Der Henker saß am Tisch

711 Ocean Drive finds Edmond O'Brien as just a working stiff, toiling away at a job for the telephone company and getting a bit behind in with his bookie. Fortunately the bookie, Sammy White, is an understanding guy and recognizes talent when he sees it. He takes him to wire service operator Barry Kelley who controls the illegal gambling in Southern California and Kelley puts O'Brien to work, modernizing the business.

That's the beginning of O'Brien's rise in the gambling rackets. He's talented, but his reach exceeded his grasp, especially when he started reaching for Joanne Dru while she was still married to racketeer Don Porter.

There's a lot of similarity between O'Brien and Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra. They're both talented, at the top of their respective trades. We only see Bogart at the downfall of his career. Still that climax which takes place at Hoover Dam was definitely inspired by High Sierra.

Besides those already mentioned look for good performances by Howard St. John as the honest cop on O'Brien's trail, Bert Freed as the syndicate's number one hit man, and Otto Kruger the very smooth syndicate boss who never gets his hands dirty with the details.

711 Ocean Drive is a very nice noir film, made at the height of Edmond O'Brien's career as a B picture leading man.

After seeing this movie, you may not look at a telephone repairman the same way again. Actually the result seems closer to the Cagney films of the thirties than to the noirs of the forties. For phone lineman Eddie O'Brien, it's a success story, as opportunity, know-how, and drive propel him to the top of the bookie racket. Fortunately the always energetic O'Brien makes the transition from working stiff to bookie king-pin both dynamic and believable. Then too, we meet some interesting people along the way, including smoothie Otto Kruger doing his best imitation of a smiling cobra, even as young marrieds Joanne Dru and Don Porter practice their 1950's version of open marriage. And in a usual thankless part, moon-faced Barry Kelley who bull-dozes everyone within reach through eyes so pinched, they're barely more than razor slits. Still, it's unheralded bit actors like him that really make movies like this work.

Director Joe Newman keeps things moving nicely, even the colorless scenes featuring the forces of law and order don't bog down the pacing. There're also some good location shots in and around LA, with an exhausting climax up and down the the stairwells of Boulder Dam as the giant turbines hum in the background. (I wonder how they get ordinary people who probably just happened to be at the dam that day, to be so natural with a movie camera and crew staring them in the face. Somehow they do.) My favorite part is setting up the "past-posting" scheme, showing how every technical innovation presents a criminal mastermind with a twisted opportunity. All in all, 7-11 may not be a jack-pot dice roll, but it is a decent thriller, entertaining if not exactly memorable.

Enjoyed this great 1950 film starring Edmond O'Brien, ( Mal Granger) who plays the role of a telephone repair man with great skills in communications and all kinds of ability to set up telephone lines anywhere he so desires. Mal gets tired of his old routine job and meets up with his bookie who places his bets on the race track and offers him a very profitable job with the big time gambling bosses. Mal gets very powerful with all the bookies and begins to disturb the big shot bosses from other states and that is when Carl Stephens, (Otto Kruger) decides he is going to cut in on Mal Granger's business. Mal joins up with Carl Stephens and then gets himself involved with a married woman named Gail Mason, (Joanne Dru) and they fall madly in love with each other. There is many twists and turns in this film and you have some fantastic scenes all around Hoover Dam with non stop entertainment right to the very end. Enjoy.

"711 Ocean Drive" is an interesting '50s film noir set in Los Angeles. Edmond O'Brien stars as Mal Granger, a nice telephone repairman who is into a bookie for some gambling debts. The bookie makes a deal with him and, since he's a technician, has him do some modernization on the illegal gambling in the area that uses the wire service. The O'Brien character turns out to be pretty ambitious and greedy and starts making his way up the ladder in the syndicate. He does well until some guys from the East coast show up and want some of his action.

The O'Brien character really changes from the beginning, when he's a relaxed, friendly guy. Then he becomes ruthless and murderous. O'Brien does a great job in making this change believable. There are also very good performances from Howard St. John as a police officer, Bert Freed as a hit man, and Otto Kruger as a mob boss. Joanne Dru is the object of Mal's affections, although she's married to someone else.

Seeing Los Angeles in the '50s is one of the best parts of this film. Recommended for Edmond O'Brien, the scenery, and the noir style.

711 Ocean Drive was indeed preachy, as attested to and confirmed by the blurbs at both beginning and end. Still, I found the film interesting and entertaining (although D.O.A. remains my all-time favorite O'Brien, and one of my top favorites, overall). The character of Mal Granger really presented a sharp and unexpected contrast to that of Frank Bigelow in D.O.A. The real surprise in this film came early on when the personality of Granger, itself, did a 180-degree turnaround, from the benign, carefree and kindly telephone repairman (who insisted his co-worker accept a few bucks that he was in need of), to the ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous "operator" for whom even a little power is seen to surely corrupt. Although the early-on character of Granger is seen for only the first 15 or 20 minutes of the film, the contrast remained with me throughout. An excellent characterization by O'Brien, as usual.