Manhandled

Considering the cast and story, it's unfortunate that director Lewis Foster could not end up with a real film noir. Dan Duryea is up to par playing a sleazy double-crosser but Sterling Hayden is wasted as an insurance investigator who spends most of his time standing around or tagging along with the cops. The always reliable Alan Napier is a highlight of the film playing the stoic, self-righteous jilted husband.

The attempts at humor along the way relegate the film to the realm of a 1930's murder mystery, not a serious noir. There certainly was a lost opportunity for something better. Nevertheless, any film with Duryea and Hayden is worth a watch.

Really loved the idea for the story, and 'Manhandled' is exactly my kind of film as a fan of crime, mystery and thriller in all media. Sterling Hayden was always watchable when he was in good roles. Likewise with Dorothy Lamour. It was interesting too seeing a pre-Alfred (from 'Batman') Alan Napier. Other than the story and my love for the genres, my main reason for seeing 'Manhandled' was for Dan Duryea in a role he could play at the back of his hand with no problem.

'Manhandled', after watching it, is worth a look. If you love Duryea and in the type of role he plays here, you won't be disappointed. If one wants a story that consistently grabs the attention and is consistently easy to follow, dependent on personal tastes 'Manhandled' may underwhelm, like it did with me. Is it a bad film? Of course not. There is plenty going for it and it is above average. It just had a lot of potential to be great.

Beginning with the good things, 'Manhandled' is shot and designed with a gritty and classy atmosphere that never lets up. It's a very good looking film without looking too clean or unneccessarily lavish. The music is suitably ominous when used. The script is generally tight and intriguing.

There is some nice tension in the storytelling, especially towards the end when things do become exciting, and did like that the atmosphere was uncompromising and had a seediness about it at times. Napier is a delight in his role and Art Smith is amusing in his. Hayden does quite well and in command with what he is given to work with and his character is not very well fleshed out. Stealing the film is a genuinely sinister Duryea, his face alone unsettles you.

Lamour is a lot less good however in my view. Her role is practically a nothing cipher and Lamour is very bland in it. The direction is competent enough if undistinguished and could have generated a lot more tension and crispness, some of the middle felt on the pedestrian side.

Although the story has moments, it tended to be too convoluted as a result of too much going on and too many characters. The flashbacks do intrigue in parts but generally slow the pace down and further confuses the story rather than making it clearer.

Concluding, above average but not much more. 6/10

Despite Dorothy Lamour receiving star billing in "Manhandled", clearly the star of this one is Dan Duryea...a guy who really excelled at playing sleazy and malevolent characters. However, Lamour was a bigger stat at the time and Duryea mostly played strong supporting characters...so she got this billing. But for Lamour, there isn't much for her to do but be a victim...and hope that she isn't going to prison in this film.

When the story begins, a psychiatrist is having his secretary (Lamour) transcribe a very disturbed patient (Alan Napier) and his twisted fantasy of killing his wife. Well, pretty soon after this, the wife is murdered...and the rest of the film about the cops finding out the culprit. Karl Benson (Duryea) seems to be doing his best to frame her for the murder....but why?? And can the real story come out by the thrilling finale?

I loved a lot about this film but mostly what I loved was how gritty and nasty the film was...a great example of a noir classic. Duryea is at his best...so good you barely notice Sterling Hayden (a great noir actor)! See Duryea in the alleyway scene...where he plows a guy into a brick wall with his car! And, see Duryea slug Lamour's character...twice!! All in all, a nifty film...one that isn't particularly famous in the genre...but should be.

One thing about Manhandled there are no shortage of suspects for the murder of Irene Hervey. About three quarters of the way through the murderer is revealed. It's what happens after that which gives Manhandled a rather unusual twist.

What's really odd about the film is that other than being a leading man and someone for Dorothy Lamour to take an interest in, Sterling Hayden has very little to do with the solving of the case. Hayden plays an insurance investigator whose company sends him in to help the police solve the case and recover the stolen jewels. But usually in these films it's the private investigators who show up the slow witted cops. That's not what happens here, lead detective Art Smith is very much on the job, more so than the audience is lead to believe all through the film.

I'm thinking that Paramount and Sterling Hayden were about to come to an unfriendly parting and Paramount did not want to exhibit Hayden in any kind of good light. He did two films before his war service and this was the third of three afterwards. Still Hayden did do well with what little to do he was given.

Manhandled is made by the host of character actors in the film playing some interesting parts. There's Alan Napier, Hervery's husband who has been having recurring dreams about killing his wife. There's Harold Vermilyea the psychiatrist Napier was seeing about said dreams and who Dorothy Lamour works for. There's Dan Duryea who is a private detective who's been seeing Lamour. Finally there's Philip Reed who Hervey's been seeing on the side.

So when Hervey is murdered the suspects are a plenty. I will say this that the actual culprit is someone who thinks fast on their feet. But it turns out the cops have not been as dumb as the culprit suspects.

Paramount as a studio did not do much in the way of noir. But when they did do it, the results were pretty good like Manhandled.

A stuffy novelist (Alan Napier) suffers recurring nightmares that he bludgeons his rich jewel-horse of a wife (Irene Hervey) to death – with a `quart' bottle of cologne. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that he confides his dreams to a shrink (Harold Vermilyea). Didn't he know that it was the 1940s, when psychiatry was little more than a hotbed of scheming quacks? So when his wife inevitably winds up dead (and her diamonds stolen), he becomes the prime suspect, even though she had been out clubbing with another man (Philip Reed).

That's the uptown side of Manhandled; there's a seedier angle as well. The psychiatrist's transcriptionist (Dorothy Lamour) not only sits in on his sessions but later climbs the stairs to her Manhattan walk-up and spills the beans to her neighbor Dan Duryea, an ex-cop now doing repo jobs and divorce frame-ups. So much for codes of confidentiality. But when a signet ring she found while vacuuming her sofa and then pawned brings the police to her door, along with insurance investigator Sterling Hayden, it starts to look bad. It doesn't help that she just blew in from Los Angeles with forged letters of reference....

Manhandled unfurls an elaborate, and none too plausible, mystery plot competently enough, even with a few skillful touches (in its final quarter, it takes a sharp turn toward noir, and better late than never). Director Lewis Foster, however, failed to optimize the solid cast he was handed: Hayden's part never comes into clear focus and Lamour plays little more than a bland patsy. Duryea dominates, with his familiar two-faced persona as the cheery suck-up who likes to slap women around; Art Smith, as the comic relief of the police detective, becomes, after Duryea, the movie's most memorable character. It's not a bad movie, despite a couple of clunky flashbacks. But in better hands, it could have become one of the better noirs. As it stands, it merits that dark and honorable designation only by the skin of its teeth.