L'indésirable monsieur Donovan

Before his company will pay out, an insurance investigator (Dennis O'Keefe) arrives in a small town to look into an apparent suicide. But he immediately begins to suspect something's not quite right. No gun, no powder marks, no bullet, no coroner's report, and no sheriff's report seem to lead to no suicide. Was it suicide – or was it something even more sinister?

It may not be the noir I was expecting, but Cover-Up is a nice little 40s style mystery. The plot kept me going up to the end. It's full of red herrings and I could have never guessed the outcome. Other than the It's a Wonderful Life style ending, I've got nothing to complain about. The cast is more than capable with Dennis O'Keefe, William Bendix, and Barbara Britton giving nice performances. I'm not all that familiar with Britton, but it's easy to see why she was a Revlon Girl for more than a decade. The cast also features Doro Merande who steals every scene in which she appears.

I picked up the DVD on the budget Geneon label. If you don't mind a lack of extras (and that includes the absence of a menu), it's not a bad deal for the money. The cover art is misleading. I have no idea what movie it was taken from, but it most certainly wasn't Cover-Up.

I am no insurance expert, but I thought that in cases where someone killed themselves that their beneficiaries did not receive anything. So why would an insurance investigator, Sam Donovan (Dennis O'Keefe), investigate this in the first place? And, why would he try to prove it was a murder? I think this is a HUGE problem with the plot of "Cover Up"...unless I am mistaken.

The story begins with Donovan arriving in town to do his investigation. Surprisingly, most everyone in town either avoids him or lies--and Sam is very tired of it. To make things worse, the Sheriff seems ambivalent when Sam's investigation shows that the man was murdered.

If you can ignore the inconsistency of an insurance investigator trying to make his company pay out the biggest claim instead of the smallest, it is an interesting film. Not a great film but interesting and worth seeing despite its flaws.

By the way, I wish the film had used a ballistics expert to consult, as the film made a couple mistakes I noticed. First, Sam fires a gun (to get a ballistics comparison of the bullet) and IMMEDIATELY picks up the slug with his bare hands. It would be super-hot--and you'd either want to wait a moment or use gloves. Second, one piece of evidence that Sam has that convinces him the dead guy was murdered was that the killer was left-handed. Well, I am a right hander in everything...but I shoot left. This is not too uncommon, actually, as you often shoot based on your dominant eye not your dominant hand.

In my book, this little non-studio production exceeds bottom-of-the-bill expectations. It's a good cast, a tight script, and an intriguing non-noir mystery. So why aren't small town locals cooperating with insurance investigator O'Keefe as he looks into a suicide or maybe murder. Surprisingly, the sheriff (Bendix) seems especially indifferent. Good thing the Weatherby's elder daughter (Britton) is there to brighten up his stay.

The production does an excellent job blending the mystery ingredient with lighter moments and the romantic angle. I especially like the sparkling Britton and bubbly teenager Todd who combine with the others to make the Weatherby's a charmingly suspicious family. Bendix too excels as the laconic sheriff—just what is his pipe smoking angle. Then too, his verbal fencing with the persistent O'Keefe is unusually well scripted and performed. At the same time, I kept expecting one or the two to finally drop the fencing and take a poke. The ending, in particular, is rather surprising and unconventional for the time.

Too bad the delightful Britton never rose to the top rank she merits. The screen lights up every time she appears. Nonetheless, this obscure little feature is the kind of sleeper that old movie fans, like me, take special delight in catching up with.

Shortly before Christmas the most hated citizen in a small town dies by gunshot wound, declared by the law to be a suicide. Into town comes insurance investigator Sam Donovan (Dennis O'Keefe) to investigate the death and see if all loose ends are tied up since the deceased has a 20K life insurance policy - about 200K in today's money. Nothing could be less conclusive than this investigation. When Sam goes to talk to the town sheriff and ask about the weapon, the sheriff (William Bendix) says it is missing. When Sam asks about the bullets that killed him, the sheriff says the coroner left them in the deceased since it was obvious what killed him and how he died. Only when Sam threatens to get a court order does the sheriff produce the bullets.

In other words, if the sheriff was trying to deflect suspicion of this being anything but a suicide his obvious lies and stonewalling has had the expected opposite effect. In fact everybody in town is stonewalling Sam. Thinking this could be murder, Sam continues to dig, and continues to get furtive glances and obvious lies from everybody in the town. It also turns out that the deceased was just plain mean and everybody from the sheriff on down had a motive to kill him. Meanwhile Sam is having a serious romance with the daughter of the town banker who also had a motive to kill the insured.

What are the odd devices in this film? The hated deceased/insured guy is never seen. He is dead before the film begins and we never see him in flashback. There is another character who turns out to be important to the plot who is never seen - the town doctor who was out of town but has a heart attack shortly after returning who is talked about in the most glowing of terms by everybody. Again - never seen in live action or flashback.

So we have a death that may be murder against the backdrop of a small town Christmas post-war, the descriptions by the townspeople of two dead people who seem to have had opposite personalities but whom we never see for ourselves, and all of the townspeople acting like pod people when it comes to stonewalling the investigation, including the sheriff who is so obvious that he creates doubt rather than eliminates it. And why does the insurance company let their guy even try to prove it is murder when they will have to pay out double if it is? A reason is given, but I don't buy it, not even from corporations sixty years ago.

Watch this one if you can. It certainly will keep you interested and guessing.

Another nice discovery for me: a pretty good thriller which, though not exactly a film noir, features two staples of the genre – Dennis O'Keefe and William Bendix – in top form. Their rapport throughout is quite delightful and this, along with the equally refreshing charms of leading lady Barbara Britton and the distinct Christmas flavor of its small-town setting, creates an overall mood of warmth not easily found in murder mysteries! The plot (whose insurance-investigation angle clearly derives from Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDENMITY [1944]) provides a good amount of tension – and red herrings – along the way, while the final revelation (bearing an unexpected moral emphasis) concludes the film on a satisfying note.