ksf-2

Restored by the UCLA film archive, with funding from various sources.

Slade and fresney have crashed their car, and are trapped with the tide coming in. So we flash back to the circumstances that brought them to this point. Competing newspapers, gang bosses. Hit men, jealous husbands, flirting wives. The only name i recognize here is regis toomey, as inspector o'haffey. He was the copper in so many huge films. When someone knocks off vaughn, the editor of the paper, there are so many suspects! It's kind of a noir, but not quite. Rather a jinxed production team! Director john reinhardt died young at 52. Story by raoul whitfield, who died young at 48. The lead, don castle, who played tim slade, died of an overdose at 47. Castle was in seven films that were released in 1947. Busy guy!

William powell, even before the thin man series of films. In this one, he's the dashing, cool and stylish philo vance, determined to solve a murder. No myrna loy yet, but he does have the energetic mary astor, who made some great films with humphrey bogart. When an antique collector is knocked off, everyone is trying to piece together exactly what happened. Eugene pallette is in here as detective heath, a copper. Read up on his wikipedia entry. He was not a good neighbor! A couple years later, powell and loy will be the socialite couple nick and nora charles in the thin man, drinking their way to solving cases, with the help of their dog. This was a rather tame project for michael curtiz... later, he'll direct casablanca and mildred pierce, huge, huge films! He won the oscar for casablanca.

One of the cary grant films shown less frequently. A touchy subject matter for so many years during the film code.

When a female student faints in his class, doctor praetorius (grant) sends her out for a break. One of mankiewicz's more clever scripts. Lots of dry, subtle humor throughout. People were still pretty uptight discussing anyone's pregnancy, much less a young, single girl (jeanne crain). But times were starting to modernize, and with cary grant taking the role, people were more forgiving. I guess. This was made before my time! The doctor wants so badly to help deborah, but she doesn't know what to do, and doesn't want anyone's help. Co-stars hume cronyn, walter slezak. And yes, that's margaret hamilton from wizard of oz waiting out in the hallway! And uncle john (will wright) was mean ol ben johnson on andy griffith. It's mostly upbeat, with the clever banter and the doctor's dry wit. It's quite good, might have been even better without the talk of politics and taxes, and a side plot that feels like it was stapled on to the love story plot. Directed by joseph mankiewicz. And a fun connection: when this is shown on turner classics, there's a fun, short discussion between ben mankiewicz (joe's nephew) and debra winger, before and after the film. Good stuff all around.