The Strip

If you like jazz, you'll like this one : there's a good part of this movie which takes place in Los Angeles' night-clubs with guest star Louis Armstrong. The story may look classical for a film noir, but the way it shows the story of a drummer penetrating in the underground world is surprising : watch it especially for the drum solos. Enjoyable !

Korea vet and aspiring drummer Mickey Rooney ('Quicksand') gets driven off the road by suave racketeer James Craig ('While The City Sleeps'). To compensate, Craig gives Rooney a job in his bookmaker's room. When the police bust in to the business, Rooney manages to escape and hitches a ride with Sally Forrest ('Mystery Street'), who works at a nightclub owned by William Demarest ('Night Has A Thousand Eyes'). Rooney pays the nightclub a visit and before he knows it, he's switched jobs from the bookie room to the drum kit and has fallen hard for Forrest. Forrest wants a movie career however, so Rooney introduces her to Craig, who has some contacts. But Craig isn't interested in helping Forrest, he just sees another pretty girl to add to his list of conquests. When Rooney confronts Craig about this things quickly fall apart, leading to Craig getting killed, and Forrest nearly dead, and Rooney as the prime suspect...

Told in flashback, the movie starts with the discovery of Forrest barely alive on her apartment floor, and during the investigation, the discovery of Craig's body and a gun. Rooney is brought in for interrogation, and he tells his side of the story in flashback. It all sounds like pure noir, until you see the movie, which is also in many ways a musical. Artists and musicians like Louis Armstrong, Vic Damone and Jack Teagarden are given plenty of time to play their music and sing their songs, as a large part of the movie plays out in nightclubs. In fact, one of the songs (sung by hatcheck girl Kay Brown) got the movie an Oscar nomination. Thankfully, unlike some noirs where musical interludes slow down the story, it works rather well here. And seeing Rooney and Forrest showing off their drumming and dancing skills respectively was way more fun than I expected, impressive stuff.

But a noir it still is, trust me. People use people and through the flashback structure, there is always tension under the surface as (part of) the outcome is already known to the viewer. And it has a bleak, downbeat, even ironic, ending that firmly establishes this as a noir. Performances are great across the board, helped by the well- written characters and dialogue. The main negative is that the directing by Laszlo Kardos ('The Tijuana Story') and cinematography by Robert Surtees ('Act Of Violence') is good but not very noir or imaginative. Still, that's only a minor quibble, this movie impressed me with its successful blending of noir and musical, the performances and the story. Recommended! 8/10

Rootless kid (Rooney) goes to LA, hooks up with a smooth-talking mobster (Craig) and an ambitious nightclub dancer (Forrest), and gets into trouble as a result.

Despite its odd parts, this little b&w adds up to a pretty entertaining whole. The numbers from jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden should please even those who don't much care for that style. Rooney of course is Rooney, a little man in a big man's world. No longer Andy Hardy, he was increasingly difficult to cast despite continuing popularity. Here his connection to mobster Craig is quite a stretch. Too bad the screenplay couldn't work out something more plausible. Nonetheless, his performances are never boring, plus he's a real firecracker on the drums.

And who's expert inspiration was it to stick roughneck William Demarist with the impossible name "Fluff". In my book, his avuncular nightclub owner walks off with the film. Sally Forrest makes for a convincingly ambitious Hollywood wannabe and romantic foil for Rooney. Looks like her movie misfortune was to be short and bouncy at a time when Debbie Reynolds was getting a hammerlock on spunk. Speaking of cute, did they have to make the wholesome girl (Kay Brown, I think) quite so achingly sweet and vulnerable.

Film is also a promo for nightspots along the Sunset Strip, where Vic Damone, for one, performs. And that's a few years before the big TV hit 77 Sunset Strip, which also exploited Hollywood nightlife. Location filming here adds atmosphere and a good glimpse of tinsel town, circa 1950 , along with the tuneful theme A Kiss to Build a Dream On. Anyway, in spite of real flaws, it's still an entertaining little film with a very appropriate ending.

There are things we can learn from the movies. Like in this movie we learn that if you have a girlfriend, it's probably not a good idea to introduce her to your mob buddy because he'll only steal her away from you. Besides the educational value of "The Strip", it is a true classic if only for all the drum solos it contains. I'm a big advocate of movies having lots of drum solos and Mickey Rooney's drumming is really showcased here. He's very good, and although the film suggests a downer noirish ending, ultimately Mickey's character "Stan" apparently gets to play in Louis Armstrong's band indefinitely, which strikes me as a great gig. It was fun to see William Demarest sit behind the drum kit too. Without the music interludes the story could have been told in about ten minutes, so the main reason to watch "The Strip" is for the music and dance numbers.

The Strip marked Mickey Rooney's return to MGM after he had left in 1948 and the property was considerably down from what he was used to. Still The Strip is a nifty little noir film from MGM's B Picture unit that managed to earn itself one Academy Award nomination.

In The Strip Mickey finds himself a returning Korean War veteran who wants to get back into civilian life and he meets up with gangster James Craig, a rather smooth individual who 'sells insurance'. Mickey works for him in some non-violent occupations and Craig actually lets him leave to pursue his real dream of being a drummer. But Mickey finds himself falling big time for Craig's girlfriend Sally Forrest and that's where his problems begin.

The film is structured like Mildred Pierce with Mickey hauled into police headquarters because one of the cast has been found murdered and another hanging on for dear life. He relates his story to detective Tom Powers and we see the tale unfold.

The Strip is also a nice look at the jazz club life in Los Angeles of that period. Where Rooney winds up working is William Demarest's jazz club on Sunset Boulevard better known as The Strip. The film also gives us an exhibition of one of Mickey Rooney's many talents, that of a drummer. He shows that if he pursued and concentrated on that he could have been another Buddy Rich or Gene Krupa. And the chance to jam with such people as Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden must have been what sold the Mick on doing this film.

Guest starring in The Strip are singers Vic Damone and Monica Lewis, but the best thing about The Strip is the song A Kiss To Build A Dream On. That was the last song written by the celebrated Tin Pan Alley duo of Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar. It was an unfinished theme because Kalmar had died a few years earlier. To finish the lyric Ruby called on none other than Oscar Hammerstein, II and the combined talents of those three people earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for 1951. It lost however to In The Cool Cool Cool Of The Evening, Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman's hit from Here Comes The Groom. Louis Armstrong made a big hit record of it back in that day, you could hear it on jukeboxes for years.

I'm sure it was of some satisfaction to Rooney that he made a small B film so much better with his incredible talent for his former home studio. That and a wonderful song attached to The Strip make it fine entertainment still.