La casbah di Honolulu

Evelyn Keyes flies to Hawaii. According to Navy records, he was killed at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, Wendell Corey has just been arrested by the Honolulu police for murder, and the picture in the papers looks like her husband, twelve years older and with a scar. She can't be sure, so she shows up at police chief Philip Ahn's office, only to find that Corey has fled into the city's red light district.

This might be set in Hawaii, but despite the sunlit views of the Big Island and the languid steel guitars, director John H. Auer leads us into a darkening and corrupt world that it all looks and sounds menacing, despite the low-key acting of the two leads. It's not great, but it's always interesting, with nice turns by Elsa Lanchester, Marie Wilson and Jesse White.

An offbeat drama with a dream-like guitar score and a strong female contingent, including hard-bitten floozy Marie Windsor. Shot in glacial black & white on location in Honolulu by cameraman John L. ('Psycho') Russell.

The script by Steve Fisher looks as if it began life set on the mean streets of New York; which would account for the unexpected presence of Elsa Lanchester as a taxi-driving Earth mother who takes Evelyn Keyes under her wing in the search for Ms Keyes' amnesiac husband Wendell Corey.

Hell's Half Acre is directed by John H. Auer and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor, Nancy Gates and Leonard Strong. Music is by R. Dale Butts and cinematography by John L. Russell.

Filmed and set in Hawaii, one could be forgiven for thinking this couldn't possibly work as a piece of film noir. In fact, the opening credit sequences lends one to think this could well be a frothy Elvis Presley type of movie - but it most assuredly isn't.

Cash or Cave in?

Story has Corey up to his neck in femme fatales, shifty criminal acquaintances and coppers. Which is not bad for a guy who was apparently killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor! The Hell's Half Acre of the tile is what is termed in the film as a shabby tenement district, this is the seedy underbelly of what we know as the paradise island. The location makes for some excellent atmospheric noir touches, with the production line abodes and the ream of wooden stairs and banisters making for a moody backdrop. At night the shadows come in to play, hanging nicely off of the alleyways and tawdry bars.

Dirty Rat!

Though a little too contrived for its own good, the many characterisations on show make the annoying itches easily scratched. From two-timing dames and thugs in need of anger management - to alcoholic slobs and batty taxi drivers, this has a roll call of colourful people drifting in and out of Hell's Half Acre. There's even some censor baiting going on, though the whiff of violent misogyny could have been less pungent.

Some serious noir credentials are found with the makers, Auer (City That Never Sleeps), Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming), Corey (The Big Knife), Keyes (The Prowler), Windsor (The Narrow Margin), Gates (Suddenly), Lanchester (The Big Clock) and Russell (Moonrise), and that's only really scratching the surface. With its distinctive setting and well controlled unfurling of noir conventions, this is well worth a look by the noir faithful. 7/10

As I recall this little slice of b&w exotica got quite a bit of buzz back then. No doubt, that was because of the naughty innuendo and unusual locale. 1954 was before Hawaii became a state or showed up on weekly TV, so the backgrounds and people were still foreign to American living rooms. Anyway, the plot's anything but tight, running two or three threads at the same time. There's no need to recap what others have already done in detail.

What carries the film are the Hawaiian 'mise-en-scene', colorful characters, and good acting. Honolulu's Half Acre amounts to a hellish maze of rickety stairs, balconies, and walkways, all used to good effect by director Auer. Couple that with a noir character like Chester (Corey), a bosomy slut like Rose (Windsor, of course), and a slimy yucko like Ippy (Strong), along with other shady types, and who cares about plot logic. As a result, the visuals and characters rivet even when the narrative doesn't. Still, what's with Tubby (White) who gets bloodlessly shot in the shoulder and seconds later pulls a Tarzan escape with perfect coordination. Even cowboy matinees are more realistic than that, and who knew matinees better than Republic. All in all, it looks like a feature length appeal was aimed at, including something of a 'name' cast and a spicy story. Still, I'd like to know how the results actually performed dollar-wise. Nonetheless, the movie's not without points of interest, along with an ending that is not predictable, plus a Hawaii that sure doesn't show up on tourist brochures.

Hell's Half Acre (habitués just call it `the Acre') is a rabbit warren of tenements and dens of iniquity in post-war Honolulu – a South-Seas casbah. It's also the title of John H. Auer's movie which has the distinction – between the lapse of the Charlie Chan cycle and the arrival of TV dramas like Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I. – of being the only film noir set in the (then) Hawaiian Territory. A little clumsy and four-square (with little of visual interest), it boasts an offbeat story line and a dandy cast.

Stateside, widowed young mother Evelyn Keyes hears a recording by a songwriter from the Islands who, she's told, has been imprisoned for killing a crime lord. Certain phrases in the song remind her of her husband, presumed lost on the Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She breaks off her engagement and flies to Honolulu; her guide to the local culture is cabdriver Elsa Lanchester, a `character.' Police Chief Keye Luke arranges for Keyes to see the mystery man (Wendell Corey), but when the prisoner learns that his current girlfriend (Nancy Gates) has been murdered, he escapes custody. Keyes penetrates deeper into the Acre to find him, while his underworld associates, their greed and curiosity piqued, try to find her....

All too briefly, Hell's Half Acre features Marie Windsor, as the wife of fish-and-poi slinger Jesse White (she's two-timing him with sinister Philip Ahn). The crummy rooms Windsor and White occupy in the Acre are one of three main locales, the others being Corey's Waikiki beach house and The Polynesian Paradise, the nightclub he owns (technical advisor to the film was Don The Beachcomber). There's an elevated quotient of violence, particularly violence to women, and the somewhat murky story isn't sweetened up (though touristy material sometimes intrudes). Auer never got a crack at first-rate material to direct (maybe he never showed he could do it), but Hell's Half Acre holds its own against his better-known The City That Never Sleeps. Like so many of the better noirs, its surprises emerge from out of the past.