, Arlene Dahl, Tom Drake, Gloria DeHaven, Donald Woods, and a string of "name" supporting players into the screenplay with sufficient screen time for each overstretches the results. Despite some effective moments (the hotel room fistfight, the fright screams from the burning car), the movie suffers from too much flab for overall effect. For example, the two rather lengthy scenes with Norrie Lorfield (Tom Helmore), the rival for Conovan's (Johnson) wife, are simply a needless distraction from the main plot, and work to dilute the overall effect. In fact, the entire marital subplot should have been dropped or at least minimized, but it seems that the studio was not satisfied with the kind of fast, efficient little crime drama that RKO, for one, routinely turned out.

I'm tempted to say that just as movie spectaculars and historical epics depend on big budgets for optimal effect, crime dramas and noirs depend on the tight disciplining constraints of small ones. That way, production values don't interfere with the story line. Here it appears that MGM's celebrated production values over-produced the number of feature players, which, in turn, multiplied the various subplots, or vice-versa. In either case, it's too bad the script didn't eliminate a few of these in favor of giving Norman Lloyd's truly memorable character, Sleeper, more screen time. He's the kind of unique character that could have transformed this otherwise forgettable exercise into a memorable one.

An off-duty Los Angeles police detective is shot and killed one night with an unexplained thousand dollars found in his pocket. It falls to his former partner (Van Johnson) to track down his killers and try to exonerate him. Scene of the Crime, which tells the story, stays a police procedural with a few twists and touches that raise it a notch or two above the routine.

First of all, Johnson's wife (Arlene Dahl) has fallen prey to the dissatisfactions common to her lot. She's tired of their evenings, in and out, being ruined by yet another summons to duty (`Whenever the telephone rings, it cuts me,' she cries); she tired of rolling his dice rigged to come up seven, a ritual that supposedly bids him luck.

On the job, he has his burdens, too. His new partner (John McIntyre) is getting on in years and his sight is failing. And under Johnson's wing is nestled rookie cop Tom Drake, learning the ropes. Outside the office there's an abrasive police reporter (Donald Woods) chasing the corruption angle; there's also the network of low-lifes who serve, if the pressure is right, as stoolies - most vivid of them is the young Norman Lloyd.

Word filters up that the killing was the work of a couple of downstate `lobos' who have been knocking over bookie operations. Going undercover, Johnson starts romancing a stripper one of them used to date (Gloria De Haven, in the movie's sharpest performance). Even though he's working her, he finds his emotions in play - and even though it turns out that she's working him, too, she has no emotions.

Under Roy Rowland's direction, Scene of the Crime keeps its plotting straightforward, though with some uncharacteristic bursts of violence. The movie's studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was celebrated for its lavish color musicals, not for the unsentimental style of film noir. That probably accounts for the final shot's being a reconciliatory kiss, in hopes that such a sweet image might expunge all the urban squalor that went before it. Luckily, it doesn't.