Dangerous Partners

"Dangerous Partners" has some very unusual casting, as Edmund Gwenn of all people plays a ruthless murderer!! Say it isn't so...the sweet guy who played Santa in "Miracle on 34th Street" a killer?!

The story begins just after a plane crash. Two rogues find a dead man with four wills in his possession....and the names of four different people on the wills...and each for $1,000,000! Without knowing more, the pair decide to track down these four people and find out if they can squeeze the money out of them.

Someone else is also looking for these four people....and Albert Kingby (Edmund Gwenn) is willing to do anything to get the $1.000,000 in bonds. He first kills the partner...leaving the lady (Signe Hasso). Then, he chases her and her new partner (James Craig) and you wonder WHO he is and WHY is he killing people to get the money. See the film and find out why.

While the relationship between Hasso and Craig is tough to believe in parts, the film still works very well because it's well written and there is a nice payoff at the end. Well worth seeing...tense and exciting throughout.

By the way, some reviews called this a 'B-movie'. While having secondary actors like Hasso and Craig in the leads might make you believe this, at 79 minutes it's much too long to be considered a B....a quickie film designed as a second feature and usually running 50-65 minutes.

A real curiosity piece is this little thriller mixing a pair of unethical thieves (James Craig, Signe Hasso) with some shady characters and adding a Nazi spy twist at the end. It's all very improbable but with something happening every moment it's hard to turn away.

James Craig was at his handsomest but, unfortunately, this kind of film needed someone like Bogart to bring it alive. But Signe Hasso makes up for his bland performance by giving her all to the role of a woman who resorts to all sorts of tricks in her efforts to get her hands on some hefty amounts of money, even if it means double-crossing her partner in crime. And Edmund Gwenn is surprisingly effective as a bad guy, so far removed from his usual kindly old self. Audrey Totter hasn't much to do but does it well. Mabel Paige reminds us what a good character actress she was in good supporting roles.

And watch for Stephen McNally in a small role as the pilot of a plane crash that starts the story rolling (billed as Horace McNally).

An MGM B-picture that reminds us how interesting some of these little programmers could be. Enough plot twists to keep you watching until the end.

I'm in agreement with the reviewer who said that when he watched Dangerous Partners he felt like he came in to the story in the middle and had some trouble figuring out who was who. I suspect that portion was mistakenly left on MGM's cutting room floor.

James Craig, a lawyer whose ethics are only as good as they have to be and Signe Hasso your typical mysterious woman survive a plane crash and Hasso picks EDmund Gwenn's pocket where she find 4 unsigned wills that leave government bonds to the bearer who would be Gwenn. Only these folks haven't died.....yet.

The two are out to investigate and they come up with another dastardly Nazi scheme. A nice bit of reverse casting making Gwenn the chief villain.

This one sure could have used Hitchcock to put it together right.

For some reason, the opening exposition scenes were edited out of this movie, so we start with the plane crash and are expected to pick up the pieces from there.

From then on it's just a confusing mosaic of wordy scenes. Nothing makes sense and trying to figure it out isn't worth the payoff. There's just too much to keep track of.

Even as nostalgic value, this clunker is heavy going... except for the scenes featuring the wonderful Edmund Gwenn.

Contrived and convoluted, the actors playing the dangerous partners do not seem particularly dangerous. Their acting is poor, their chemistry is poor, and they are limited by a plot that seems that is a weak effort at seeming mysterious. The sudden insertion of political propaganda makes the movie approach ridiculousness.