Alias a Gentleman

... and though the film was a box office disappointment, I think it holds up today, showing Beery's stronger points as an actor.

Beery plays Jim Breedin, a guy finishing a 15 year stretch in the pen for bank robbery. He has worked his way up to a trustee and plans to go straight when he gets out. Right before he is released he meets Johnny Lorgen (Tom Drake) a new arrival at the prison farm where the trustees reside. Breedin cuts Lorgen down a notch or two, but by the time Breedin leaves he and Lorgen part friends, with Breedin inviting him to look him up once he gets out.

And then a break - An oil company wants to pay Breedin 250K for his farm because it is loaded with oil. Now Breedin can live the life of a gentleman - he's been studying up on how to act in society and now he can practice. He rents a penthouse, and you can take the man out of the Bowery, but you can't take the Bowery out of the man. At one point Jim buys a fancy Queen Anne table and puts it in the center of a practically empty room, trying to figure out what to do with it. It turns out he just got it because it was a classy thing to have.

Now Jim knows his wife is long dead, but he has desperately been searching for his daughter whose whereabouts are a mystery. Now for the suspense part of the film - Matt Enley (Leon Ames) who let Jim take the entire rap for the bank job they pulled can't figure out where Jim's money has come from. He thinks that the money could be from a heist that they pulled and that Jim has hidden it away all of these years. Thus he hires a hardened actress to play the part of Jim's long lost daughter, now all grown up, to get close to Jim and find the money. Jim takes to the girl right away, immediately accepting her as his daughter, and although the imposter seems like a dame with a wallet for a heart at first, she is warming to this craggy mountain of a man who has a gooey center and generous nature.

To complicate things, Johnny Lorgen gets out of the pen and comes to see Jim but to him, it is Jim's "daughter" who is the vision. The feelings are mutual. But Johnny wants to continue on with a life of crime and so Jim will have none of these two being a couple. To top it all off, the feds are following Jim waiting for him to pull another job.

Well this could turn out to be a comedy or a tragedy, and up to the end you won't be sure which it is - Beery excels at both. A nice touch is Gladys George as Madge Parkson, Breedin's new girlfriend. She's brassy on the outside and - well, OK, she's brassy on the inside too, but she's good for and to Jim.

I'll let you see how this all plays out. It certainly exceeded my expectations, as when I first turned it on I expected a paint by numbers MGM programmer. It's much better than that.

Jim Breedin (Wallace Beery) has done almost 15 years in prison and keeps it a secret from his daughter Nora. He is the honor farm's foreman. There are no guards. Johnny Lorgen is the new arrival with a chip on his shoulder. After a rough start, Johnny saves Jim's life. Jim gets a big payday from an oil company for his farm. Nora is long gone from the farm. Former crime partner Matt Enley tries to con Jim with actress Elaine Carter pretending to be Nora.

This is an interesting premise. Wallace Beery is playing a reformed criminal. This mostly works although I would want it to get darker. It can't help itself. It has to have a happy ending. That's the way it is back then.

Dorothy Patrick plays a young actress hired by mobsters to play the long lost daughter of parolee Beery to access his fortune. Beery's protege from prison days, Tom Drake, becomes her boyfriend. By the time Patrick spills to Beery that his real daughter is deceased the family bonds have been forged. Clever ending with a nightclub shoot out wraps up this B length feature. The lone flaw is that Gladys George has too small of a role. This is a distant cousin of Vertigo where the actress hired in a criminal deception also gets personally involved. Beaumont's no nonsense direction and MGM quality, vintage 1948, make this entertaining and effortless.

Harry Beaumont, MGM's ace B director leads Wallace Beery in a broader than usual comedy performance as the ex-con comes into a lot of money legitimately and tries to go straight. The comedy arrives as Beery coyly tries to impress Dorothy Patrick, who is impersonating his lost daughter and she tries to find his source of money for Leon Ames. Lots of good talent is on display, including Tom Drake, Sheldon Leonard, Gladys George and John Qualen This was Beaumont's last feature for MGM and he is good at directing his actors in off-center performances.

I'm not sure why Beaumont gave up directing, but it might have simply been a matter of economy, as movie grosses began their long decline and older, more expensive talents such as Beaumont were replaced under the new influence of Dore Schary. There was no longer any perceived need for talent like Beaumont. How very sad.

Doing time for a stick-up, burly Wallace Berry (as James "Jim" Breedin) is the top man on his prison farm. Nabbed during his own robbery, young hotshot Tom Drake (as Johnny Lorgen) arrives and the two become fast friends - after their prerequisite male-bonding fist fight, of course. Fifteen years served, Mr. Beery is released at the same time he receives astonishing news. The convict is given $250,000 for some property in Oklahoma. Nouveau riche, Beery takes a swanky penthouse apartment and practices being a gentleman. French being the language of polite society, Berry drops French words and phrases into conversation - which are amusingly butchered in pronunciation. One thing Berry most wants is find his long-lost daughter...

This lower tier comedy from producer Nat Perrin and MGM holds up very well. It needed a strong lead, which is delivered quite handily by Wallace Beery. The super-star's box-office standing had diminished his later films, but his appeal is still very much on display. Helming his last film, director Harry Beaumont makes it easy for the comic misadventures to play. Pretty Dorothy Patrick (as Elaine Carter) and Mr. Drake are a nice couple. There is recognizably good support from Leon Ames (as Matthew "Matt" Enley) and his cohorts. Without notice, Gladys George pops in as Berry's love interest. Of the supporting roles, pseudo-Scandinavian inmate John Qualen (as "No End") is the only one who can really hold court with Wallace Beery.

****** Alias a Gentleman (2/3/48) Harry Beaumont ~ Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, Dorothy Patrick, John Qualen