You're Out of Luck

Before Mantan Moreland gained widespread fame for playing Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan films, he made a string of movies with Frankie Darro for the same studio, Monogram. While none of them were exactly brilliant, they generally were well made and enjoyable B-movies. What also is interesting about them is that the pair were usually portrayed as friends....perhaps even equals despite Moreland being black and Darro a white guy. This is most unusual for the early 1940s.

There is a murder at a fancy hotel where Frankie and Jeff (Darro and Moreland) work. Frankie's brother, Tom, is a detective and he asks the pair to keep an eye on a hotel guest as he's a prime suspect. However, the pair are a bit dim and decide to not only keep their eyes open but to actually investigate the case themselves to help out Tom!

The idea of amateurs solving crimes was VERY common in the 1930s and 40s. Often these folks were newspaper men but they could be nearly anyone, as in these B movies the cops were nearly always inept knuckleheads! And, as this type of movie, it's pretty decent and worth seeing. Good acting and a decent script...just like you'd find in the pair's other films.

By the way, although not politically correct, they have Jeff playing craps (a common stereotype of black men during this era), though the white cops end up playing as well....and winning. So, despite the stereotype, the scene ended up being pretty inoffensive to all but the most sensitive of viewers.

Frankie O'Reilly and Jeff Jefferson work at an apartment building. When one of the tenants is killed by gunmen the pair is asked by Frankie's brother, the detective investigating the case, to keep an eye on a suspect living in the building. The requests brings the pair into danger as they end up taking things too far and find themselves dealing with the gamblers responsible for the murder.

This is another in the series of films that paired Frankie Darro and Montan Moreland as best friends. While some of the films were better than others, all of the films were enjoyable to some degree. For me this is one of the middle of the pack group, far from the worst in the series it never quite manages to reach the heights of some of the best (Up in the Air for example). Its a good little film that has a mystery/crime plot clever enough to keep you watching with a genuine interest in seeing how it comes out. I think my lack of affection for the film is simply the anemia of the budget which is revealed via reused rooms and an obvious photograph that serves as the background of a parking garage. The mystery and the repartee are such that you really wish that they had spent a couple of more bucks to make it look real.

Definitely worth your time, especially if you make it part of a multiple movie night (dare I say with other Darro/Moreland movies).

In the apartment building where Frankie Darro is the elevator operator and Mantan Moreland the porter, a corpse turns up. Darro's brother, Detective Lieutenant Richard Bond gets assigned the case, but it's not long before another corpse turns up, along with $60,000 in cash.

I usually look forward to any appearance of Moreland, but he's given very little to do in the comic way in this purported comedy mystery in which the audience is given three quarters of the answers before the amateur and professional detectives get out of the gate. You could blame any of the production company, Monogram, the producer, Lindsley Parsons, the writer, Edmond Kelso, or the director, Howard Bretherton, but just as I don't believe in the auteur theory when it comes to success in the movies, I think this was more a group effort than otherwise. Others wasted in this movie include Kay Sutton, Vicki Lester, and Paul Maxey.