Camino de perdición

Principal roles in I Was A Shoplifter fell to Scott Brady (Lawrence Tierney's brother), the evergreen Mona Freeman, Andrea King and the young `Anthony' Curtis. Smaller, almost invisible parts go to Charles McGraw, Peggie Castle and Rock Hudson. That's not a dream cast, but all had done and would do better work in far better vehicles than this dead-serious and deadly dull documentary-style look at `boosters' – organized shoplifters.

Mousy librarian and prominent judge's daughter Freeman saunters through a big department store absently filling her pockets with trinkets, like a magpie flying off with anything that glitters. She's spotted, hauled into the manager's office and forced to sign a confession. Also caught in this retail dragnet is Brady, a professional booster as opposed to Freeman, who's written off as a `klepto' – a basically harmless nuisance.

But later Freeman has visitors. The first is hard case King, who has a photocopy of Freeman's confession and blackmails her into joining the her nest of boosters; the second is Brady, who works undercover on a police task force trying to crack the ring. He falls for her, as does, more brutally, Curtis, one of King's torpedoes. The `action,' such as it is, moves south to San Diego then crosses the border to Tijuana for an (almost) final reckoning.

Laughably, the shoplifting syndicate operates on a level of ruthlessness and secrecy on a par with the Nazis in The House on 92nd Street, the heroin smugglers in To The Ends of the Earth, or the Communists in The Woman On Pier 13. But I Was A Shoplifter has been picked clean of wit, style and suspense; it stands as a grim example of a particular post-war posture of humorless self-importance, passing itself off as entertainment.

The 25 year old Tony Curtis went on to act alongside Rock Hudson and James Stewart in films like 'Winchester 73' and 'I Was A Shoplifter' in 1950. Although this film was dull, Curtis was part of a stock of actors whose close friends included Hudson and Stewart.

When the daughter of a judge is caught shoplifting, she has to sign a confession in order to go free. "Faye" (Mona Freeman) is not the only one in the shop who's been apprehended in this annual $100m scam - "Jeff" (Scott Brady) has also been arrested and he is determined to befriend his new rookie friend. She works in the library and receives a visitor summoning her to a bar where she meets up with the manipulative "Ina" (Andrea King) and now she finds herself involved in a blackmail plot to ensure she continues to lift goods to order for the gang. Luckily for all, "Jeff" isn't quite what he seems and what now ensues is a decently enough paced drama that illustrates just how easy it is to steal and just how lucrative a business it is for the perpetrators. There's a strangely miscast, and rather weedy, Tony Curtis aboard here as the rather un-menacing enforcer "Pepe" and at times it adopts a slightly documentary approach to the polling techniques used to ensnare these criminals, but there's enough chemistry between Brady and Freeman and King reminds me of a baddie from a Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" film. The ending is a bit rushed, but it's still worth a watch if you want to know how easy it is to sell-on a dodgy three-blade electric razor!

Director Charles Lamont puts together yet another effective docunoir on police addressing the growing organized shoplifting problem in California, and he does with style and lively pace.

Scott Brady looks very fit, Mona Freeman very beautiful, stunning Andrea King the intelligent female criminal, Tony Curtis a baby-faced thoroughly evil robber/potential rapist/murderer, Charles Drake, Rock Hudson in small parts. Curiously enough, Curtis, Drake and Hudson would also all appear in supporting roles in another 1950 movie, the great Western WINCHESTER '73, starring Jimmy Stewart.

Good photography, state of the art 1950 police plane, vehicles, listening devices and operational gadgets, in effective docunoir.

Although film noir was very popular in the 1950s in Hollywood, I wouldn't exactly consider "I Was a Shoplifter" to be an example of the genre. It's more a police procedural film...and a darned good one. It's also well worth seeing in order to see two future stars in smaller parts before they became famous, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. Of the two, Curtis' role was far larger and meatier...though VERY different from his later roles. He plays Pepe, a guy who is a pusillanimous jerk who loves to stab folks!

The film begins with two shoplifters being picked up by a department store. One (Mona Freeman) is the daughter of a judge...and she seems like a kleptomaniac who has no idea why she's doing it. The other seems like a real hard case...a career criminal who has been stealing for years (Scott Brady). But in reality, he's a detective working a case where they are trying to round up a ring of professional shoplifters as well as determine how and to whom they are selling their haul. Of course, there are lots of possible problems, a few fistfights and a dandy and tense finale.

The film is very well written, never dull and well acted. I noticed some reviewers really disliked this film...but I thought it was excellent from start to finish.