Cover Up

Before his company will pay out, an insurance investigator (Dennis O'Keefe) arrives in a small town to look into an apparent suicide. But he immediately begins to suspect something's not quite right. No gun, no powder marks, no bullet, no coroner's report, and no sheriff's report seem to lead to no suicide. Was it suicide – or was it something even more sinister?

It may not be the noir I was expecting, but Cover-Up is a nice little 40s style mystery. The plot kept me going up to the end. It's full of red herrings and I could have never guessed the outcome. Other than the It's a Wonderful Life style ending, I've got nothing to complain about. The cast is more than capable with Dennis O'Keefe, William Bendix, and Barbara Britton giving nice performances. I'm not all that familiar with Britton, but it's easy to see why she was a Revlon Girl for more than a decade. The cast also features Doro Merande who steals every scene in which she appears.

I picked up the DVD on the budget Geneon label. If you don't mind a lack of extras (and that includes the absence of a menu), it's not a bad deal for the money. The cover art is misleading. I have no idea what movie it was taken from, but it most certainly wasn't Cover-Up.

I am no insurance expert, but I thought that in cases where someone killed themselves that their beneficiaries did not receive anything. So why would an insurance investigator, Sam Donovan (Dennis O'Keefe), investigate this in the first place? And, why would he try to prove it was a murder? I think this is a HUGE problem with the plot of "Cover Up"...unless I am mistaken.

The story begins with Donovan arriving in town to do his investigation. Surprisingly, most everyone in town either avoids him or lies--and Sam is very tired of it. To make things worse, the Sheriff seems ambivalent when Sam's investigation shows that the man was murdered.

If you can ignore the inconsistency of an insurance investigator trying to make his company pay out the biggest claim instead of the smallest, it is an interesting film. Not a great film but interesting and worth seeing despite its flaws.

By the way, I wish the film had used a ballistics expert to consult, as the film made a couple mistakes I noticed. First, Sam fires a gun (to get a ballistics comparison of the bullet) and IMMEDIATELY picks up the slug with his bare hands. It would be super-hot--and you'd either want to wait a moment or use gloves. Second, one piece of evidence that Sam has that convinces him the dead guy was murdered was that the killer was left-handed. Well, I am a right hander in everything...but I shoot left. This is not too uncommon, actually, as you often shoot based on your dominant eye not your dominant hand.

In my book, this little non-studio production exceeds bottom-of-the-bill expectations. It's a good cast, a tight script, and an intriguing non-noir mystery. So why aren't small town locals cooperating with insurance investigator O'Keefe as he looks into a suicide or maybe murder. Surprisingly, the sheriff (Bendix) seems especially indifferent. Good thing the Weatherby's elder daughter (Britton) is there to brighten up his stay.

The production does an excellent job blending the mystery ingredient with lighter moments and the romantic angle. I especially like the sparkling Britton and bubbly teenager Todd who combine with the others to make the Weatherby's a charmingly suspicious family. Bendix too excels as the laconic sheriff—just what is his pipe smoking angle. Then too, his verbal fencing with the persistent O'Keefe is unusually well scripted and performed. At the same time, I kept expecting one or the two to finally drop the fencing and take a poke. The ending, in particular, is rather surprising and unconventional for the time.

Too bad the delightful Britton never rose to the top rank she merits. The screen lights up every time she appears. Nonetheless, this obscure little feature is the kind of sleeper that old movie fans, like me, take special delight in catching up with.

Another nice discovery for me: a pretty good thriller which, though not exactly a film noir, features two staples of the genre – Dennis O'Keefe and William Bendix – in top form. Their rapport throughout is quite delightful and this, along with the equally refreshing charms of leading lady Barbara Britton and the distinct Christmas flavor of its small-town setting, creates an overall mood of warmth not easily found in murder mysteries! The plot (whose insurance-investigation angle clearly derives from Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDENMITY [1944]) provides a good amount of tension – and red herrings – along the way, while the final revelation (bearing an unexpected moral emphasis) concludes the film on a satisfying note.

Despite the title and Dennis O'Keefe as the star, this B film is not a film noir. It is about a small town in Middle America where everyone in the town seems to be trying to conspire to cover up a murder. Dennis O'Keefe arrives in town as an insurance investigator. He is there as a matter of routine because the company for which he works has provided life insurance for the deceased. The sum insured is mentioned as $20,000, and everyone speaks of it breathlessly, and it is hard to realize that in those days $20,000 really was a substantial amount of money. That says a lot about inflation over time. The man is said to have committed suicide. However, O'Keefe is very smart and he soon realizes that the man was murdered. His efforts to bring this to the attention of the local sheriff, played by William Bendix, meet with a stone wall. There is a double indemnity clause in the insurance policy which says that if the person is murdered the payout will be double. But when O'Keefe offers to pay the extra $20,000 to the niece of the murdered man, she refuses it, insisting that her uncle committed suicide. O'Keefe is baffled by this refusal of so much extra money. The murdered man turns out to have been 'a poison in his community', who was hated by everyone in town. In fact, everyone in town had a motive to murder him. It is a very good yarn in theory, but mystery and tension are sacrificed to other aims, namely to concentrate on the dilemma of O'Keefe's budding romance with a girl called Anita, played by Barbara Britton. The murdered man was killed with a 9 mm German Lugar. Both the sheriff and Anita's father have such Lugars. Things are looking very bad indeed, as one of them seems to be the killer. The other main aim of the film is to concentrate on the cozy, though currently unsettled, life of the small town. It is snowing and it is nearly Christmas. People are lighting up their trees and getting the turkeys ready for roasting, tying up their presents, and O'Keefe (who has no family of his own) gets involved in the festivities while he is at the same time carrying out an investigation which threatens many of those with whom he is associating. If the intention had been to make a film noir, a great deal more mystery and suspicion and conflict would have been created, and the film would be dark and moody. Instead, the film attempts to retain a cheerful air, which belies the tensions underneath. Barbara Britton smiles charmingly, O'Keefe is falling for her like a schoolboy, her father is genteel and reassuring, and only the sheriff appears truly suspicious, though even he has a twinkle in his eye and casts mischievous little smiles aside from time to time, which suggest that he is not a bad guy after all. No attempt is made by the director to suggest any real sense of threat or menace. Everybody is simply too goody-goody, and there are no obvious villains. Well, the ending has something to do with the season of the year, and it is by no means obvious, but I won't spoil things by discussing that. The catchline for the film is: 'a small town with big secrets'. That is certainly true, but don't expect a nail-biter. The suspense is so diluted in this film that it should rather be described as diverting than absorbing. As a result, Dennis O'Keefe is not as effective as usual, because he was best in films where things get really tough, and here he has to be Mr. Nice Guy who in between wooing his gal dabbles in proving and explaining a murder, and worrying whether his gal and her father are involved in it. In other words, the focus is on the romantic conflict rather than on whodunit. You could call this a 'soft noir', or perhaps a 'black marshmallow', since it aims to be tasty, chewy and sweet with a dusting of crime sprinkled over it for appearance's sake.