Below the Deadline

Ambitious cop Russell Hopton and jewel merchant's secretary Cecilia Parker are in love. Her boss is planning on a big shipment, which attractts Theodore von Eltz, the head of a jewelry-thief ring. Miss Parker attracts him too, so he works out an elaborate plan to frame Hopton for the robbery. It works. Hopton is arrested, escapes, and winds up in a train crash.

It's an elaborately plotted movie from ambitious Poverty Row producer Chesterfield. It's directed at a good clip by Charles Lamont, but there are a couple of problems. The first is that 36-year-old Hopton looks too old to play a 26-year-old Oirish beat cop, and the other is in the script by Ewart Adamson. It plods, making sure that every plot point is painstakingly laid out, and then further larded with not very interesting banter. At barely over an hour, it looks like it was padded.

This crime film is from a shabby little company called Chesterfield Motion Pictures, a so-called 'Poverty Row' studio that actually just rented space at night at real studios and made super-quick and super-cheap B-movies. With a pedigree like this and mostly no-name actors, you'd assume this film would be crap. Your assumption is wrong. Instead, despite a few minor gripes, it's a dandy little crime film.

When the film begins, Molly (Cecilia Parker) and Terry (Russell Hopton) are planning on getting married. He's a cop and she works for a company that sells high-price jewels. Soon, there is a robbery of her employer and the robbers (in disguise) make it a point to point all the suspicion on Terry. He's been set-up but cannot prove he didn't do it. So, he does what most heroes do in this situation...he goes on the run to prove his innocence. An exciting (though clichéd) thing happens next--the train he's on has a wreck and when Terry awakens, he's badly injured...but has the presence of mind to plan his ID on a dead guy. The police assume the dead mangled guy was Terry and they drop the case. As for Terry, he finds himself in the hospital...and with a completely new face! Now he decides to go back and pose as Terry's brother and see if he can figure out who set him up to take the fall.

While the plot does sound very improbable, the story works well because it's well written. Also, for a cheap B, the acting ain't bad. Although Hopton was NOT a handsome guy by any standard and he looked FAR older than the character was supposed to be, he and the rest of the cast did quite well and I nearly give this film a 7. Very enjoyable despite it being totally ridiculous.

By the way, Hopton never really became a star and died of a drug overdose (ruled a suicide) in 1945. Very sad.

(Warning- To IMDB streaming viewers. There are two contrasting films with the same name, "Below The Deadline". One is from 1946, the other 1936. In misleading fashion, IMDB's Watch List for viewer streaming places the older film under the description of the newer. Thus, I thought I was cueing up 1946 and instead I got the wholly different 1936. So be aware of that possibility if you're considering the IMDB viewer stream.)

The '36 flick is a decent if unexceptional crime story. A policeman and his girl plan to marry, but instead get mixed up in a diamond robbery for which the patrolman is blamed. Now he's got to clear himself, but how.

I can see why MGM had plans for Parker (on loan here). She's a charmingly engaging ingénue who carries the film. Leading man Hopton is an unknown, to me at least, and an apparent suicide victim (1945). As another reviewer points out, he's a bit of a miscast in terms of age and charm. He does, however, have a convincing Irish brogue. The settings are pretty well done for a poverty row production, along with smooth direction from Lamont. The story wobbles, but has a few twists that hold interest. All in all, it's a pretty good little time passer for old movie buffs, thanks mainly to Parker.