L'amante del gangster

A really good cast puts over a noir feature from Warner Brothers that's undone by an incredibly, unbelievable plot component. As another Warner Brothers star used to say, "what a maroon".

Zachary Scott plays a criminal attorney who gets off mob hit man Elisha Cook, Jr. on some perjured testimony by Helen Westcott. When Scott finds out about the perjury he fears bar association sanctions and determines to break with mob boss Douglas Kennedy. But Kennedy has other plans that involve Scott's girl friend Virginia Mayo who is in the title role of Flaxy Martin.

Mayo's trading up and she goes to Scott with a tearful story about how she's suspected in the murder of Westcott. So what does this brilliant lawyer do who is now thinking with his male member? He offers to confess and says he's so good at his job that he can win acquittal at trial. But not against some perjured eye witness testimony that Kennedy gets to help the prosecution along.

Of course Scott escapes and starts looking for more than vindication. In that he's aided by friend Tom D'Andrea and farm girl Dorothy Malone who feels sorry for him.

After that horrible premise, the film does pick up and ends rather well. If you've seen Virginia Mayo in White Heat you know how it ended for her there. Ends even worse for her here, but similarly. In fact I'm sure Mayo was cast in Flaxy Martin on the strength of White Heat.

As for Zachary Scott the part he has is one I think might have been written with Humphrey Bogart in mind, but Bogey left Warner Brothers the year before.

Though it's rather unbelievable Flaxy Martin is good display of the talents of both Virginia Mayo and Zachary Scott.

Zachary Scott has most of the best lines and Virginia Mayo gets the complete glamor treatment in the title role of FLAXY MARTIN. Both of them score heavily in this tight little crime melodrama that suffers only when the plot's loopholes begin to show. Dorothy Malone gets third billing as the wholesome librarian who sticks her neck out to help a man she almost runs over on a dark and stormy night. Her motivations for taking him in and then discovering he's a man on the run from the law are never completely believable.

Nor is the way Scott tries to shield Mayo from the police by pretending that he's the man who murdered a woman the mob wanted to get rid of. He's a lawyer for the gangsters and sticks his own head into a noose by thinking that he can back himself into a corner and then get out.

But aside from these plot contrivances that don't ring true, the story about a lawyer being double-crossed by the gangsters he was protecting is tight and suspenseful. The supporting cast includes Douglas Kennedy, Elisha Cook, Jr., Tom D'Andrea and Douglas Fowley, all well-used and fitting into the noir-like atmosphere of the melodramatic turn of events.

The amusing tough guy talk from Zachary Scott gets the kind of delivery that shows he was a very capable actor who deserved more recognition with better roles in A-films. He's excellent here and Virginia Mayo is so convincing as a scheming tramp that it makes me think Bette Davis was right when she told Warner Brothers they should have offered the role of Rosa Moline in "Beyond the Forest" to Mayo. She's that good.

If you can get past the overly contrived plot, this is an enjoyable minor Film Noir. While it's far from the best example of Noir, FLAXY MARTIN can boast one of the most evil femme fatales you'll ever find. In the title role, Virginia Mayo digs her teeth into a selfish, scheming, two-timing dame that rivals just about any of the better-known ones. Flaxy is a nightclub singer (we never see her perform, not even dubbed) kept by syndicate boss Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy). Unknown to Hap, she's also keeping company with syndicate lawyer Walt Colby (Zachary Scott) who is unaware of her liaison with Hap. Things get interesting when Hap forces Walt to get one of his thugs, Cesar, out of jail after a killing he's committed. He complies, but Walt is tired of his criminal associations and wants to settle down with Flaxy, who pretends to go along with him for a while. Then a paid 'witness" Peggy Farrar (Helen Westcott) is found murdered and it looks like Flaxy is the guilty party. Strongly smitten Walt offers to plead guilty in place of Flaxy, certain he can be acquitted, but Flaxy and Hap take advantage and Walt is on his way to prison. He manages to escape (in a wild sequence) and ends up meeting Nora Carson (Dorothy Malone) a trusting soul who's immediately taken with him. Though he gives her a rough time from the start, Nora helps Walt evade police and relentless pursuit of Roper (Elisha Cook, Jr.) . More help comes from Sam Malko (Tom D'Andrea) an old associate who owes Walt a favor. The plot is full of coincidence and easy solutions, but there is plenty of action, not least of which is a night-time chase that ends with Walt and Roper battling on a rooftop. Everyone in the cast is good, with Mayo, Scott, Westcott (excellent in her brief role) standing out. The ever-dependable Cook is really terrific as small-time hood treated like an idiot by both Hap and Walt ("Go back to sixth grade!") and who wants his revenge. See it for the cast and the crazy plot.

