Scene of the Crime

They're all here. Lovelorn wife, old cop trying to stick around, gangsters with neat nicknames, forensic lab work, stool pigeons, etc. There is also an uninteresting back story about a job the wife is trying to get for her husband-cop, to "keep him safe". Think of a familiar plot device and it's here in "Scene Of The Crime".

That said, this picture holds your interest - it's a good story, when all is said and done. Good acting from start to finish and there are lots of good character actors; John McIntyre, Norman Lloyd, Gloria DeHaven, Jerome Cowan, and many others. I disagree with a reviewer above in that the picture held my interest right to the end, although I am a big fan of noir films. I did think that Van Johnson was a curious choice for the title role. I always thought there wasn't a mean bone in his body, not tough enough to play a detective in a gritty noir.

Lastly, the music director was Andre Previn, and the theme music at the beginning and end was good. He also wrote two songs that were unworthy of him, but they were played in a strip joint and fit into the setting with their trite tunes and lyrics. Despite all of the preceding, I rated it a seven, which means I think it's worth your time.

Did, as some people think, "Scene of the Crime" invent the cop drama clichés that have been a mainstay of television and film for so long? Or were they already established and just copied by this film? Not being an expert in the genre, I don't know. I do know that despite attempts by some people to elevate this movie to film noir status, it's not that great. Dore Schary put this into production when he took over MGM. I guess he wanted MGM to be more like Warner Brothers. It stars Van Johnson, Arlene Dahl, John McIntyre, Leon Ames, and Gloria DeHaven.

When a cop is killed with a roll of dough found on him, his fellow officers set out to investigate the crime and clear the man's name.

"Scene of the Crime" is similar in its way to "Dragnet" - it shows the daily grind of detectives as they put together a case. There are a couple of very good scenes, including one in which Mike (Van Johnson) arrests a suspect, and shooting starts when they get outside of the apartment building. Still handcuffed to Mike, the perp jumps into a building stairwell. There's also a good car chase.

For some reason, Van Johnson did these baby-faced tough guys well - perhaps it was his New York accent, but he pulls off the role of the dedicated Mike. He was set to be Elliot Ness in the TV "Untouchables" when his wife Evie called Desi Arnaz the night before and held him up for more money. Arnaz called Robert Stack and told him to report to the set the next day. A friend of mine who has lived in LA for over 50 years and socialized with many stars said that Arlene Dahl was the most beautiful woman of everyone he had met. Seeing her in this, you can believe it. She is a spectacular beauty if her acting in some spots isn't the best. Gloria De Haven, usually a vibrant ingenue, plays against type as a tramp, which makes it interesting.

"Scene of the Crime" is gritty-looking enough but suffers from being slow in spots and loaded with clichés. There isn't anything to make it truly special. That could be because by now, we've seen it all before. Perhaps in 1949, it was fresh. But I have my doubts that even back then, it broke any new ground.

An LA police detective (Van Johnson) investigates the murder of another detective and gets involved with night club singer and stripper played by Gloria De Haven. The story has a neat double cross. A criminal organization from "down south" sends a couple of "lobos" to LA in order to take over a bookmaking syndicate. Corruption is at the center of the story as the dead detective was carrying a wad of cash. Johnson's out to prove that he (dead detective) wasn't on the take. His street contact Sleepy (Norman Lloyd) provides some of the films more vivid moments, and Jerome Cowan (Sam Spade's partner in Maltese Falcon) has a great part as "fixer" Arthur Webson. Johnson does very well in the part, combining breeziness that he honed in earlier films with sufficient grit to be believable as a tough detective. His wife played by Arlene Dahl looks great and they share some pretty good chemistry in their scenes. The film does a good job of capturing the story's different elements and cohesively combining them. The action doesn't always come, but when it does it is surprisingly sudden and brutal for the times.

An off-duty Los Angeles police detective is shot and killed one night with an unexplained thousand dollars found in his pocket. It falls to his former partner (Van Johnson) to track down his killers and try to exonerate him. Scene of the Crime, which tells the story, stays a police procedural with a few twists and touches that raise it a notch or two above the routine.

First of all, Johnson's wife (Arlene Dahl) has fallen prey to the dissatisfactions common to her lot. She's tired of their evenings, in and out, being ruined by yet another summons to duty (`Whenever the telephone rings, it cuts me,' she cries); she tired of rolling his dice rigged to come up seven, a ritual that supposedly bids him luck.

On the job, he has his burdens, too. His new partner (John McIntyre) is getting on in years and his sight is failing. And under Johnson's wing is nestled rookie cop Tom Drake, learning the ropes. Outside the office there's an abrasive police reporter (Donald Woods) chasing the corruption angle; there's also the network of low-lifes who serve, if the pressure is right, as stoolies - most vivid of them is the young Norman Lloyd.

Word filters up that the killing was the work of a couple of downstate `lobos' who have been knocking over bookie operations. Going undercover, Johnson starts romancing a stripper one of them used to date (Gloria De Haven, in the movie's sharpest performance). Even though he's working her, he finds his emotions in play - and even though it turns out that she's working him, too, she has no emotions.

Under Roy Rowland's direction, Scene of the Crime keeps its plotting straightforward, though with some uncharacteristic bursts of violence. The movie's studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was celebrated for its lavish color musicals, not for the unsentimental style of film noir. That probably accounts for the final shot's being a reconciliatory kiss, in hopes that such a sweet image might expunge all the urban squalor that went before it. Luckily, it doesn't.

Detective Van Johnson's romantic evening out with wife Arlene Dahl is over before it's begun, when a harrowing telephone call informs him that former partner Monigan has lit his pipe for the last time, prior to being gunned down outside an illegal bookies, with $1000 in his pocket.

Accompanied by short sighted veteran, John McIntire and rookie, Tom Drake, Johnson is left to investigate a murder case tainted by allegations of police corruption. All except wacky informant, Norman Lloyd close ranks and a prolonged, arduous manhunt lies ahead.

With Arlene Dahl quaking in her high heels every time Johnson packs a rod and hits the streets, gripped by the possibility that the next time she sees him, he might be lying on a slab, the movie embarks upon a parallel route into the realms of domestic drama seen from Dahl's vantage point, illustrating the emotionally draining experience of being a cop's wife. Such is her devotion, that returning home in the small hours, with lipstick on his collar, after a 'romantic' encounter with gangster's moll and prize trollop Gloria De Haven, draws the polar opposite response to the Connie Francis treatment.

Serious soul searching starts, however, with the reappearance of ex lover, suave, debonair Tom Helmore, still carrying a torch of colossal proportions. Dahl is suddenly, painfully alerted to the safe, secure, stable and extremely prosperous life that she might have had.

'Scene of the Crime' is not a classic film noir, but as it steams along its flinty course towards the tensely violent finale, it successfully paints a contrasting picture between Johnson's unglamorous world of crime'n'grime and Dahl's no less sacrificial, contemplative, disquieting perspective on marriage to a high ranking police officer.