Jordan le révolté

After Alan Ladd's success in This Gun For Hire and The Glass Key, roles more traditionally associated with him, Paramount decided to give him top billing in Lucky Jordan, a film remarkably similar to Humphrey Bogart's All Through The Night in which gangster Bogart foils a Nazi spy ring. Although Ladd does well in the part, this was something given Ladd's diminutive stature that James Cagney would have breezed through.

In the title role Ladd is a gangster who's most reluctant to go into military service and leave the lifestyle he's become accustomed to. His number one subordinate Sheldon Leonard is most anxious to see him leave so he can move in on everything including Marie McDonald. Ladd and lawyer Lloyd Corrigan try all kinds of gambits, the last being to hire an Apple Annie type to fake being Ladd's mother so he can claim he's her sole support. Mabel Paige who played the gin swilling old souse is the best one in the film.

Ladd finally goes in the army, but he crashes out like you would in a prison film and accidentally gets some secret plans for a new airplane in the car he hijacked. Furthermore Sheldon Leonard is doing business with people who'd like those plans as the old rackets are drying up do to the war. All this doesn't faze Ladd, not even the pleadings of Helen Walker who is an Army WAC, but when the spies beat up on Paige our boy is not about to see the institution of motherhood defiled.

Lucky Jordan is played tongue in cheek just like All Through The Night. It made a profit for Paramount and confirmed Ladd's box office appeal. But it's firmly rooted in the time and place that the story is set in and hasn't really aged all that well. During his years at Paramount in the Forties Alan Ladd made far better films than Lucky Jordan that have come down as classics. This one is quite a bit less than a classic.

Alan Ladd was the perfect actor to play a tough guy. Handsome, underplayed, with kind of a monotone delivery, he can come off as a swine. Hard-boiled detective or western hero with ease.

Here he's a mobster named Lucky Jordan, who is so repulsive he hires people the same height and coloring to double for him and exit a building first in case someone tries to shoot him.

When he gets drafted, Lucky insists that his lawyer (Lloyd Corrigan) get him out of it. The attorney isn't successful and suggests that Lucky find himself a parent that he has to support. He offers a drunken bag lady (Mabel Paige) begging for quarters $50 if she will pose as his mother.

It doesn't work. Lucky, who likes to sleep late, finds himself rousted out of bed at 5 a.m. For breakfast. Hanging out at the canteen more than he should, Lucky finds himself attracted to no-nonsense WAC Jill Evans (Helen Walker).

It doesn't take Lucky long to steal the car and coat of an army scientist, who just happens to be carrying confidential tank drawings in a briefcase, left in the car. He is also forced to kidnap Jill.

Lucky wants to sell the plans to foreign agents, despite Jill's protests. One of Lucky's nefarious associates, Slip (Sheldon Leonard) locates some spies who will pay mucho bucks for the plans.

This film combines drama, comedy, and propaganda and does it beautifully. We get to that Lucky isn't a bad guy after all when he develops a soft spot for "Ma."

Ladd does a wonderful job in a great role for him. This was the debut film for Helen Walker, whose career was cut short by scandal. Here she is an attractive ingenue and gets to show a dynamite pair of gams - quite different from her role as a ruthless psychiatrist in Nightmare Alley.

Sadly her career withered away when she gave three soldiers a ride to LA. She was in a horrible accident, and one of the soldiers died. The survivors accused her of being drunk, and she was brought to trial. Though acquitted, the bad press signalled the end of a promising career.

This movie is such a surprise and highly recommended.

This is a very entertaining movie. A lot funnier upon repeated viewing (dialogue is very witty and fast). Alan Ladd (underrated actor to begin with) has made very few comedies and shines here in both delivery, mannerisms and excellent timing. Helen Walker is holding her own and has just about as good an on-screen chemistry with Ladd as Veronica Lake in his noir movies. The plot is pretty stupid because of introduction of Nazis (in US ?!), secret plans, treason, etc. The whole patriotic hullabaloo, in my opinion, only gets in the way of otherwise interesting idea of a wise guy trying to dodge draft by any means necessary (especially as the movie was released in 1942). It's a pity Ladd got "pigeonholed" by his studio (Paramount) into tough guy, action hero and/or tragic roles. He would have been a winner in an intelligent, dialogue based comedy, or even romantic comedy (dare I say: the caliber of Cary Grant?!). I'm buying this one for my collection of Ladd's movies. :D

This picture was fun to watch. Alan Ladd had a style as a gangster that counterpointed well with the wonderful Sheldon Leonard ("Hey, Buddy, ... C'mere!") Helen Walker presented an unusually perky, sexy look that was never really exploited in the movies. When she distracted the nazi spy he was not alone. I sat through the movie again to be distracted a second time. The picture may become a cult 'classic', if it has not already and I recommend most insistently that you view it. Ladd's involvement with the old 'bag lady' will touch you. Once again, for a light comedy, spy thriller (The Second World War was in full sway) it was away ahead of most of it's ilk. My favourite Alan Ladd movie.

The 19 year old Dorothy Dandridge got the opportunity to act alongside of Alan Ladd in this rather dull film, 'Lucky Jordan'. It sums up how lucky she was during her teens to act alongside Alan Ladd, John Wayne, The Little Rascals, Abbott and Costello and The Marx Brothers.