... as almost everybody in this noir makes terrible choices that make no sense. It seems to be the grand champion of bad decisions in noir, just like The Big Sleep is the undisputed champion of indecipherable plots.

The plot is involved but inane but I'll try to explain. Lawyer Walter Colby (Zachary Scott) represents mobster Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy) and is in love with the titular Flaxy Martin (Virginia Mayo). But Flaxy is just using Colby so she can get information for Hap. Flaxy's only true love will always be money. Colby gets tired of the illegal dealings of Hap - just what was he expecting? - and tells Hap he is quitting AND going to the police about some perjury that ocurred.. Bad decision number one. The mob doesn't like people who quit or inform. When Flaxy is implicated in a murder -because she was involved AND allowed herself to be seen - she goes to Colby. Colby foolishly decides to confess to the killing himself but claim it was self defense. The mob can't believe the beauty of its situation and pays off another witness to say he saw Colby kill the girl and that it was not self defense.

On the way to prison, Colby knocks the cop accompanying him unconscious and hopes he actually has the key to the handcuffs on him - he does - and then escapes. A mousy woman sees Colby unconscious on the side of the road (Dorothy Malone as Nora Carlson) and, knowing he is an escaped prisoner convicted of murder, just thinks he has such a darned honest face that she takes him home and shields him anyways. Can you count all of the bad decisions here? From that point I'd say watch and find out if you want to know how it ends. But just let me say that the ending depends on being able to lock somebody INSIDE of their own apartment from the outside. I can't believe that the fire marshal would be OK with this.

I don't know why this film was named after character Flaxy Martin since she actually is not on the screen that much of the time. It's rather ironic that it is Dorothy Malone who is the real lead actress, still with her brown hair and playing the nice girl. Because Malone will later transition to blonde and play the kind of characters in the 50s that Mayo played in the 40s. Actually, Elisha Cook Jr. Is probably on camera just as much if not more than Mayo, and that is fine because he is a joy to watch, playing a very determined homicidal maniac who seems to love his work.

In spite of the goofy plot, this really is fun to watch with lots of good noir atmosphere, themes, and action.

Catch that great scene where Flaxy (Mayo) beats up a blackmailing Peggy, (Westcott) with the timid hotel clerk hovering outside the door. Big-eyed Westcott really delivers in spades. Too bad the rest of the movie fails to reach that intense level. Looks to me like Warner Bros. used the film as an A-team try-out for cast principals and director. Now, Scott, for one, comes through perfectly as the lawyer with a wobbly compass— I'm just sorry this fine, exotic actor never got the recognition his talent deserved. The material, however, with its nifty double- cross, really merited an A-team director, like Walsh or Curtiz. Instead, the studio gave featurette director Richard Bare a shot, and the result shows he had little feel for the dark material.

Unfortunately, the movie is inferior grade noir, lacking in both style and edge. Take the early scene where Walt (Scott) and Hap (Kennedy) iron out wrinkles in the plot to free Caesar (Overman) from a murder rap. They're standing stock still in Hap's living room, talking, and that's the trouble: they stand stock still for about two minutes doing little more than delivering their lines. Thus, a potentially dramatic scene of rivalry calling for an expressive dynamic falls flat, drained of needed energy and tension.

But Bare seems most at sea in directing the lead actresses. Mayo looks lost in her key scenes with Scott— the second side of Flaxy's devious personality, the calculating side, fails to appear, and thus we're left with a very pretty girl speaking the lines, but without the necessary depth. Catch Malone too in the graveside scene. She's an unsophisticated librarian staring into the open pit of her own doom, but judging from the absence of needed emotion, she might as well be reading a book. Now, Malone later proved a fine actress of many dimensions, (e.g. Written on the Wind {1955}). Here, however, she's stuck in a thankless good girl role, so likely director Bare is at fault for not giving her the necessary cues. I suspect the movie would have improved had actresses Malone and Mayo switched roles.

Then too, Walt's sudden turn-around with 40 grand in his pocket is awkwardly handled. Even an A-grade filmmaker would have trouble making this bit of Production Code hokum believable, but in Bare's hands it comes across as little more than a clumsily developed happy ending. Thus, it's not surprising that the studio returned the director to making the humorous shorts he was so good at following this failed experiment. I also better understand why editors Silver and Ward omitted this entry from their highly successful tome Film Noir. Unfortunately, the movie may have all the trappings of the genre, but like bread dough in the hands of a neophyte baker, the loaf simply fails to gel.