My True Story

An ex-con gets involved in a scheme to bilk a wealthy old dowager with unexpected results.

If you can get past the cheesy pulp title, the movie's better than it appears for a simple programmer. The 60-minutes is more like a character study than a crime drama or a quasi- noir. And that's thanks to a first-rate performance from the tragically star-crossed Helen Walker. She shows a broader emotional range than her usual spider woman parts such as Nightmare Alley (1947), and Impact (1949). I like the way she first wins our sympathy as a reformed ex-con only to reveal a calculating toughie beneath before eventually being won over by the kindly dowager (Risdon) and the quirky Phillips (Parker). What a shame her career was cut tragically short. Certainly, no one else looked quite like those "upside down" eyes.

If there's a "Rooney touch" to the direction, I couldn't find it, except maybe for the same lone limousine that moves down the same lonesome road maybe twenty times over. Nonetheless, the results are fairly efficient even if the screenplay lags much of the time. Nonetheless, whoever thought up that novel gimmick of a priceless perfume essence that everyone's scheming over deserves some recognition. That's certainly no crime drama cliché. Anyway, it's a routine little bottom-of-the-bill programmer, distinguished by Walker's wistfully expressive performance, remarkable for an obscure project as this.

Mickey Rooney tries life behind the camera in this potentially interesting but occasionally plodding true confessions story of Helen Walker --here doing a rather good Claire Trevor imitation. She is sprung from prison to take part in a plot to steal a priceless supply of 'oil of myrrh' from an old lady.

The story is interesting, but a good cast -- including Aldo Ray in his screen debut -- fails to do much with the script. Perhaps there is simply too much detail. Perhaps Mickey Rooney, who was used to improvisation over many takes, did not have the budget for the extra takes. The result is a fair B movie, but no earth shaker. Mickey went back in front of the camera. The year I write this, he still is delighting audiences in a film career than has lasted more than eighty years.

I watched this film to see Helen Walker, who was so good in "Nightmare Alley." "My True Story" is a B movie directed by Mickey Rooney and besides Walker, features Aldo Ray in his first film, Elisabeth Risdon, and some familiar TV faces - Willard Parker and Emory Parnell.

Walker plays a woman who participated in a jewel robbery, was arrested, and now is given parole. A friend of her mother's has offered her a job in his candy store in a small town, so off she goes. When she gets there, it's an elaborate setup to get her to help some crooks steal the "oil of myrrh" supply from an elderly woman, Mme. Rousseau (Risdon). She becomes a companion to Mme. Rousseau, but her real job is to search for this oil, which Rousseau sells in small amounts to a perfumer. It's worth a fortune.

It's not much of a script on not much of a budget, but Walker is very good, very sweet and humble when she thinks she's going to work for the candy store, and then tough as nails when she finds out what the job is going to be.

Signed by Hollywood after an impressive Broadway performance, Walker was doing well until New Year's Eve of 1946 when she gave a ride to some war vets and was in a terrible accident which killed one soldier and badly injured the other two and Walker. The survivors claimed she was drunk, and she went to trial. This led to her being replaced in the film Heaven Only Knows. She was acquitted, but her career suffered permanent damage. She died at the age of 47 in 1968.

A sad end to a bright talent. Walker is always worth seeing, and she makes "My True Story" better than it probably was.

This is a wonderfully ironic little movie. A female prisoner is paroled to work in what seems to everyone like a wholesome candy store. This is just a front, though the proprietor stays in the picture. It is arranged for her to stay in this small town to find the ingredients of an expensive perfume. To do this, she must cozy up to the widow of the man who patented it.

Mickey Rooney did an excellent job directing it. There are a few gaps in the plot but overall it is a good screenplay. And I think the title is, though possibly misleading at its release, a stroke of genius. What a great idea to give a nasty little story like this a name redolent of soap opera! Helen Walker does a superb job in the lead. She was an excellent actress -- the highlight of "Nightmare Alley." (She was for me, anyway.) Elizabeth Risdon is very good as the Legent, gentle lady she is out to bilk.

Nothing here is what it seems: "My True Story" refers not to a heart-tugging romance but to cold-hearted scheme. Candy -- fudge, no less -- hides evil. This one is a must!

One of the few films directed by multi-talented Mickey Rooney, "My True Story" is an entertaining programmer, with a top-notch cast doing the best they can with a somewhat hackneyed script that is predictable most of the way.

What a wasted talent was Helen Walker. Her promising career was sunk by a traffic accident that involved the death of one of the passengers. In "My True Story," she gives a magnificent performance for such a low-budget entry. She is able to transform her character from a prissy, well-behaved model prisoner into a gun moll and then back into a good-hearted motherly type with such ease that the viewer longs to see her in a role more challenging to her acting abilities. Aldo Ray, who later suffered from many-a critic's barb, shows in his debut film that he was capable of much more than was asked of him. There is not a stinker in the crowd. Even the small roles are fleshed out.

The worst aspect of this flick is its nondescript title. Why the producers and director Mickey Rooney settled on such an abomination is a mystery. The title alone would keep many a moviegoer away.

The story concerns a setup in a small town by big-town hoodlums to heist a secret oil ingredient of an expense Parisian perfume kept hidden by the elderly widow of the concocter, the original formula having been lost. A parole is arranged for Ann Martin (Helen Walker) so she can get close to the old woman and uncover where the oil is kept. Though the rich old lady won't sell the oil in its entirety, she will parcel it out to a former paramour for $2000 a shot. The plot becomes complicated when Ann Martin falls for the local pharmacist who in turn seeks to romance Ann.

As the old banjo player, Floyd Holland, used to say before performing, "If you don't expect much, you won't be disappointed." "My True Story" is worthwhile for the fine acting and to see how Mickey Rooney directs on a minuscule budget.