Gong fatale

I couldn't get past the preposterous meet-cute opening premise: that unsuccessful artist Dane Clark was so morally outraged by the purchase of one of his paintings (his first sale!) by Alexis Smith, that he goes to her place to refund her money. I mean, what struggling painter does that? Much less enter her home unbidden to snoop around. Van Gogh lopping off an ear makes more sense.

Still, nice to see Zachary Scott doing what he does best, playing a dapper heel, albeit a slightly psychotic one with no wheelchair brakes.

Plus S. Z. Sakall, comfortably Casablanca cast as a restaurant owner. It gives you a sense of what Rick's Place must have been like after Bogie split for Brazzaville and left Carl the Waiter in charge.

Although the main character planed by Dane Clark is the odd combination of artist/boxer, the movie is fairly involving and exciting. As he gets swept up by bad girl Alexis Smith -- and with bad guy Zachary Scott (one of the best in the business)luring him to destruction -- his story has some unpredictable ups and downs. A great cast in a fast-paced tale.

The thing that surprised me the most about Whiplash is that Warner Brothers actually teamed Alexis Smith and Dane Clark for a film. Smith had a lot of trouble in her career because she was so tell and trouble finding leading men to appear opposite her. And Dane Clark was short, James Cagney and Alan Ladd type short. If you look real carefully he's built up in height somewhat in the scenes where Warner Brothers showed both of them in full figure and those are rare in this film.

Clark was Warner Brothers back up for John Garfield and Garfield had left Warner Brothers at this point. Clark was obviously getting the scripts that Garfield had left or maybe had turned down.

In Whiplash Clark is a struggling artist who lives in southern California and a traveling Alexis Smith likes his work and they begin a hot and heavy affair. Then she abruptly walks out and Clark is all at sea. He goes east to find her and he does and finds she's married to a wheelchair bound Zachary Scott.

Scott was once a promising fighter and if he can't be champion he wants to manage one. When Clark knocks out a middleweight contender, Scott is willing to forget the affair with Smith if he'll fight for him. And Clark proves pretty adept in the ring.

Whiplash is the kind of film that would have been far better had the all pervasive Code not been in place. What we're beating around the bush not talking about is impotence. Scott is incapable and he's a nasty creature and Alexis just isn't getting any.

The ending is straight out of one of those Thirties type boxing films and I won't elaborate. Let's just say what happened no way should have happened.

The players are fine and special mention should go to Eve Arden for simply being Eve Arden and Jeffrey Lynn for playing Smith's alcoholic doctor brother who steps up to the plate at the climax. But Whiplash would have been a better film with a more realistic script and the Code not dictating a lot of pussyfooting around some frank issues.

Good, tough noir with an excellent cast. Watching the film it becomes obvious that it was planned for Joan Crawford so closely does Alexis Smith's character follow the Crawford 40's blueprint. Dane Clark's tortured painter turned boxer was surely likewise designed with John Garfield in mind as it adheres to his screen persona as well. For whatever reason those A-listers either passed or were unavailable and the film moved over to the B unit and this cast. As good as the leads are they were considered up and comers at the time and definitely represented the second string at Warners.

Back to the film it is sharply shot with effective use of the shadowy black and white photography. Zachary Scott adds another hissable villain to his vast array, Eve Arden pops up from time to time, once in an outfit that looks like she took the cloth off her kitchen table and fashioned it into an ensemble, to add her special brand of spice to the proceedings and many of Warners stock company, Alan Hale, S.Z. Sakall etc. fill out the cast. While the direction is adequate someone who was more of a stylist, for example Michael Curtiz, could have sharpened some slack edges and made the film really cook. Still as is its certainly worth investing the ninety minutes that it runs.

Boxing film. But it takes a long time to get there. At the beginning, Mike (Dane Clark) tell the kids how he used to a fighter, and then we're in flashback. We see how he was an artist when he met Laurie (Alexis Smith). He gets in a brawl, and is talked into earning big money as a boxer. Fun co-stars... SZ Sakall Cuddles was in every single b&w film in the 1940s, along with Alan Hale Senior. Hale was Dad of The Skipper, on Gilligan's Island. Eve Arden and Zack Scott were both so awesome in Mildred Pierce. A couple of fun numbers done at the Pelican Club; a ballad "sung" by Laurie, and a fun bit by "a vocal group", according to imdb; it's a shame they aren't credited in the cast list or the Soundtrack page, as of today. It looks like they changed the lyrics from A Girl to The Guy when it's sung by a female group. The story is good enough, but it never really takes off. The first five minutes the film really jumps around, so i hope you don't get seasick. Directed by Lewis Seiler. Started in silents, making shorts. This one is okay. Not a lot of chemistry, but the story is sound.