Le tueur aux aguets

Bmavc reviewed this film some time ago and compared it to an Andy Hardy movie. Well, I think their analysis is brilliant and I wish I'd said that first! But they're right...this crime film does seem to harken to Judge Hardy and his wise, old fashioned views of law and order.

The film begins with Duke (Anthony Caruso) shooting a man dead in a bowling alley. The scene then switches to a small town and follows the exploits of a folksy county prosecutor--a nice man who is more concerned with justice and right versus the letter of the law. How does this relate to Duke's murder? Well, his lawyer manages to get his case sent to a different venue...this nice man's town. Why would they want him to be trying the case? Well, it seems Duke has something on the old man...some bit of blackmail. But this isn't the end of the story...no...there's far, far more to it.

As I mentioned above, it sure reminded me of a Judge Hardy film...minus Andy and with the addition of some film noir elements. Anthony Caruso was an amazing character actor and played gangsters as well as anyone...and he is in top form here. Overall, very enjoyable and worth your time.

By the way, this is one of Republic Studio's last films before they folded in the late 1950s. Also, I thought it very unusual that the murder in the opening scene featured a lot of blood...something very rare for movies back then.

Let's be straight, that's not the best Republic pictures movie, ten million times worst than any Warner Bros production of the same kind, and made twenty years earlier. It is not fast paced, it is talkative, flat, predictable but, I agree, rare. But rare doesn't mean interesting. RG Sprinsteen was not a beginner at this time, and his best years will be confirmed a bit later. It is a crime drama which I don't recommend at all, or only for die hard crime gems diggers. And it is necessary to have much courage to finally make it till the end. Republic pictures were good on westerns and of course serials, the best ever from the Hollywood film industry.

Gangster Anthony Caruso is up on murder charges. Into his hands falls proof that Marjie Millar, the daughter of county prosecutor Raymond Greenleaf, is actually the daughter of a woman Greenleaf put in prison for life; Miss Millar was born in prison, Greenleaf adopted her, and no one knows it. Caruso has the trial venue shifted so Greenleaf is the prosecutor, then blackmails him into dismissing in return for not revealing his daughter's shameful origins. This riles up businessman Ralph Dumke into getting Greenleaf recalled; the replacement is John Hudson, Dumke's nephew and Miss Millar's fiance. He immediately reopens the case against Caruso.

Greenleaf gets a rare chance to headline a movie, and is just fine as an aw-shucks sort of lawyer, whom Slim Pickens (whose character name here is 'Slim Pickett') keeps trying to retire so they can go fishing every day. The serious parts of the movie are entirely predictable, but director R. G. Springsteen brings a delightful air to the goings-on of a small county seat, reminiscent of John Ford's collaborations with Will Rogers. Keep an eye out for Mary Treen, Morris Ankrum, Dick Elliott, Richard Deacon, and in his last movie, Robert Emmett Keane.

Slim Pickens is the star of this film; that is when you know your film is in trouble. Slim is funny, and he even uses his own name. His Mayberry personality would have fit in perfectly with Barney Fife and the other characters of Mayberry, and he brings some comic relief to a really bad script that is pretty funny itself; but unintentionally. After a silly beginning, a judge tries to shield his adopted daughter from her mother's unfortunate past. And his actions lead to his removal from office.

But when his stepdaughter is accused of killing the man responsible for his removal from office, the judge springs into action as Perry Mason. Aside from being a very unlikely series of events, the script is weak in several other areas. It eventually collapses under its own weight and becomes a pure filler for a double feature at your local drive-in.

The title - and the first few minutes - of When Gangland Strikes promise a rough slice of urban criminality. It's a promise that goes largely unredeemed, because the movie mellows down and sweetens up into a homespun, small-town story that might almost have been made in the 1930s as a vehicle for Lewis Milestone's Judge Hardy.

Raymond Greenleaf, who played many a judge himself in small, post-war movies, is the prosecuting attorney in the idyllic hamlet of Rosedale, and known for his leniency toward petty lawbreakers. But a smartly engineered change of venue brings mobster Anthony Caruso into town to stand trial for murder; in his possession is a letter proving that Greenleaf's daughter (Marjie Millar) is in fact the child of a woman serving a life sentence who recently died. Family values win out, and Greenleaf deliberately bungles the prosecution, leading to a petition for his recall.

His successor and future son-in-law (John Hudson) decides to reopen the case and, in consequence, a jumbo can of worms involving both his bride-to-be and Greenleaf's complicity in throwing the trial. It also brings Caruso back into the picture, this time with fatal results....

Viewers will recognize a cast of familiar faces with unfamiliar names from bit-parts on both big and little screens (Richard Deacon and Slim Pickens among them). It betrays the influence television was having on movies in the climactic courtroom confrontation, which would become a staple of the Perry Mason series to debut the following year. When Gangland Strikes, with its cluster of generic supporting characters and its morally reassuring world, could almost have been the pilot for a TV series that never got off the ground. Who knows? Maybe it was.