Haute Pègre

"Larceny" from 1948 is a kind of an all over the place noir. It starts with a group of con men led by Silky (Dan Duryea) lousing up a scam and being forced to think of something else. He and his cronies come up with the idea of sending Rick (John Payne) to seduce a wealthy war widow (Joan Caulfield) into building a huge war memorial in her husband's memory. He has to lie and say her husband was his best pal in the service.

Meanwhile, Silky's girlfriend Tory (Winters) seems anxious to be with Payne and gets in the way at every turn. Silky isn't happy about this, which could be dangerous.

Payne meanwhile falls for Caulfield and vice versa. It turns into a real mess.

It was okay. Every woman in the film - Caulfield, Winters, Patricia Alphin, who plays a waitress, and Dorothy Hart all act as if they've never seen a man before when they meet Payne. He was handsome, but the characters seemed more like aggressive women from a later era.

The exception would be Caulfield, whose character was more subtle. Dorothy Hart didn't have much of a career, but she was absolutely stunning.

I wasn't too surprised I enjoyed "Larceny". After all, I love noir and I love Dan Duryea, as he played the slimiest and most menacing villains in these films...and "Larceny" features both.

Rick Mason (John Payne) works with a gang of cons run by Silky (Duryea). The gang has two serious problems despite their successes. First, Silky's girl, Tory (Shelley Winters) is poison...and rather emotionally imbalanced. Secondly, Silky isn't exactly a rousing endorsement for sound mental health! Again and again, Tory chases after Rick and Rick rebuffs her...and time and time again, Silky assumes the worst.

The gang's next caper involves a grieving war widow (Joan Caulfield). Rick pretends that he was good friends with the widow's husband during the war and he quickly ingratiates himself with her. The plan is to sell her on creating a giant memorial to her dead husband...and then pocket the money and run. The problem is that over time, Rick finds he's actually falling for her...which is complicated when the highly unstable Tory shows up...and Silky soon follows.

This film doesn't have the great camerawork and dark shadows you'd want in the best noir, but it does have plenty of slimy characters and intrigue. A very engaging and well written film and ample proof that later in his career, Payne excelled at some non-pretty boy roles.

Based on Lois Eby and John Leming novel The velvet fleece and excellently adapted to the screen, the movie benefits from a well written script by Herb Margolis, Lou Morheim and William Bowers and from excellen performances by the whole cast. Not only John Payne and Dan Duryea provide their characters with solid credible acting. Also Shelley Winters does a good acting job as the femme fatale obsessed with Payne. She was an actress who had deserved more subtle roles that the ones she usually played. After shining in musicals, light comedies and adventure movies, Payne did several interesting film noirs with Phil Karlson: 99 river st. And excellent Kansas city confidential. Always credible, he conferred a solid presence to his works. This movie is not an exception mainly thanks to great dialogue lines. Screenwriter Bowers also did the script of several other good noirs like The web, Criss Cross, and Cry danger. Payne, Duryea and two more partners are confident men who work scamming rich people. When their last job fails they decide to go for a young wealthy war widow. But problems begin when, while payne is trying to seduce her, Duryea's girl Shelley Winters tries to seduce Payne - who is falling in love with the widow - causing complications and leading the job to fail. Deserves a watch.

While 'Larceny' has a cast of nasty, amoral characters, those expecting a traditional noir with the interesting camera work and lighting might be disappointed. However, it does have a fair bit of suspense, a few twists and turns and some fine acting, so I'd rate it slightly above average.

The plot revolves around a group of fraudsters who come up with elaborate fundraising schemes to bilk hundreds of thousands from wealthy investors then skip town; frighteningly relevant to today's mainstream business world. And they're very successful until one guy meets a dame and falls in love.

Unfortunately, the love story isn't very convincing, nor is the main character's transformation from amoral scumbag to upstanding citizen, which really makes everything else seem a bit implausible.

Regardless, there are some suspenseful moments, you do feel for John Payne's predicament, and the acting is generally quite good from Payne, Dan Duryea, character actor Percy Helton and especially Shelly Winters as the superbly annoying scorned femme fatale. She's good at being bad.

Anyway, if you're a completist like me, it's worth a go.

When I went to see this lesser known noir, the person introducing it described it as "almost a parody" of this kind of film and said not to take it too seriously. Nevertheless, it is a film about con artists and their techniques, and I love those. Especially well showcased is the technique of letting a mark think something is his or her own idea, and people are always more determined to do things that they think are their own ideas. The story features a group of globetrotting, high-rolling grifters led by John Payne and noir regular Dan Duryea, who decide to target a wealthy but naive young war widow(Joan Caulfield) with a scheme to build a youth center memorializing her husband. This necessitates Payne pretending to be a buddy of her late husband, who in reality, he had never met. At first the plan is to raise money from wealthy friends, but she then decides to bankroll the whole project herself. Things are further complicated when a sometime girlfriend of both of the men, played by a tough-as-nails young Shelly Winters, refuses to stay under wraps. This film seems to have been largely forgotten, which is a shame.