The Argyle Secrets

If, like Ben Mankewiecz the other night, I were to extol the tragic, shamefully HUAC truncated career of writer/director Cy Enfield, this agressively ordinary murder/espionage mystery with way too much dull narration and a rather flat acting job by lead William Gargan would not be my first choice as evidence. Think I'd go with either "Zulu" or "Hell Drivers" instead. Still, it's always nice to see the future June Cleaver get clocked and Enfield brings the thing in at under seventy minutes, which is almost always a plus in these kinds of el cheapo Saturday matinee type deals. C plus.

Framed for the murder of a colleague, a reporter has to evade both the police and international criminals while trying to learn the truth about an album that contains "a fortune in blackmail" information in this noir thriller from 'Zulu' and 'Jet Storm' director Cy Endfield. Released shortly after the end of World War II, the film intimately ties itself to the aftermath of the war with the album featuring the names of those who profiteered from the war, those who were traitors and those who cut deals to advantage themselves no matter which side won. War connections aside though, this is a pretty typical noir entry with an unremarkable slate of shady supporting characters. The idea of having to elude police and antagonists alike is hardly fresh or original and as others have pointed out, the film is too reminiscent of 'The Maltese Falcon' for its own good at times. The movie has some pretty neat touches of its own though including hypnotic spiral effects and swirls after the protagonist is knocked unconscious. Leads William Gargan and Marjorie Lord also certainly try to get the most out of their characters and clocking in at just over an hour, the film at least avoids outstaying its welcome.

Very rare low-budget film from director Endfield (Zulu) plays like a not-bad student film version of The Maltese Falcon-- the supporting performances aren't always convincing but there are nice touches of visual imagination and good pacing.

Everyone wants the argyle papers that have the names of nazi sympathizers on them and could be used as blackmail. A reporter searches them out and gets caught up in a web of betrayals.

This is basically just a redo of the Maltese Falcon on a low budget with no names. It's not bad at all and is entertainingly brief. It's just by the book and uninteresting. What was the deal with everyone calling the lead youngster and new kid when he's clearly 50 years old?

Guy goes to look for the papers, gets captured, hears exposition, escapes, rinse repeat. Kind of bleh when you get right down to it, but it's nice to see that it's stayed alive after disappearing for so long.

The Babel of foreign and regional accents in The Argyle Secrets seems too exotic – overdone – until you learn that Cy Endfield directed this short, cheap thriller from his own radio play. There, probably no more than four actors took the many and generic parts, distinguishing them with funny voices. Movies can't get away with that, so a roster of character players – several of them familiar from ‘50s television – was rounded up to fill out the cast. Since the stars are William Gargan (a couple of seasons as Martin Kane, Private Eye) and Marjorie Lord (Make Room For Daddy), with Barbara Billingsley (Leave It To Beaver) visible to those who don't blink, viewers should know better than to expect The Big Sleep.

Actually, The Maltese Falcon is the better template, of which The Argyle Secrets resembles a fifth-generation knockoff. The object in demand is a book called The Argyle Album, a detailed list of war profiteers that's being used for blackmail. A famous investigative columnist, in hospital, tells his younger colleague Gargan about it shortly before he expires, either of poison or a scalpel plunged into his pajamas. In tracking down the album, Gargan meets up with and fends off a motley of grotesques, including femme fatale Lord.

By no stretch of hyperbole can it be called good – it's coarse and jumpy – but now and again it shows flashes of talent (Endfield, two years later, would direct the much better The Underworld Story). There are some neat shots of the waterfront at night (the city's unspecified, but Boston comes to mind) and a tense and well-photographed sequence where an acetylene torch burns through a metal gate behind which Gargan has locked himself for safety.

Alas, Gargan is foisted off as an energetic young turk of the fourth estate, even though at the time he was 42 and looked at least 10 years older. He had started in movies in 1917, chalking up a more than respectable list of credits, but what charisma he may have once displayed had long since dissipated. Sad that the Indian Summer of his career would be spent in those lesser mediums of radio and newfangled TV. But he earns praise for spending the last years of his life, following a laryngectomy, working for the American Cancer Society.