El que no volvió

At the beginning, a narrator speaks as we are shown a residence and the dog named "Angel" that guards it. The viewer is shown the top of a cistern, with "David" the narrator (played by Kent Smith) at the bottom of the cistern. Here's the flashback to tell his story...

When David is picked up for vagrancy, someone pays his fine, and has a proposition for him: He is to pretend to be a millionaire, who had disappeared several years prior. Even the millionaire's wife can't tell he is an impostor, but things start to go wrong. The man he is impersonating wasn't very well liked, and David must find out why. Viveca Lindfors gets top billing as "the wife", but it's Janis Paige as the sister- in-law who (rightfully) steals the show. Watch for Monte Blue as the Sheriff. The acting isn't anything special, but the story is mildly compelling, and since we know right from the start that David ends up in the well, we get hooked on finding out how he ends up there.

Written by Richard Sale, who had several novels and screenplays made into films. This one IS available on DVD, although you can catch it on Turner Classic Channel about once a year. Directed by Richard Bare, who wrote a book on the proper technique on film directing.

Drifter Kent Smith is hired by lawyer Robert Douglas. His job, if you can call it that, is to impersonate a rich man who has been missing for seven years. Thanks to coaching by Douglas, Smith fools the man's wife, sister, and everyone but the dog. But mysteries abound. What happened to the missing man? How do they keep a huge cliffside mansion spotless and the people fed with no servants? Who is to benefit from this scheme? Could they have made this better by casting George O'Hanlon?

This, after all directed by Richard L. Bare, and at that time he was best known for Warner's Joe McDoakes shorts. After that closed down in 1956, he mostly directed TV shows like Green Acres, although he continued to turn out the occasional feature film with something odd about it, like being done entirely in split screen. Bare directs this one capably enough. The performances are good, the camerawork by Carl Guthrie makes me wonder if, given this script, Bare rolled his eyes and decided to make this a blank-faced burlesque. With Viveca Lindfors, Janet Paige, and Monte Blue.

Waves crashing violently over jagged rocks, against a moonlit sky, presided over by an isolated, almost spectral clifftop house, while a desperate man, trapped at the bottom of a disused cesspool rapidly loses any hope of escape. It all sets the tone for a movie as preposterous as it is atmospheric.

Dishevelled, down at heel vagrant, Kent Smith, comes under the gaze of suave, sophisticated, savvy but scheming lawyer Robert Douglas. With his educated English accent and pencil thin moustache, he is the template for the Tom Helmore character in 'Vertigo'. Smith scrubs up sufficiently well to pass for dapper, prosperous Malcolm Taylor, seven years missing and about to be pronounced officially dead, which will spark serious financial repercussions for his estate.

That a grubby, random, homeless man could be so remarkably transformed, have the confidence, poise audacity and chutzpah to pull off such a stunt, even for BIG money, certainly stretches credibility. To then arrive on the doorstep, after seven years without trace or explanation and greet 'wife' Viveca Lindfors with a slightly sheepish, "Hello Evelyn" is almost as laughable as The Disaster Artist's 'Oh! Hi Mark' moment. Smith also has to deal with hostility from brother, John Alvin, who loathes him and the advances of sister in law, Janis Paige, who loves him. All minor fare compared with the relentlessly barking, snarling, howling dog, Angel, who would gladly eat him...... before moving on to the main course!

Smith may look, sound, act and even smell like Missing Malcolm, but as always the Devil is in the detail. Small revelations start to arouse suspicion concerning his veracity. As the double crosses double, every ten minutes, the absurdities of the plot ultimately give way to something altogether more intriguing and absorbing. Whilst the stark, forbidding settings evoke the aura of the best goth noir. The largely second tier cast turn in convincing performances, with Janis Paige's femme fatale especially memorable in a movie which emerges with greater integrity than initially anticipated. Undiscovered by myself, until recently, 'This Side of the Law', is an interesting addition to my ever expanding noir catalogue.

This Side of the Law is a thrilling ride of twists and turns in gorgeous Gothic settings. Kent Smith plays David Cummins, a bum arrested for vagrancy whose fine is paid by a stranger named Philip Cagle (Robert Douglas), an attorney who offers him a job to impersonate a missing millionaire named Malcolm Taylor whom Cummins resembles perfectly and for whose estate Cagle is executor. Despite not knowing Cagle's intentions, Cummins needs the money so takes the job, returning "home" to the man's clifftop estate to the shock of Taylor's wife, brother, and sister-in-law, who assumed him dead. We soon learn just how much hatred and deceit a household of merely four inhabitants can contain. The acting is mostly excellent, William Lava's score is eerily ahead of its time, especially during moments of heightened suspense, and Carl Guthrie's cinematography beautifully captures the atmosphere of the dramatic settings (cliff, beach, gazebo), especially since most scenes take place at night. Underseen and under-rated. 8/10

Viveca Lindfors Stunning beauty ......was a Swedish-born actress whose stage and screen career in the U. S. and Sweden spanned more than half a century. She was brought to Hollywood in 1946 by Warner Brothers in the hope that she would be a new Greta Garbo or Ingrid Bergman.

This Side Of the Law is a rather fun thriller from the early fifties and concerns a man hired to impersonate someone else, a greedy family and other unwholesome things. The cast is decidedly of the second-string variety; however that doesn't make it bad. Kent Smith and Viveca Lindfors were both talented performers and play their starring roles well. It's particularly nice to see Smith in a leading role for a change, as he was a decent actor who never quite made the cut in Hollywood. Character actor John Alvin does nicely in a showy supporting part. I wouldn't quite call the movie film noir, though it's close. It plays somewhat like an episode of the Perry Mason TV series, as it's full of similar plot twists and surprises. If one likes dark mysteries this is a good one to look for.