Mala hierba

In what I rate as the greatest year in the golden age of movies, 1949, the ever reliable William Castle cranks out what would seem to be a routine B programmer about federal agents getting in the thick of crime (drug smuggling) to weed out some highly execrable outlaws, only this time Castle has a super cast at his disposal which clearly lifts this noir above B status.

To Castle's credit, he extracts very good performances from Duff, Winters, McIntire, Kelley and, especially, Dan Duryea, a con doing time who has sworn revenge against US Treasury agent Duff, but turns out to be more decent than imagined after seeing his wife killed as a consequence of consuming narcotics.

Soaring above the film's lofty acting standards, Duryea posts possibly his career-best show in a rare and surprising role as a seemingly inveterate baddie with a decent streak which ultimately redeems and finds him love and happiness. The revenge he warns Duff about turns out to be the wonderful woman who recognizes his worth in the end.

Winters and McIntire also deliver superb performances, the latter as the cold and calculating master villain. Interesting to note that the following year, 1950, Duryea, Winters and McIntire would re-assemble in one of the greatest Westerns ever, WINCHESTER '73.

As would a very young Anthony (Tony) Curtis, who in JOHNNY gets a small and wordless but crucial part as a baby-faced good for nothing... other than killing.

Cinematography deserves considerable praise throughout, the highlights being the early scenes at a dockyard, the apparent alacrity of all in a restaurant/dancing room, and the hangar at the end.

Chases and other action sequences are crackingly well staged, including the shootouts and, above all, the decisive plane-police car crash.

True, the script does not rise above some predictability, but then it is based on true FBI reports, and you know that good will win over evil. Thank God!

A narcotics agent helped by an ex-con and a blonde floozie goes undercover to nab a criminal gang.

The routine story is boosted by a good cast and some nice production touches. That opening shootout grabs us right away, along with the moody location shots of San Francisco, and later, in and around Tucson. The film was made at a time when movies were hitting the streets instead of the sound stages, so it's a good chance to catch styles and relics, circa 1949.

Surprise, surprise, veteran bad guy Duryea actually gets a semi-sympathetic role and only has to snarl once. And catch the unforgettable Shelley Winters, just starting her whiny isn't-she- cheap act. Between them, they lend real color to the production, along with a sneakily jovial John McIntire as the dude ranch host.

Some film buffs may not be aware of director William Castle's career before becoming a notorious schlockmeister with gimmicky teenage films like 13 Ghosts (1960) or The Tingler (1960). But he had a very respectable career at RKO with the brilliantly offbeat The Whistler series of the late '40's before coming over to Universal for this crime drama.

There're a number of good touches here. Catch a young Tony Curtis as the mute hit-man, a role made all the more effective by his pretty-boy good looks. Also, what a great way to heighten suspense by handing off that life-or-death message to a possibly non-English speaker, or by filming the climactic scene at an actual border-crossing with its rows of backed-up cars.

No, a programmer like this won't win any awards, but it's another example of how energetic movie-making was during its studio period.

Treasury agent George Morton (Howard Duff) convinces a prisoner he knew as a kid (Dan Duryea) to help him go undercover in "Johnny Stool Pigeon" from 1949.

Along the way, they meet Shelley Winters, who works in a mob club, and she becomes involved in their scheme. The three of them wind up at a Tucson dude ranch run by John McIntire as they attempt to uncover a heroin smuggling operation going through Nogales.

Duryea and Duff share a mutual dislike. The question is, will Duryea reveal to the mobsters that Duff is a cop? Meanwhile, a mute mob associate (Tony Curtis) recognizes Duff from somewhere, but he doesn't seem to be able to put it together.

Pretty routine story with good acting, directed by William Castle, told in the sem-documentary style that was popular for movies involving the government in the '40s.

The striking thing about this film to me was how incredibly young these actors were! Shelley Winters was slender and pretty, Duff was trim and handsome, and Curtis was positively adorable. This was his third film; he came to the attention of audiences when he danced with Yvonne DeCarlo in Criss Cross. Easy to see why. I'm prejudiced. I used to work for him.

Federal agents risking mortal danger to infiltrate criminal syndicates supply one of the basic templates for film noir. The crooks can variously be counterfeiters (as in T-Men) or traffickers in illegal laborers (as in Border Incident) or, here in Johnny Stool Pigeon, heroin smugglers.

Those first two films were by the resourceful Anthony Mann; Johnny Stool Pigeon is by William Castle, no Mann but later to become the king of cheapie horror flicks after an apprenticeship in noir (his When Strangers Marry may be the best of his juvenilia).

It's a creditable if not especially memorable effort, thanks mostly to a cast headed by Dan Duryea, Howard Duff, Shelly Winters (in her sexpot phase) and, in a non-speaking part, young Tony Curtis (here billed as "Anthony," a better billing than he got in the same year's Criss Cross, where his manic rhumba with Yvonne De Carlo went uncredited).

Narcotics cop Duff knows his only chance to crack an international drug ring is by springing a convict (Duryea) whom he'd help put in Alcatraz. The oil-and-water team of unwilling partners travels from San Francisco first to Vancouver then, gang moll Winters in tow, to a dude ranch near Tucson run by the mob.

The plot's volatility depends on the possibility of Duff's being sold out by Duryea or recognized by Curtis, who spends half the movie knitting his brows in an effort to remember where he'd seen Duff before. Reckoning finally comes at a dangerous drug buy at the Nogales border crossing.

As a straight arrow, Duff's not bad, though in more ambivalent roles in movies like Shakedown or The Naked City, he can turn into a slithery chameleon. The reliable Duryea does his soured cynic number -- he had it down pat by now. Winters adds a dash of hot sauce, but it's a sketched-in part at best. Johnny Stool Pigeon adds up to a pretty routine hour-and-a-quarter of noir -- but that's far from faint praise.

Feels fairly by-the-numbers but, honestly, it's also a ton of fun. Solid cultivation of suspense, really fun characters and a fantastic ending. I recommend it!