Private Hell 36

Strolling home one night, Los Angeles police detective Steve Cochran interrupts a robbery in progress at a drugstore. He fatally shoots one of the perps and books the other. A marked $50 bill in the loot came from $300-grand robbery-homicide in New York. Cochran and his partner Howard Duff trace the bill back to the pharmacist, the bartender who passed it to him, and Ida Lupino, coat-check girl and part-time singer at the bar. She claims a drunk tipped her with it one night after she sang him `Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' five times; the cops don't quite believe her, but it doesn't matter. Cochran is falling for her, even though his cop's salary won't snare her the diamond bracelets she's after.

Over the next week, they drag her to a racetrack where more of the marked cash is being uttered, in hopes that she'll spot her tipsy tipper. When she does, Cochran and Duff go off in hot pursuit. The getaway car hurtles down an embankment, killing the driver but leaving cash blowing around the ravine. Cochran pockets about $80-grand and turns over the rest, leaving Duff angry but not angry enough to break the inviolable code: Never rat out your partner. Cochran makes Duff an unwilling accomplice by giving him a duplicate key to a rented trailer where he's stashed the money; it's parked in slip #36. But then Cochran gets a phone call from a stranger who claims the cash is his and wants to make a deal....

Opening with an initial burst of two brutal robberies, director Don Siegel then slackens the pace but not the tension; he moves the story forward through character rather than incident. The square-rigger Duff tries to dissolve his guilt in alcohol, to the distress of his wife (Dorothy Malone, in too skimpy a role); Cochran and Lupino seesaw up and down, back and forth in their more volatile liaison. The fifth major player, Dean Jagger, as the detectives' canny superior, senses that their story doesn't quite add up.

Written by Lupino and her ex-husband Collier Young, the movie departs from the usual formula by not making current spouse Duff Lupino's love interest; perhaps in consequence, Duff loses the cocky, ingratiating mien he often adopts, while Cochran runs off with the meatier role. Private Hell 36 stays lean and hard-edged (with help from cinematographer Burnett Guffey); it's among the better offerings from the latter years of the noir cycle.

Strangely paced but generally effective film noir with clever echoes of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", about an unprincipled cop (Steve Cochran) who tries to get his honest partner (Howard Duff) to go along with making off with $80,000 in stolen loot.

Co-written by twitchy, slinky actress Ida Lupino, who gives herself a juicy part, it moves along in fits and starts but has a kind of wobbly, dizzy energy that exerts a certain pull. Sort of like an ice skater that trips up a couple times in the middle of her routine, but gamely sees it through to the end.

I've seen Steve Cochran now in three films ("Tomorrow is Another Day", and "I, Mobster" being the others) and it's clear that he was an actor in command of his craft. He had a very sly, sturdy appeal; he always seems to be laying back, calculating the odds, sizing up the other guy (or girl), figuring his chances. Watching his and Lupino's verbal chess match after they first meet and he is questioning her about what she knows, is pretty close to acting heaven.

It all leads up to a nifty, suitably stark finish, and an arresting closing shot.

Cops Cochran and Duff investigate stolen money from a robbery that involved murder. When a stolen bill is dropped to a nightclub singer the cops use her to identify the man who gave it to her. However when the thief is killed in a car chase the two cops, one with a family the other with an expensive girlfriend, decide to take the money and hide it in a trailer park (hence the title). But with time comes pressure from within and without to come clean.

This film came from Ida Lupino's filmaker company and was co-scripted by her and she plays the nightclub singer who can identify the killer. She is good in the role and gets plenty of help from young director Don Siegel. This is pretty small beer by his standard but it's still a pretty good thriller all the same. Some scenes are brilliant - the opening robbery of a drug store for one, while others are just good. But the gritty story isn't as good as I was hoping.

Overall a solid thriller from a good team of director and actors but it doesn't really have anything that makes it stand out from other crime thrillers of the same period.

Cop partners are tempted into stealing robbery loot, causing tension between them and troubles for their women.

The crime drama may be a potboiler, but it's also redeemed by an effective cast. And that's despite one of the most obtuse film titles in Hollywood annals. Actually, the movie amounts to a Steve Cochran showcase, showing what that swarthy actor could do given the chance. Nonetheless, the competition's pretty stiff from Duff and Lupino, while Malone would have to wait a year for her break-through role in Battle Cry (1955).

Cochran and Lupino do make a convincing tarnished couple, as another reviewer points out. At the same time, Cochran's devious cop amounts to one of the most unself-conscious performances I've seen from an actor. Note how at ease he is in the role, as if he really is cop Bruner.

It's also director Don Siegel, a year away from his classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). His skills are especially apparent in that opening action sequence that hooks the audience right away. Also, the car-wreck scene is really well done—no stock footage there— including the smoothly executed thievery scene. However, the last sequence, in the trailer park, appears too abrupt and poorly staged, as though the production had run out of film or money or both.

Kudos to co-producer Lupino who continued to be instrumental in turning out quality B- movies at a time when TV was slowing demand. Nothing memorable here, just a solid little crime drama with an expert cast.

This taut, low-key and highly effective B-movie film noir was an early example of a style that director Don Siegel came to perfect in his later films. Although dealing with robbery and murder it's at its most effective in the small scenes of domesticity between the central characters, a crooked cop, his partner and the women they are both involved with and there are good performances from Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Dorothy Malone in these roles. (Lupino co-wrote the movie with producer Collier Young). Excitement is generated from not knowing exactly which way the characters might go and from the degree of complexity that both the players and writers invest them with. The denouement is a bit of let-down, however, with things tidied up too quickly and too neatly. Still, it's a commendable effort.