Bad Guy

"Bad Guy" is a morality tale indicating that no matter what, evil will be punished...something that seems amazingly unlikely.

When the story begins, Lucky (Bruce Cabot) realizes he's been cheated by some professional gamblers. Instead of going to the police or seeing this as an expensive lesson, he confronts the gamblers and kills one of them! Not surprisingly, he's sentenced to death in the electric chair. But while in prison, Lucky does well...and manages to obtain a commutation and then parole! And, this and Lucky's comeuppance are all related to electricity. How all this plays out you should see for yourself.

This is a decent albeit slightly moralistic B-movie from Warner Brothers. Cabot plays the usual sort of jerk he played in films and because it's a morality tale, you know he'll get his in the end. Worth seeing and well acted but a bit predictable.

... and forgive me for that review title.

John Lucky Walden (Bruce Cabot) is a lineman working on a power outage at a carnival. Perched high above the ground, he sees the guy who cheated him in a game of cards the night before. After electricity is restored, he asks about the card cheat and finds out where tonight's game is. Lucky shows up and demands his winnings back. Intimidated, the guy returns Lucky's money. But when Lucky demands interest on his money as well, the cheat refuses and Lucky hits him in the head with his wrench. The man dies instantly. One witness to the killing runs, and when the police show up, they arrest Lucky. Lucky tells a completely false version of the crime to the jury, claiming it was self-defense, but he's convicted of murder anyway and sentenced to death.

Before the execution date, Lucky's brother Mike finds the witness who ran. Afraid that Lucky knows enough to implicate him in a bank robbery, the witness lies and confirms Lucky's version of events. The governor has enough reason to doubt that this was deliberate murder and commutes Lucky's sentence to life. Later, after committing an act of extreme bravery, Lucky is paroled.

Back on the outside, again working as a lineman at a power company, Lucky continues his reckless ways of wanting what he wants when he wants it, regardless of the consequences to his family and friends. Complications ensue.

The actual plot didn't quite make it to an hour, so about 5-10 minutes of a scene of the linemen attending a lecture on low and high frequency power with some imagery of electricity ladders is added. None of this has anything to do with the story.

Bruce Cabot was convincing as Lucky, a guy who was maybe not as bad as he was unlucky. He's definitely not living the life of Tom Powers of Public Enemy, and he wouldn't have gotten the death penalty for what happened to that gambler, not even in 1937, considering it was an impulsive act that killed the guy. He would have likely gotten a verdict of manslaughter. But then we'd have no story. The supporting players were forgettable but not embarrassing.

I 'm pretty sure I saw Robert Young in an uncredited role with just one line as his voice is pretty distinctive. That would have been odd, though, since Robert Young had been playing lead roles since 1931 or at least played in strong support.

Electrical lineman John 'Lucky' Walden (Bruce Cabot) confronts the crooked gambler who stole his money and ends up killing him. He is sentenced to be executed.

It's interesting that Lucky is not innocent at all. I don't know that much about Cabot. He seems to be a veteran character actor who performed mostly next to the spotlight. He's more the thug side character. He's not really leading anyways. I guess that this could be called noir or a crime film. I would have preferred embracing the dark side a lot more and a bit less electricity. The electrical arcs are fun. It's a somewhat bland criminal character study. I'm not drawn to this character but it's still a little interesting.

The movies loved rogues in the old days. Whores with hearts of gold (though they couldn't call them that,--whores I mean), con men who were kind to widows and orphans, gangsters who were really robin hoods in fedoras and pin-striped suits. This was especially true in the economic hard times of the Depression. One saw fewer of such films after the war. Nowadays things are quite different, and the formula would seem ridiculously old-fashioned and corny. Maybe the rise of mass education had something to do with it. As people have become more middle class they are increasingly concerned about "respectability". In the days when most people worked with their hands or lived off the land the good bad guy thing was acceptable. But enough sociological musing. In this film the good bad guy is Bruce Cabot, who could play really bad guys quite well also, which gives his character added ambiguity. The setting is New York, the work is power lineman. Cabot is credible in both his good and bad aspects, which makes his nice guy attributes more effective than had his role been played by, say, Don Ameche. Director Eddie Cahn, a master of the short subject, directs this one for speed and beauty. It has plenty of both. The backlot cityscapes are something to see.

That's an Edward L Cahn's film from the thirties, the best period for this director who, in the late fifties and early sixties provided us with another kind of material, something totally different. But this decade - thirties - offered us good surprises with him: EMERGENCY CALL, LAW AND ORDER, BAD GUY, MAIN STREETS AFTER DARK, very exciting gems. This one is very good, and Bruce Cabot's role so riveting, an anti hero as I crave for. Yes, his character is so ambivalent, and some scenes are so daring for this period. It would be so nice if this movie could be more widely knoown. Yes, Edward L Cahn could bring us good stuff, no matter what he did during his late career.