Take One False Step

After many years of exclusivity at MGM William Powell was starting to do outside projects like this one, Take One False Step. He's teamed with a most improbable partner, maybe the most improbable he had since Bette Davis, this being Shelley Winters.

I think that's at first glance. I'm not sure today's audiences might have appreciated this fact, but Powell and Winters are introduced to us people who may have had a wartime fling. In those days of separation and Powell is mentioned as being a scientist and in the army. That could have spelled isolation and you took your needs where you found them. That would be true for women as well. So this unlikely pair of lovers might have been an item circa 1941 to 1945.

But this is 1949 and Powell is in Los Angeles from New York with a pair of fellow academicians, Art Baker and Felix Bressart, who are pitching a Philistine like millionaire played by Paul Harvey for a big check to endow a new university they want to found. In the middle of this campaign, Powell hears from Winters. When Powell meets Winters we can see that they really are from two different worlds, but a post World War II audience would have appreciated it.

Shelley has got herself a nice little drinking habit and Powell after a bit of coaxing goes on a midnight drive with her where she wanders off in a state of inebriation. The next day Powell finds out through her friend that she's missing and presumed dead and the LAPD is looking for a distinguished male friend she was with that night.

Powell instead of turning himself in, starts his own investigation and gets himself in deeper. Turns out Shelley's husband Jess Barker is a low level syndicate runner whose responsible for a large amount of betting money that's also missing. Just what has Bill stepped into?

It would have been smarter all around had Powell just gone to the cops in the first place, but detectives James Gleason and Sheldon Leonard who you might think are Keystone like Kops and do have some funny lines really do have a handle on the thing all the time as you'll see if you watch the film.

Powell and Winters are completely lacking in chemistry, but that's part of the key to both their characters, two people who except for being thrown together during the war would never in a million years have hooked up.

Even after the plot is resolved, there's still a surprise waiting for Bill Powell. Take One False Step will never be among the top 10 of the films for either of the stars, still it has quite a bit going for it just in the contrast of the leads.

William Powell is in town raising money for a new college. He runs into Shelley Winters, one of his girlfriends during the War. She invites him to a party, but finds it pretty sparse. Winters comes on to him, hinting at an unhappy marriage. Powell rejects her, since his marriage is happy. The next morning, Miss Winters is reported as missing. Powell goes to her house to recover a scarf he left. He is bitten by a dog. Evidence points at Miss Winters being in San Francisco. Powell goes, soon to be pursued by cops James Gleason and Sheldon Leonard. Also, the dog is reported as rabid.

This movie plays like a mash-up of THE 39 STEPS and D.O.A., with director Chester Erskine larding on the dark atmosphere increasingly as the movie progresses. Unfortunately, there is no humor in the script, nor any clear reason why Powell would not go to the police at any point. The result is a slow movie that does no one's career any good.

This rather unusual noir has a strange intro - It's almost comical, like the beginning of a 1950 TV comedy. It shows the views of a series of people - shoes and legs only - about to make "one false step". They are about to step into a manhole, or into traffic, etc. The "one false step" that Andrew Gentling (William Powell) is about to make is to step into a bar where an old girlfriend (Shelley Winters as Catherine Sykes) from the war years is having a drink. Andrew is in LA on business. She obviously wants to pick things up from where they left off, and he tells her that he is married now and that "the war is over". But this annoying cloying dame is not about to take no for an answer.

Later that evening she calls him and insists that he come to her house for a party. If not she says she will come to his hotel and make a scene. So he comes over only to find that there is no party. He drives around with her for awhile, and at the end she won't get out of the car. So he does and walks awhile until he sees her out of the car and walking down the street, he then goes back to his hotel room. The next day the headlines scream "Housewife missing - foul play suspected". The police have the scarf she took off of Andrew's neck and various people saw them arguing. He is suspect number one in this, except the police don't know who he is yet.

So Gentling decides to go to the police - but wait. Somebody else from his past, Martha Wier (Marsha Hunt) calls him and says - don't be a dope! And then encourages him to not go to the police but instead to take all kinds of shady illegal actions that just get him in deeper. With female friends like these I'm surprised Andrew Gentling is not a confirmed bachelor and member of the Three Stooges Women Haters Club, but I digress. Let's just say complications ensue.

And the reason Gentling was in town in the first place - to talk a millionaire into contributing to a university he is trying to found - is in jeopardy as the millionaire does not tolerate even a whiff of scandal in anyone with which he is associated. So that is all in jeopardy too at this point.

I rated this higher than other folks did, and that's probably because I'm such a big William Powell fan that I enjoy watching just about anything in which he has a significant role. I can't think of any of his films that I would not recommend. I certainly would say if you are introducing yourself to William Powell's talents that I wouldn't put this one among the first of his films I would watch. Save it for later.

William Powell is always worth watching. The rest of TAKE ONE FALSE STEP is rather harder to appreciate, because logic is not its strongest suit. Freddie, the top villain, never shows his mug - makes no difference to the story, anyway.

Shelley Winters is clearly wasted in her role as potential femme fatale who seems ready to go with any man, Powell most of all, and turns out to be more suicidal than fatal. Other than her apparently nymphomaniacal tendencies, I still have no idea what crime she may have committed.

Direction and cinematography are OK, script has more holes than the proverbial Swiss cheese. Generally immediately forgettable - and yet, TAKE ONE FALSE STEP has its moments, especially when Prof Gentling (Powell) learns that he has been bitten by a possibly rabid dog.

I could not grasp why Prof Gentling kept deflecting comely, ready for action Winters' advances... his wife is played by the stunningly beautiful Dorothy Hart!

William Powell doesn't just take one false step in this thriller, he takes several. But the point of the story is that it only takes one step in the wrong direction for you to tumble completely down the hill and crash. As is often the case in Hollywood oldies, the false step comes in the form of a morally loose woman. There's nothing worse than a floozie who likes booze and men, in the eyes of the Hays Code.

Bill is happily married to Dorothy Hart, and has a good job as a college professor. Temptation comes in the form of Shelley Winters, an old girlfriend who wants to have another fling. She's sizzling in this movie and gets to wear some gorgeous gowns that leave nothing to the imagination. However, if Bill is happy and has moved on, why does he agree to go to her apartment for drinks? One false step leads to another, and the next thing he knows, he's being accused of Shelley's murder. . .

The oddest part of this movie is that when Bill gets into trouble, he doesn't turn to his wife. He turns to his gal pal Marsha Hunt, and the two of them seem to have a better relationship than he and his wife. The script could have made Marsha his wife and cut out the friend's character altogether. You'll also see James Gleason, Sheldon Leonard, and Felix Bressart in the supporting cast. It's a bit sad to see Felix in his last movie, because he was very thin and very sick. He's often filmed from behind or at a distance, and I wonder if a double was used. Still, if you're a Shelley Winters fan, you might want to check this one out to see her looking so pretty.