Larceny

While 'Larceny' has a cast of nasty, amoral characters, those expecting a traditional noir with the interesting camera work and lighting might be disappointed. However, it does have a fair bit of suspense, a few twists and turns and some fine acting, so I'd rate it slightly above average.

The plot revolves around a group of fraudsters who come up with elaborate fundraising schemes to bilk hundreds of thousands from wealthy investors then skip town; frighteningly relevant to today's mainstream business world. And they're very successful until one guy meets a dame and falls in love.

Unfortunately, the love story isn't very convincing, nor is the main character's transformation from amoral scumbag to upstanding citizen, which really makes everything else seem a bit implausible.

Regardless, there are some suspenseful moments, you do feel for John Payne's predicament, and the acting is generally quite good from Payne, Dan Duryea, character actor Percy Helton and especially Shelly Winters as the superbly annoying scorned femme fatale. She's good at being bad.

Anyway, if you're a completist like me, it's worth a go.

Based on Lois Eby and John Leming novel The velvet fleece and excellently adapted to the screen, the movie benefits from a well written script by Herb Margolis, Lou Morheim and William Bowers and from excellen performances by the whole cast. Not only John Payne and Dan Duryea provide their characters with solid credible acting. Also Shelley Winters does a good acting job as the femme fatale obsessed with Payne. She was an actress who had deserved more subtle roles that the ones she usually played. After shining in musicals, light comedies and adventure movies, Payne did several interesting film noirs with Phil Karlson: 99 river st. And excellent Kansas city confidential. Always credible, he conferred a solid presence to his works. This movie is not an exception mainly thanks to great dialogue lines. Screenwriter Bowers also did the script of several other good noirs like The web, Criss Cross, and Cry danger. Payne, Duryea and two more partners are confident men who work scamming rich people. When their last job fails they decide to go for a young wealthy war widow. But problems begin when, while payne is trying to seduce her, Duryea's girl Shelley Winters tries to seduce Payne - who is falling in love with the widow - causing complications and leading the job to fail. Deserves a watch.

I wasn't too surprised I enjoyed "Larceny". After all, I love noir and I love Dan Duryea, as he played the slimiest and most menacing villains in these films...and "Larceny" features both.

Rick Mason (John Payne) works with a gang of cons run by Silky (Duryea). The gang has two serious problems despite their successes. First, Silky's girl, Tory (Shelley Winters) is poison...and rather emotionally imbalanced. Secondly, Silky isn't exactly a rousing endorsement for sound mental health! Again and again, Tory chases after Rick and Rick rebuffs her...and time and time again, Silky assumes the worst.

The gang's next caper involves a grieving war widow (Joan Caulfield). Rick pretends that he was good friends with the widow's husband during the war and he quickly ingratiates himself with her. The plan is to sell her on creating a giant memorial to her dead husband...and then pocket the money and run. The problem is that over time, Rick finds he's actually falling for her...which is complicated when the highly unstable Tory shows up...and Silky soon follows.

This film doesn't have the great camerawork and dark shadows you'd want in the best noir, but it does have plenty of slimy characters and intrigue. A very engaging and well written film and ample proof that later in his career, Payne excelled at some non-pretty boy roles.

Poor old war widow "Deb" (Joan Caulfield) is hoodwinked into donating her savings to build a memorial to her late husband by the sharp "Rick" (John Payne). It turns out that there is no such edifice, but "Rick" isn't able to be quite as cold and calculating as usual. He starts to fall for this dignified and respectable woman. That's a risky scenario, for his boss "Silky" (Dan Duryea) just wants the cash, and that's that. It doesn't help either that his bosses gal "Tory" (Shelley Winters) is pretty flaky, also quite keen on "Rick" and is quite shrewd at manipulation, too! Payne was never exactly versatile nor, for that matter, was the usually wooden Duryea but they do well enough with this solid story and whilst there is an inevitability to the ending, George Sherman manages to keep this well paced for 90 minutes and Winters plays her part really quite effectively. The lighting could have done with some extra wattage at times, but it is still good watch.

Like Dick Powell, John Payne was another crooner and hoofer from ‘30s musicals – a light leading man – who saw new opportunities waiting in the changing Hollywood of the late ‘40s and seized them. Eschewing also-ran roles in prestige pictures (The Razor's Edge, Miracle on 34th Street), he found he was better off taking top billing in the grittier Bs of the newborn noir cycle. It was a smart move. With rugged good looks but no glamour boy, a strong, silent type who didn't make it a gimmick, he turned into a plausible and appealing Average Joe, without ever fading into the generic. In the half-dozen or so noirs he starred in, he straddled both sides of the law, though he usually found himself stranded in a no-man's land in the middle.

In Larceny, he's one of a gang of con-men led by Dan Duryea. They've just finished a grift in Miami Beach, so Payne is sent to the far coast, to `Mission City,' to lay groundwork for the next job. He poses as an old service buddy of a slain war hero so the widow (Joan Caulfield) will spearhead a fund-raising drive for a memorial – sort of a posh Boy's Town for underprivileged youth – that, of course, is nothing more than a scheme for bilking donors.

But that mischievous cherub Cupid throws a few monkey wrenches into the works. First off, Payne starts developing protective feelings for Caulfield and, more slowly, she for him (she's been playing Vestal Virgin at her husband's altar for so long she finds her own feelings a betrayal). Even worse, Duryea's moll, a `boa constrictor in high heels' (Shelley Winters, in full blonde-bombshell mode) carries such a torch for Payne that she follows him out west, by bus yet. The sicker Payne grows of her, the needier and more reckless she gets – their unstable chemistry threatens to blow them both sky high. The plot executes several quick turns when the possessive Duryea shows up (as does the victim of the Miami scam), when Caulfield reveals that she plans to put up all the money herself, and when Winters decides to take matters into her own pistol-packin' hand....

The violence in Larceny is toned way down, confined mainly to Winters' being slapped around (but she slaps back). It relies instead on a tight script, bristling with smart-mouthed cracks: `[Winters] is like a high-tension wire. Once you grab on, you can't let go – even if you want to;' `You kiss like you're paying off an election bet;' `I said I'm sorry but I'm not going to write it on the blackboard 100 times.' It allows Percy Helton and Dorothy Hart space enough to flesh out their small parts (Hart does a scrumptious riff on Dorothy Malone's bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep). All in all, Larceny proves a congenial vehicle for Payne's welcome arrival in dark city.