Ici brigade criminelle

Cops Cochran and Duff investigate stolen money from a robbery that involved murder. When a stolen bill is dropped to a nightclub singer the cops use her to identify the man who gave it to her. However when the thief is killed in a car chase the two cops, one with a family the other with an expensive girlfriend, decide to take the money and hide it in a trailer park (hence the title). But with time comes pressure from within and without to come clean.

This film came from Ida Lupino's filmaker company and was co-scripted by her and she plays the nightclub singer who can identify the killer. She is good in the role and gets plenty of help from young director Don Siegel. This is pretty small beer by his standard but it's still a pretty good thriller all the same. Some scenes are brilliant - the opening robbery of a drug store for one, while others are just good. But the gritty story isn't as good as I was hoping.

Overall a solid thriller from a good team of director and actors but it doesn't really have anything that makes it stand out from other crime thrillers of the same period.

Very watchable film, especially scenes with Steve Cochran. He is absolutely beautiful to look at, one of the most gorgeous men ever captured on film. He is also the best actor of the cast, bringing a sly grace to his role. He seems very on target as a cop who sees an opportunity to get rich off of money from a dead murder suspect. Ida Lupino does a capable job as the object of his lust, but she was a bit long in the tooth at that point, and just didn't "fit" as a femme fatale. Howard Duff went way overboard in his portrayal of the "good" cop. His teeth-clenching, jaw-rubbing portrayal of moral dilemma was kind of strained. Dorothy Malone did a suprisingly good job as Duff's wife. Her performance in the film was one of the most subtle she ever gave. The film suffered when it got really bogged down in the middle as they searched for the suspect at the racetrack. A lot of that should have been trimmed out. Otherwise, a nice film for a rainy afternoon.

"Private Hell 36" (1954), directed by Don Siegel, is tough little film noir starring a reliable cast of familiar faces for film buffs: Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Dean Jagger, Dorothy Malone and Howard Duff.

The plot isn't anything particularly special: two cops (Cochran and Duff) decide to take thousands of dollars from the suitcase of a dead counterfeiter and hid it in a trailer park. But then Cochran starts suffering with his conscience… The opening scene is the best when Steve Cochran stumbles onto a drug store robbery late night. Burnett Guffey's agile camera surveys the action with a cool calm and helps put everything into perspective. The jazz soundtrack composed by Leith Stevens purrs along nicely, as does Don Siegel's direction, which is far from his finest hour but still holds the viewer interested in the events portrayed. The acting, on the main, is good, especially Ida Lupino as a singer cop Howard Duff falls fall. This isn't a shining example of the film noir genre but it passes the time pleasantly enough.

This taut, low-key and highly effective B-movie film noir was an early example of a style that director Don Siegel came to perfect in his later films. Although dealing with robbery and murder it's at its most effective in the small scenes of domesticity between the central characters, a crooked cop, his partner and the women they are both involved with and there are good performances from Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Dorothy Malone in these roles. (Lupino co-wrote the movie with producer Collier Young). Excitement is generated from not knowing exactly which way the characters might go and from the degree of complexity that both the players and writers invest them with. The denouement is a bit of let-down, however, with things tidied up too quickly and too neatly. Still, it's a commendable effort.

Private Hell 36 is a tale of two Los Angeles PD cops who get an assignment to track down money from a big bank robbery which is being laundered at the pari-mutual window at Hollywood Park. Howard Duff is a responsible family man with wife Dorothy Malone and an infant daughter. He's got the financial responsibilities that any middle class individual from the Eisenhower 50s has.

His partner is Steve Cochran a brooding loner who feels he's not gotten his just due from the job. Their boss is Captain Dean Jagger who gives them that assignment.

That assignment also comes with trailing singer Ida Lupino who is the only one who can finger the right bettor. She does and when they give chase the perpetrator dies and they're left with a whole lot of money and maybe, just maybe they ought to keep it themselves.

I'm not sure how any of us would have handled the issue. The police however have some strict guidelines because they get tempted in these situations a lot more often than you or I would be. Cochran goes over the edge and he's taking Duff with him.

Some of these situations were handled a dozen years later in the Glenn Ford film The Money Trap where he and Ricardo Montalban found themselves tempted the same way. If you're familiar with that film you know how it comes out and probably a bit better for one of the detectives than in The Money Trap.

Don Siegel got good performances out of his ensemble cast. See this one back to back with The Money Trap if possible.