The Man Who Walked Alone

"Willie" (Kay Aldridge) is in the process of jilting her stuffy fiancé "Alvin" (Smith Ballew) - using his own car, when she encounters a hitchhiker to whom she offers a lift. They barely get half a mile down the road when they are apprehended by the cops for pinching the car and are promptly shoved in jail. It's an easy mix-up for her to clear up, but her passenger "Marion" (Dave "Dex" O'Brien) seems to be having more difficulty on that front and so she assumes he has something to hide. To find out more, she takes him to her home where she pretends to be the secretary to it's owner - really her mother, and sets about getting to the bottom of things where, of course, romance is only ever going to be just round the corner. With the fiancé on one side, the suspicious "Willie" and her disapproving mum all getting involved in her investigation, this amiably silly drama sets off down a path we've seen loads of time before. It's a bit as if auteur Christy Cabanne took the first part of one old script he found in the attic and put it together with another he found at the bottom of the gerbil's cage and so at times the plot overlaps and jars here. After the initial shenanigans settle down, it becomes a rather messy affair and the fairly lacklustre writing creates a story the cast can't really make too much headway with. That said, though, there is a decent rapport between O'Brien and Aldridge and the scene stealing Nancy June Robinson raises the whole spirit of the thing as the younger sibling "Patricia" who certainly has the best of the quips. It's a perfectly watchable afternoon comedy, but you'll never recall it.

PRC was a very tiny studio with the lowest of budgets. One big way they saved money was to pay their writers practically nothing for their scripts--and it's painfully obvious in "The Man Who Walked Alone". While I enjoyed the leading man, Dave O'Brien, he just couldn't make up for a script that was written for peanuts.

The film begins with O'Brien trying to thumb for a ride--and with no success. So, in desperation, he tries what an annoying farmer tells him--and jumps into the road at the next car. Well, it causes a minor accident and instant hatred erupts between the lady driver and O'Brien....and it was a cliché that the two would soon fall in love. But, in the meantime, some kooky things occur and they go to jail TWICE and yet they somehow have gone from hating the sight of each other to making eyes at each other--something that made no sense at all. In fact, the writer seemed to toss in many story elements--few that worked and the plot just seemed forced and quite contrived. None of it was believable or made sense--and I really couldn't wait for this ultra-cheapie to end.

This film is an amazing display of genius in story telling through motion pictures. Christy Cabanne wrote and directed this quiet masterpiece. This is one of those movies where no changes could be wanted in its structuring. The scenes follow at a perfect pace, not slow, and not too fast. The chosen actors bring to life the parts they were intended for. All were well chosen...especially Kay Aldridge who at last gets to show a fuller scope of her acting talent. The script has been composed with an intelligence that is far higher than most scripts. The interplay of banter has a natural tone common only to something composed with a high IQ. I would love to comment on the subtle representations in the film but this would end up a set of spoilers for one of the great achievements in an unusual story made believable in this superior production.

Dave "Tex" O'Brien has been one of my favorites for a long time. He is best known for his cowboy roles, and/or his hapless character in the "Pete Smith" shorts, but here he proved once and for all that He Was An Actor.

Kay Aldridge, best known for "Nyoka," proves to be adorable in her city-slicker role. She was not only lovely, with an expressive face, but she showed herself perfect as a poor little rich girl, who is pressured by her family and their wealth, and always urged to do the right thing -- which is what other people tell her, not what she decides.

There is an excellent cast, including Smith Ballew in a role of the type I've never seen him in before, and he too showed a side of himself that should have had casting directors lining up. Well, he did OK as a recording artist, so maybe that was enough for him. But, to me, he should have been in more movies.

Walter Catlett, Vivian Oakland, Guinn Williams and so many others helped make this PRC production one of the best ever to come from that studio, and absolutely worthy of any studio.

There is one other performer needing special attention: Nancy June Robinson played the precocious little sister, and she was a stand-out! I have seen very few actors her age who were so natural, so expressive, so controlled, yet she made only two movies, according to IMDb. What a shame!

Christy Cabanne, that veteran, was both director and one of the writers, and he deserves mountains of praise for both roles. The other writer, Robert Lee Johnson, and Cabanne produced a charming and often downright funny script, well performed at every level by some of the best character actors in Hollywood.

Frankly, this is not what I would expect from PRC, and perhaps shame on me, for it is thoroughgoing entertainment, produced near the end of World War II, showing some of the costs of that war, and presenting a lot of very likable people we'd enjoy knowing even better.

There is a print at YouTube with a few glitches (and those obnoxious YouTube commercials!) but "The Man Who Walked Alone" is such a joy, a real treasure, you probably won't notice anything but the movie itself.

I can see this is a series B movie, with the feel of a Hollywooed blockbuster. Acting is really good, and the story, although light, is really fun to watch. Found it by surprise, but could not get past it. It would be great to have the two lead actores rediscovered, specially the lady.