Double Jeopardy

Actress PAULA KYLE, who was originally from Toronto, Canada, moved to Hollywood and became a star...or at least she thought she was. After leaving Canada in her XKE Jag, she landed many small roles and fizzled away in obscurity like so many other "B" grade actresses. Fabulous legs and blonde hair made her a natural for a career in modelling and some movies. Larry Anderson.

Robert ("King Kong") Armstrong gets this very dull Republic Pictures movie off to a promising start playing a drunken low-life who gives his wife Gale Robbins a hard time. Unfortunately, it's all downhill after that opening reel.

The script by Don Martin (when I see that name I immediately think of the great Mad Magazine cartoonist, but this writer offers nothing in the way of entertainment) is bland, with an uninteresting central premise of John Litel as a real estate developer with a dark secret. His daughter is played by the great B-movie superstar Allison Hayes, who should be cast as a femme fatale but is wasted here as a "good girl".

She's going to marry lawyer Rod Cameron. Instead of a film noir hero, he is almost a Dudley Do-Right goody two-shoes hero, so boring I simply was waiting for him to earn his paycheck with a tiny bit of acting. Worse yet, Jack Kelly as a one-dimensional bad guy is preposterous casting of that so likable future Maverick who did so many cool & smooth leading roles on TV for series like Kraft Suspense Theatre.

The "who cares?" quotient for this picture is nearly 100%.

It's a noir all right, but you can feel the increasing hollowness of the decline and impending fall of the noirs, at least of the great noirs. This is a small aftermath, and although well directed and well acted with terrific music as well, the classic enthusiasm and atmosphere of the noirs is gone, as the television was taking over the attention of the audiences, and the companies were getting broke from lack of audiences, having little left to afford for great noirs. The greatest actor here is Gale Robbins as the woman spider at the centre of the web, causing all the intrigues. She is perfectly lovely, you can't resist her charm, and you can well understand the obsession with her of both her men, her miserable drinking husband and her young dashing lover. The film is worth watching for her sake, and the intrigue could have been made into something by someone like Hitchcock, but here time and money truncate the possibilities.

Double Jeopardy is a Republic crime drama that seldom makes even the most inclusive lists of film noir, even though, in all its grunginess, it's a little better than many that do make the cut. Its director, R. G. Springsteen, churned out umpteen dozen forgotten horse operas (and his most notorious credit was The Red Menace). That doesn't inspire confidence, but he does more than a passable job on a passable story.

`Stumblebum' Robert Armstrong hasn't worked for years, but manages keep himself in whiskey and occasionally to pay rent on the one-room flat he and his unfaithful wife (Gale Robbins) share with the $500 bucks he gets every month from a mysterious stranger. Meanwhile, on the much better side of the tracks, the stranger (John Litel) is putting together the financing for a new housing development but, to the bafflement of his lawyer and future son-in-law (Rod Cameron), won't consider low-interest government loans.

Their two worlds, existing in uneasy truce, collide when Robbins, conspiring with her used-car-salesman lover (Jeff Calder), goads Armstrong into strong-arming Litel for a big payoff (when he gets it, the adulterous couple plan run off to Mexico together). But in the deserted canyon where blackmailer and victim had their rendezvous, Armstrong's body is found inside a wrecked car; Litel is charged with his murder. Cameron starts sniffing around to find the truth in what the police think is an open-and-shut case.

There's a fair amount of crummy atmosphere in this low-rent, late noir, abetted by a seasoned cast of Hollywood B-movie veterans (Minerva Urecal as a meddlesome landlady and Dick Elliott as Calder's boss Happy Harry also appear). It's no Double Indemnity, but it passes the time.

When real estate developer Emmett Devery (John Little) is charged with the murder of his alcoholic, unhappily married, former business associate (Robert Armstrong) who had been shaking him down to keep quiet about past dealings, his lawyer and future son-in-law Marc Hill (Rod Cameron) steps in to prove his innocence. Hill and his fiancé (Allison Hayes) try to unravel an extortion scheme launched by Armstrong and his gold-digging wife (Gale Robbins)

Double Jeopardy was helmed by veteran Republic Pictures director R. G. Springsteen. Springsteen who was better known for directing a string of Republic B-Western programmers, most notably the Rocky Lane series, does a good job in this gritty crime drama. Complete with blackmail, murder and duplicity, Double Jeopardy has the all the elements of later cycle noir. While the director, cast and crew do a nice job, the point A to point B script and short run time doesn't provide for much mystery or suspense.

By the mid 1950's Republic Pictures had been beset with a financial downturn due to the growing popularity television. Republic had dropped the number of productions down to almost half of what it was only a few years before. Bogged down by it's low budget, even by Republic standards, Double Jeopardy, while technically competent, just doesn't ever seem to be able to get much traction, making for a passable but nondescript movie.

5 of 10*