Half a Sinner

I'm sure this little comic piece was never meant to be taken seriously. It involves a snowball effect caused by a young schoolteacher out on a lark. She ends up with a car carrying a body and evidence against a crime boss. It's a series of escapes and puzzled cops, running back and forth, chasing the young woman and her wealthy handsome new acquaintance. The police are good hearted buffoons. The crooks are silly and pretty ineffectual. There are some narrow escapes, but no one ever seems to get all that flustered over the events. Reality takes a holiday in this one and that's OK. It's just so darned tongue in cheek and over the top that we never really feel much for the plight of the characters.

Heather Angel was an exquisite actress who just seemed to slip through the cracks. By the time of "Half a Sinner" she was quite at home playing young heroines in light hearted mysteries. But her career had started out differently - she was the wistful and lovely girl Leslie Howard loved when he went back in time in "Berkeley Square" (1933). Over the next couple of years she played a mousey murderess in "Springtome for Henry" (1934) and a "sorrowing sister" in "The Informer" (1935) and then nothing more of note. She did become "the girl" in the Bulldog Drummond series and she was remembered (by me) as being quite feisty and intelligent - unusual for those types of roles!!

A prim school teacher has a secret desire to kick up her heels and leave her small town behind her. She does the next best thing - buys some silk stockings, a new hat and goes on a spree for the day. She gets some unwanted attention from a hood, "Handsome", and in her haste to escape, pushes him over and steals his car. Unbeknownst to her, there is a body in the back. She picks up a hitch-hiker, whose car has broken down, and a romance begins. Larry (John "Dusty" King) soon discovers the body but when a policeman starts chasing them, Anne is more concerned about the car being stolen - she doesn't know about the body!!

Heather Angel is great as Anne - she really gets into the spirit of the film. Another great player is Constance Collier as the dowager whose chauffeur takes the wrong car. She really livens up the last part of the movie. Henry Braddon plays "Handsome". The original story is by Dalton Trumbo.

Recommended.

Comedy noir would seem to be a contradiction in terms, but there are in fact movies in this vein that deserve serious attention, particularly The Ladykillers (1951). A much lesser entry, however, is Universal's 1940 release, Half a Sinner, in which a none-too-flatteringly photographed and costumed Heather Angel is pursued not only by comic cops and comic crooks but by smiling bland man, John King. The second last of over 400 films (many of them shorts) directed by comedy giant, Al Christie, this Trouble with Harry/Midnight Manhunt effort is somewhat repetitious but pleasant enough to talk during and even come late for. The players do what they can with their something-borrowed (cf. the overcoat device in Manhattan Melodrama), something-thin material, but only Clem Bevans, Tom Dugan, William B. Davidson and ever-reliable Constance Collier really shine.

Spring fever hits school teacher Heather Angel hard. She buys a nice frock and silk stockings, and walks to the park. She's enjoying herself until gangster Henry Brandon tries to pick her up. She sees his gun, panics, knocks him down, and steals his car. She doesn't notice the stiff in the back, but Brandon's boss wants the body dumped and his overcoat returned, so off they go. The appearance of John 'Dusty' King in the car puts them off. Hardly surprising given that he confesses to Miss Angel that he's a hardened criminal.

It's directed by Al Christie, who'd been in the motion picture racket since 1909. He mostly produced and directed for his own company with brother Charles, particularly short comedies. The coming of sound had made those less profitable, so he did this one for Universal, using some of their contract stars, and some people he'd known for a long time. The script is good enough, but the leads seem to be speaking their lines too fast for any impact, and some of the characters (like Clem Bevans) look interesting, and then disappear. Most of the real fun is delivered in the second half by Constance Collier, as a snooty busybody who takes a shine to the youngsters. The result is an okay little film that takes only an hour.

That opening scene with the impish little boy writing punishment sentences on the blackboard is a charming hoot. The whole time he's muttering he will NOT be a good boy despite what he's writing. Monitoring him, teacher Anne (Angel) looks dowdy, I guess like a school teacher's supposed to look. She's been leading a respectable but repressed life, content it appears with the romantic margins. Then, one day, she drops her homely eye-lasses and goes shopping-- new dresses, stylish hats, flattering cosmetics-- and the make-over is complete. The conversion from gray moth to striking butterfly is also complete. But does she know what comes with the good looks that catch a man's eye. From now on it's a pack of trouble.

Lively little madcap from Universal, thanks to the two leads, Angel and King. Their chemistry works as they try to outwit gang of crooks whose corpse-bearing car they've unfortunately stolen. Now both the crooks and cops are after them. Maybe Anne was better off making little boys write on blackboards. But then this is Hollywood and we know how such antics end, especially for such an attractive twosome. All in all, it's a fun way to spend an hour, maybe not Hepburn and Grant, but with their own B-movie brand of charm.