Roaring City

Beaumont tries a little too hard to play it constantly cool, but nevertheless he and his roomate Brophy for me are the two most interesting and well played characters in this film. The rest of the cast is another story, in particular the sub-par acting of the sisters. Then there's the dialogue, I know it's supposed to be noir but it's just so stilted and desperately gangsterish, the whole time I just kept wish wisecracks. The story is OK but the poor acting, dialogue, and uninspired direction Roaring City just falls a little short, even at 58 minutes it was still a tad bit too long to keep me genuinely interested.

Hugh Beaumont is an unlicensed private investigator. He gets involved in a couple of murders, almost pulled in by police inspector Richard Travis, and investigates by getting his head pounded in and with the aid of alchoholic Eddie Brophy in this brisk film noir from Lippert.

It's based on a couple of scripts from radio's Pat Novak For Hire, a local show that starred Jack Webb at the beginning of its career before it went national briefly with another performer in the lead role. There's a lot of exposition, fancy metaphors, and a voice over by Beaumont explaining what's going on.

On the plus side, the copy was one of the few good prints of a movie shot by Jack Greenhalgh, and is quite lovely. It shows why he was for a long time, the youngest member of the American Society of Cinematographers. Despite the script not being opened up particularly for the movies, it has some striking images.

This poverty row noir starring Hugh Beaumont as Dennis O'Brien, San Francisco boat salesman and traveler through the back alleys of life, is hilarious. There wasn't enough money to give it atmosphere nor any big names. It distinguishes itself in three areas - a cast now known or remembered for things not noir, how it is actually two independent storylines glued together, and that concentrated noir dialogue that sounds like something out of the satire "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid".

I wonder if this wasn't supposed to be some kind of TV pilot, because it is divided into two thirty minute tales in which the main character, O'Brien, agrees to do something for money for some shadowy or unknown character, gets double crossed, and then has to solve what happened or take the fall. A police detective, inspector Bruger, who seems to know him always shows up to accuse him of murder. So we have a protagonist who makes bad decisions and a police detective who always draws wrong conclusions. I can see why the networks thought this might not work out in the long term.

Of course, most people know Hugh Beaumont as TV dad Ward Cleaver in Leave It To Beaver, and I have to think that gig worked out better than had he played O'Brien in a TV series knock off of this film. O'Brien's roommate and partner is "the professor" played by an out of place Ed Brophy. Brophy was an assistant director who became, after sound came in, a supporting player portraying various barely literate lugs and thugs. Here he is portraying a somewhat alcoholic intellectual who talks of Shakespeare. If you know him from any of his earlier film roles, it is a sight to be seen.

Finally, let me get to that dialogue. Absolutely do not play a drinking game every time you hear a line of over done noir dialogue that sounds like satire rather than the way actual people - hard boiled or not - would ever talk. You'll be dead in twenty minutes.

Recommended for the fun of it all.

Yes, I meant what I said in the summary. Despite a confusing plot and perhaps one too many twists, this is a dandy low-budget example of film noir. One of the biggest reasons to watch it is to see Hugh Beaumont playing such a jaded and noir character. This guy is as far from the Ward Clever character that Beaumont played on "Leave It To Beaver" as you can get!! In fact, his dialog is so snappy and he is so different that I strongly advise you to watch! Sure, I know that Beaumont actually played in a lot of cop films and on TV in roles as crooks, prosecutors and policemen--but this one is so much grittier and amoral than anything I'd seen. Another big reason to watch is because it's not just Beaumont--ALL the people talk with some of the darkest and snappiest dialog imaginable--it's like a textbook example of the genre. Along the same lines, the action is amazingly gritty. I've never seen another film with so many 'dames' getting slapped around!! While this may sound offensive, it really adds to the realism and the women in this film, like the men, are vipers. Finally, a reason I loved it probably won't matter to the average noir viewer, but I loved seeing Eddie Brophy playing such an atypical character. Brophy almost always played low-brow sorts--most often dumb thugs. Here, however, he plays so much against type it made me laugh. Here, he's called 'the Professor' and talks like a Harvard lecturer!! And, he doesn't come off as dumb at all--and sounds quite convincing. Oh, and if you think you recognize his voice, he played Timothy in Disney's "Dumbo".

As I said above, the plot seemed incidental. It all begins with Beaumont playing a private detective who will do almost anything for a buck. A crook wants him to place some bets in his name--as a boxing match has been fixed (boxing not on the level--say is ain't so!). But, when the losing boxer WINS, things start spiraling out of control and Beaumont finds himself suspected of the murder. There is LOTS more to it than that and who is responsible and why is dandy....but the road there is full of a bazillion twists and turns. Relax is my advice...and just enjoy the ride. This is a wonderful example of a low-budget noir film that manages to be better than many of the bigger studio efforts! See it.

Hugh Beaumont, who previous had played Michael Shayne for a series of detective movies at PRC in the 1946-47 season (entertaining films, but having little to do with the Shayne character as depicted in the Brett Halliday novels), put the trench-coat back on for a series of three hour-long feature films as detective Denny O'Brien, released in short succession through Lippert Pictures in 1951. One interesting element about these films is that each consists of two half-hour-long stories, almost as if one is watching back-to-back episodes of a television show. Another interesting element is that the films seem to have borrowed a number of elements from the radio show PAT NOVAK FOR HIRE, starring Jack Webb. Not only is O'Brien a man who rents a ship at the pier and does odd jobs, not only does each film start with monologues very similar to those of Webb, not only does O'Brien have a drunken ex-college-professor sidekick who does some legwork for him, but one of the three films has a plot line lifted directly from a Novak episode! (Perhaps other plots of these movies are lifted from Novak episodes I haven't heard) In any event, these three films are all enjoyable outings with Beaumont radiating the same kind of charm he always did, yet still being convincing as a tough PI spouting hard-boiled dialogue. This particular film has two stories: one of a fixed fight that O'Brien is hired to bet on, and the other where O'Brien is hired to pose as a woman's husband for an evening. Like the PAT NOVAK series, someone hires the detective to do something, he winds up getting beaten up or knocked out, and he wakes up with a dead body, and a police inspector who doesn't like him trying to pin the murder on the detective. That's the formula, and I like it. As often happens with Lippert films, there is a fine b-movie supporting cast, and there is no time wasted on non-essential items. I've owned this film for about 15 years, and I have no doubt watched it five times in those years. Beaumont fans will NOT be disappointed. The other two Denny O'Brien films are DANGER ZONE and PIER 23, both of which I also recommend to detective film fans who do not mind bargain-basement productions in the PRC/Lippert vein. These are directed by the ever-reliable William Berke.