Behind Green Lights

This noir B thriller from 20th Century Fox shows the temptations that the police are under. William Gargan stars and plays a doggedly honest cop who has a homicide literally dropped on his doorstep at the precinct headquarters. It's almost like someone was taunting the cops to solve this one.

The victim in Behind Green Lights was a seedy private detective who had a nice sideline in blackmail and no one really is going to mourn his passing. But the case is loaded with political implications because Carole Landis, daughter of the reform candidate for mayor was seen leaving the victim's apartment.

The largest newspaper in town is supporting the current administration and Roy Roberts says that the easiest thing in the world for Gargan to do to advance his career is pick up Landis and book her. At least until the election is over which will be in a few days. Something about Roberts sticks in Gargan's craw. He could easily justify holding Landis and helping his career, but he won't do it.

There's a nice array of suspects and by definition performances. There are two keys here, a very sleazy medical examiner played by Don Beddoe and a bag lady played by Mabel Paige. Between the two of them the real story comes out.

Behind Green Lights bears no small resemblance to Detective Story in structure. Most of the action takes place in the police station. This film is nicely paced with a few good comic touches. I can't mention them because they are within the plot structure and not just added on. This noir film is a good one to check out.

A dead body is dumped outside a police station one night. This leads to a mystery involving a femme fatale and corruption.

This was an entertaining mystery in my book. While it was set almost totally in two locations - the police station and the flat where the murder took place - it has a fairly polished feel and holds the interest throughout. The mystery is involving enough and there are some moments of noirish atmosphere and style towards the end. There were some elements of humour introduced which, while not being strictly necessary, weren't too distracting either. Behind Green Lights isn't a poverty row effort, it was made by one of the big studios so that may account for it's relatively impressive overall presentation. It's hardly a film that breaks the mould but it's a fairly effective little mystery that is worth watching if you like these kinds of flicks.

A police-procedural mystery that's about halfway to film noir but comes up short, Behind Green Lights takes place entirely during a single night in a midwestern city (stockyards are mentioned; Kansas City? Chicago?). A car rolls up to the green globes of a police station, holding the murdered body of a private investigator who dabbled in blackmail. Asked in for questioning is Carole Landis, daughter of a mayoral candidate, who had been in the extortionist's apartment earlier that evening. Though other suspects emerge, the ink-stained wretches on the police beat smell a scoop: If Landis is convicted in the press, it will swing the election that's just a few days off.

Its view of the press as partisan, corrupt and unprincipled is the most unusual aspect of Behind Green Lights. It assumes (in this case rightly) that the newspapers have mercenary minions stowed throughout the city government. The medical officer (Don Beddoe) clearly takes his orders not from night-shift boss William Gargan but from a sleazy tabloid's editor-in-chief (Roy Roberts). On his instructions, he substitutes victim's body for a John Doe's after he discovers that the murder weapon was poisoned Bourbon, not the gunshot that would implicate Landis. (This switching around of corpses introduces an antic element of slapstick from which the movie never quite recovers.)

But the pervasive corruption of big-town politics remains oddly matter-of-fact, never developed into an indictment or accepted as a grim given of mid-twentieth-century American life; it's just a plot point. (The movie also has to work around the central presence of the charisma-free Gargan, while John Ireland is wasted as his assistant.) It wraps up neatly, leaving little atmosphere behind (Mabel Paige as a flower vendor stays the most memorable character). Still, it has a brisk pace and professional look - both indoor and outdoor scenes have a dark, noirish shine, thanks to director of photography Joe MacDonald, who would go on to light many worthy noirs - and leaves one wishing that it had been just a little bit longer and a little bit better.

Other than guessing the murderer the minute I saw him, I thought "Behind Green Lights" from 1946 was pretty good.

The first thing we see is a young woman (Carole Landis) entering an apartment and telling the man inside that she hasn't raised enough money. Then she pulls a gun on him.

Later, a body is dumped in front of a police precinct. It turns out to be that of a detective turned blackmailer, and we learn that none other than a mayoral candidate's daughter had visited him before he died. She is brought in for questioning.

The editor of a newspaper doesn't want that candidate to win and pressures Lt. Carson (Gargan) to formally arrest the mayor's daughter, at least until after the election. Not happening.

At first it appears that the blackmailer was shot to death; he was shot, but the cause of death was poisoning. The coroner is actually taking orders from the editor, and he's told to get the body out of the police station before anyone realizes that the man was poisoned.

Some nice bits concerning the body, an escaped prisoner, and a closet.

Okay film, with nice performances by Gargan, Richard Crane, John Ireland, Mary Anderson, and Charles Russell. This is down a few notches for the beautiful Landis, whose career sadly declined after Darryl Zanuck dumped her. She committed suicide two years later at the age of 29. A very sad life.

I think it's worth seeing even if it is an uneven mix of noir and comedy - I liked some of the characters.

It's the graveyard shift, with night commander William Gargan holding down the fort. A car rolls up right in front of the station. Someone opens the car and a corpse falls out. It's Bernard Nedell with a bullet hole in him. He was a P.I. and blackmailer by trade, and one of the suspects is Carole Landis, whose father is up for election, so there's pressure to put her behind bars. Soon the case becomes ever more tangled....

It's an okay little flick, directed for speed by Otto Brower. Brower bounced between directing B pictures -- his westerns are lively affairs -- and being an assistant director on some pretty classy As, one of the highly competent craftsmen who never got the breaks, but was obviously known in the industry for his good work. Writer Scott Darling ekes out the short running time with eccentric characters: the guy who breaks out of jail so he can wrestle at an Elks smoker, the reporter who wears his grandfather's buffalo-skin coat, a kid whose head is trapped in a goldfish bowl (his mother wants it removed without breaking it), Mabel Paige as the flower seller who wants her $1.75 from the corpse, and iold-timer Tom Moore and J. Farrell MacDonald.

It's more a procedural that film noir, barring some eccentrically lit shots on an apartment stairs, and there are no early clues; everything breaks at once, with the motive revealed after the audience can figure out whodunnit. However, it's an example of the lively B movie that Fox could still turn out on a short budget, given the superfluity of talent available.