Dial Red O

Ralph Wyatt (Keith Larsen) escapes from a psychiatric institution in order to confront his wife Connie (Helene Stanley) over their divorce. He intends to return once he has seen her. However, Connie has been having an affair with his friend Norman (Paul Picerni) behind Ralph's back. When Norman refuses to marry her now that she is free and single once again, a fight ensues and she is killed. Norman stitches up Ralph, who is arrested for murder. However, Ralph escapes from custody in order to avenge his wife's death. At the same time, Det. Flynn (Bill Elliott) is discovering the truth....

I was surprised at how good this film was. It's made with a sparse cast who are all believable and likable in their roles and the action unfolds at a good pace. I thought the film was going to be crap and was anticipating hitting the "stop" button, but my girlfriend and I found ourselves watching to the end and even cheering out loud at certain moments! It's a solid story and it has a good soundtrack.

After retiring from the Western screen, Wild Bill Elliott made five hard-boiled police films at Allied Artists, this being the first of them. Elliott plays Andy Flynn/Doyle (the name changes after this one, but it's the same character), a detective for the LA sheriff's office. Elliott's stoic, brooding style is well-suited to crime films, and I'm sorry he did not make more. I've seen four of this group of five, and every one is a solid piece of work. They play very much like a grittier version of the many crime TV shows of the 1950s, and in the post-Dragnet era there is an emphasis on the step-by-step procedures used in investigating a case. Keith Larsen plays a WWII/Korea war hero who has not adapted well to the civilian world and is under psychological treatment; Helene Stanley chews the scenery as his party-girl ex-wife (her scene where she announces to her boyfriend why they "have to" get married is a classic!); Paul Picerni is the smarmy, suspicious friend of Larsen and great and good friend of Stanley. Former Columbia/Monogram regular Rick Vallin is put to good use as a police officer guarding Larsen after he is arrested. No big surprises here--the film simply delivers what it promises to: suspense, action, twists, a nice hard-boiled ambiance, AND Wild Bill Elliott. That's enough for me. While most of the film is shot on small, cheap sets, there are some good location shots of LA circa 1955 that help to give the film atmosphere. Finally, the scenes set in bars and lounges feature excellent West Coast Jazz from Shorty Rogers and his Giants, although if the band is seen, it must be just for a few moments as I went out of the room twice to get a soda and I didn't actually SEE Rogers on stage at all, just heard his music...perhaps I missed him during one of my soda expeditions. DIAL RED "O" is recommended to fans of 1950s b-crime films, if you can find it! (see my review of CHAIN OF EVIDENCE, another film in this series)

Keith Larsen came out of the Second World War a sergeant. He got married to Helene Stanley, knocked around for a few years, and was in the local VA facility for psychiatric observation. The evening of the day divorce papers are served on him, he hops the wall and goes looking for some answers. The case goes to LA County police lieutenant Bill Elliott.

Elliott was a 30-year veteran of Hollywood when this was made. He entered as an extra in 1925, but it took him 10 years until he gained enough traction in 1935 -- when he appeared in more than 30 movies -- before he began to get screen credit. A Columbia serial gave him the lead, and he spent he 1940s as a cowboy star, usually credited as "Wild Bill Elliott", culminating in the lead in the Red Ryder series. He would appear in four more of these detective movies over the next couple of years, then mostly retired. He died in 1965, aged 61.

This movie was written and directed by Daniel Ullman, and it's a cheap little affair, with an interesting script -- Miss Stanley is pregnant by another man, which is why she wants to divorce Larsen and marry the other guy. There are lots of interesting location shots around Los Angeles, but despite its short, 64-minute running time, there's little in the way of action until the final five minutes. Elliott spends almost all his time at his desk, supervising other officers. Clearly Ullman was operating under the influence of DRAGNET, but Jack Webb's radio and TV show called for a lot of dialogue spat out at machine-gun pace. Elliott still looks like a close-mouthed cowboy, his Stetson swapped out for a wide-brimmed felt hat.

I took a look at Wild Bill Elliott's credits and the last time he was in modern dress for a movie before Dial Red O was in a small role as a bootlegger in The Roaring Twenties. My guess his popularity as a western star was on the decline as the films he made were now being done in television series. I'm surprised Elliott never went into the small screen to continue as a western star. Also he dropped the 'Wild' in his screen billing, that seemed to not fit now that he was playing a police lieutenant in modern dress.

In Dial Red O we are introduced to Elliott's new character of Lieutenant Andy Flynn of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The case he catches in this film is the murder of Helene Stanley who is the good time wife of Marine veteran Keith Larsen. Larsen is doing a stay in the Psychiatric Ward of the Veteran's Hospital as things haven't been going so well with him.

That's not stopping Stanley from spending his money and having a good time with Larsen's old friend from the Corps Paul Picerni. A little too much pressure going both ways and Stanley winds up dead.

We know Picerni did it, the suspense is whether Elliott and Larsen can put it together. An offhand remark by law enforcement tells Larsen who the murderer is.

Dial Red O is one no frills production. Allied Artists obviously had a contract commitment to Elliott and they wanted to see how the public would take to him out of his boots and in a squad car not on a horse. It's all right, but again nothing you couldn't see on television.

Bill Elliott ("Det. Flynn") works quite well in this quickly-paced, more cerebral, hour long detective mystery. He must investigate the murder of "Connie" (Helene Stanley) who was having an affair with "Roper" (Paul Picerni). The finger for the crime is initially pointed at her somewhat shell-shocked husband "Wyatt" (Keith Larsen) but we know the truth (we've known all along) and so now we get to follow as both "Flynn" and "Wyatt" try to fathom out the truth. At times the photography goes too obviously out of it's way not to show us anything of the violent themes here. The code? Sure, but also a distinct lack of imagination from director Daniel Ullman didn't help either. From a production perspective, there is nothing special about any of this - indeed, Stanley is pretty terrible - but the story has plenty of twists and turns before an ending that does this cheap and cheerful B-feature just enough justice to make it worth a gander.