L'indésirable monsieur Donovan

A good, economical little b movie, with a wonderful female lead , Britton, who is stunning and a straight faced male lead, O Keefe. Enough red herrings to keep one amused, as long as you are not looking for a classic.

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.

Despite the title and Dennis O'Keefe as the star, this B film is not a film noir. It is about a small town in Middle America where everyone in the town seems to be trying to conspire to cover up a murder. Dennis O'Keefe arrives in town as an insurance investigator. He is there as a matter of routine because the company for which he works has provided life insurance for the deceased. The sum insured is mentioned as $20,000, and everyone speaks of it breathlessly, and it is hard to realize that in those days $20,000 really was a substantial amount of money. That says a lot about inflation over time. The man is said to have committed suicide. However, O'Keefe is very smart and he soon realizes that the man was murdered. His efforts to bring this to the attention of the local sheriff, played by William Bendix, meet with a stone wall. There is a double indemnity clause in the insurance policy which says that if the person is murdered the payout will be double. But when O'Keefe offers to pay the extra $20,000 to the niece of the murdered man, she refuses it, insisting that her uncle committed suicide. O'Keefe is baffled by this refusal of so much extra money. The murdered man turns out to have been 'a poison in his community', who was hated by everyone in town. In fact, everyone in town had a motive to murder him. It is a very good yarn in theory, but mystery and tension are sacrificed to other aims, namely to concentrate on the dilemma of O'Keefe's budding romance with a girl called Anita, played by Barbara Britton. The murdered man was killed with a 9 mm German Lugar. Both the sheriff and Anita's father have such Lugars. Things are looking very bad indeed, as one of them seems to be the killer. The other main aim of the film is to concentrate on the cozy, though currently unsettled, life of the small town. It is snowing and it is nearly Christmas. People are lighting up their trees and getting the turkeys ready for roasting, tying up their presents, and O'Keefe (who has no family of his own) gets involved in the festivities while he is at the same time carrying out an investigation which threatens many of those with whom he is associating. If the intention had been to make a film noir, a great deal more mystery and suspicion and conflict would have been created, and the film would be dark and moody. Instead, the film attempts to retain a cheerful air, which belies the tensions underneath. Barbara Britton smiles charmingly, O'Keefe is falling for her like a schoolboy, her father is genteel and reassuring, and only the sheriff appears truly suspicious, though even he has a twinkle in his eye and casts mischievous little smiles aside from time to time, which suggest that he is not a bad guy after all. No attempt is made by the director to suggest any real sense of threat or menace. Everybody is simply too goody-goody, and there are no obvious villains. Well, the ending has something to do with the season of the year, and it is by no means obvious, but I won't spoil things by discussing that. The catchline for the film is: 'a small town with big secrets'. That is certainly true, but don't expect a nail-biter. The suspense is so diluted in this film that it should rather be described as diverting than absorbing. As a result, Dennis O'Keefe is not as effective as usual, because he was best in films where things get really tough, and here he has to be Mr. Nice Guy who in between wooing his gal dabbles in proving and explaining a murder, and worrying whether his gal and her father are involved in it. In other words, the focus is on the romantic conflict rather than on whodunit. You could call this a 'soft noir', or perhaps a 'black marshmallow', since it aims to be tasty, chewy and sweet with a dusting of crime sprinkled over it for appearance's sake.

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.

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.