Roses Are Red

This independent production which was fortunate enough to have 20th Century Fox pick it up for distribution has three leads that you've never heard of in Don Castle, Peggy Knudsen, and Patricia Knight. But the supporting cast is chock full of familiar character players who really make Roses Are Red work.

Castle plays the double role of a newly elected District Attorney and a lookalike crook hired by the big mob boss Edward Keane to impersonate the DA. Overseeing the operation is crooked homicide cop Joe Sawyer.

It was a really good plan and Keane though in a wheelchair hasn't lost any brain power being paralyzed. Only it doesn't quite work out for those who put it together. Knudsen who is a reporter and girlfriend of the DA and Knight who is the wife of the impersonator play key roles in putting Keane and his crooks.

With some name leads and better production values Roses Are Red would be far better known. But with Charles Lane as Keane's lawyer, Douglas Fowley as a would be stoolie, Charles McGraw and Jeff Chandler as some of Keane's muscle and James Arness as an honest cop you can't go wrong with this film.

Focuses on some characters, switched to another set including Duke Arno (Charles McGraw) hen, the story involving the DA and his doppelganger takes off, then, it quickly wraps up mentioning a Duke who is later offed. I had to do some research to find out who he was. Of course, I had watched the movie in two different viewings.

Compact, tough little noir with Don Castle playing a dual role as the new D.A. and a criminal who impersonates him. Complications ensue when the good guy then has to impersonate the bad guy -- but the bad guy's wife shows up. Joe Sawyer is effective playing against his normal type as a corrupt cop. Edward Keane plays the main bad guy, wheelchair-bound but still able to be dastardly. Good to see Jeff Chandler (on the bad side) and James Arness (on the good side) in small but effective roles. It moves fast, the story's not bad and the cast acquits itself well. This one's a rarity that I saw at the American Cinematheque film noir festival. Very much worth your time.

This is one of the movies made during the waning days of Sol Wurtzel's reign at Fox's B division. Don Castle plays a dual role: the newly elected DA and the newly released convict who looks just like him, so local Big Boss Edward Keane has a dark-haired Jeff Chandler kidnap the one and arrange for the other to study him for a substitution. However, they get into a fight, and Chandler shoots the wrong one, leaving Castle imitating himself imitating himself, while various subplots dead end against each other.

While 20th Century-Fox had the best B movies in the late 1930s and early 1940s, by the time this was made, they looked cheap; the long-time money-spinners like Charlie Chan and Jane Withers had gone, and the entire B division would be shut down within a year. Int he meantime, the pleasures available are watching older reliable actors like Paul Guilefoyle and Charles Lane (in a rare straight role) and untested youngsters like James Arness and Charles McGraw.

B-lister Don Castle doubles up here as a paroled hoodlum ("Carney") who bears a striking resemblance to the local DA ("Thorne"). When the latter is kidnapped, the plan is for him to be substituted by the felon who can then do the bidding of local kingpin, the wheelchair bound "Locke" (Edward Keane). Before they can implement their cunning plan, though, the prisoner manages to free himself and assumes the role of of his own would-be impersonator, and just in the nick of time too. Now it is up to "Thorne" to set a trap for the criminals and to avoid detection - especially perilous when the other man's wife (Patricia Knight) shows up. Surely she will spot the difference and turn him in? We've seen the plot once or twice before so we don't get anything new, but the story is still quite a quickly paced, watchable affair with Jeff Chandler curiously cast as the baddie's enforcer-in-chief. Joe Sawyer is also quite effective as the copper "Lt. Rocky" and despite the rather unhelpful title, it kills an hour well enough.