The Boss

This was much better than the late-night potboiler I had expected. Payne was playing such a vile character that his performance seemed a bit forced at times, but I can see why he did this picture since the portrayal is a bit different from most of his roles He's up to the stretch, and should have done more dramatic work and fewer formulaic westerns & cop/investigator parts. More plots and subplots than we're used to in this period, and it all works. Dalton Trumbo's heavyhanded anticapitalism, thoroughly-corrupt-government motif is a bit much, but that was the popular theme amongst the leftie writers of the period, much as it is even today.

In trying to jumpstart itself, this movie is somewhat heavy handed at the beginning, taking one notably big and questionable dramatic risk, but gains power slowly and turns into something of a monumental mini-epic with John Payne's changes of hair coloring registering his slow and merciless journey toward a godless end...what a performance, but it's not as good as Gloria McGehee's as the unwanted wife Lorry - which is about as good as you'll ever see from an actress on screen, period. Also great is Robin Morse as Johnny the Organization Man, a wonderful low key performance...where has this movie been all our lives? It's powerful, at times difficult to watch, brutal, and worth the ride.

Lazy writing and directing. John Payne overacts to try to compensate. Payne was losing his fight with Hollywood and the bottle by the time this part came around.

There is no insight into what drives the main character, so you really don't have any hate or sympathy for him. You just can't wait for the inevitable end.

The Boss (1956)

This is kind of a great movie, a surprise to me, and with some stunning performances, great photography, and a sterling script (thanks to Dalton Trumbo). See it.

While the acting and visuals are going to get you immediately, the script will sneak up on you if you are paying attention. This is a movie begging to play with clichés, and it avoids them. Don't get me wrong, a mob boss in a small city is going to play tough and have cronies and the like. It's a good crime movie, for sure, and believable enough.

But there is, for example, no femme fatale (this is probably not a noir, strictly speaking, even if the dark crime mood makes you think so, but there are lots of noir characters and attitudes). The movie begins a bit off-kilter, I think, but if you think of it as a set-up for what a normal life would have been for the main character, it's necessary.

You see, Matt Brady (played brilliantly by John Payne) is a returning soldier with hopes of marriage as he marches in the opening parade. But then he gets drunk that first night home and things go very south. In another turn (not explained much) he starts rising up as a political and crime figure, becoming the big cheese.

This sounds like a Cagney or Robinson movie from the early 1930s, I suppose, and this movie is set in the 1920s for the most part, as well. But it has a different feel to it, and if you like those kinds of movies you need to give this a try. In addition to a friendly sidekick and his wife, who are regular sorts, there is a whole array of criminal types played well, with flavor but not exaggeration.

Why isn't this more well known? One reason is distribution--the only copy that I know of is a decent visual transfer with terrible sound (on Netflix). If Criterion took this up (or anyone, but I don't think a big studio owns it), it would glisten and be a late great example of its type, coming in the mid-50s as this kind of film was seeing its last days.

Payne, by the way, might be thought of as underrated--he certainly pours it on here, emotionally--and most of the movies I've seen him in he's a compelling type ("Kansas City Confidential" and "99 River Street") though he's a different and more boring guy in "Miracle on 34th Street." Here, the strong and silent type (Gary Cooper style) doesn't get carried too far. He bursts out at times, and has good physical energy on the screen. He might not be handsome enough for Hollywood, but that's a matter of taste, and tastes change.

John Payne worked hard to overcome his image as a handsome leading man by turning to more character-like roles in the 1950s, and actually producing a few films. He was effective, but like anyone else, he needed a good direction.

"The Boss" from 1956, written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo under the name of Ben Perry, could have used such a director. Based on the story of Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast, it tells the story of this powerful man whose reign lasted from the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II.

Some of this is fiction, and some is fact. The personal life situation is fictional. In this film, the main character, Matt Brady (Payne) marries a woman, Lorry (Gloria McGehee) described by him as a "beat up alley cat" one night while drunk and after being rejected by his true love Elsie (Doe Avedon). All we hear about in this movie is how homely Lorry is, when in fact, at 35, she's a few years older than Doe Avedon and good-looking. To me it was bad casting. Maybe I missed a second head or something.

Brady is a crooked politician who steps on his enemies (including a country club where he was blackballed) and, as he rises in power, uses anything and everything to get his way and wangle big profits for himself. It's a well-oiled machine and includes his best friend, Bob Herrick (William Bishop) and others he can control. Eventually, though, things catch up with him.

"The Boss" is somewhat overblown, with Payne yelling through most of it, when he isn't drunkenly punching somebody out. It's way over the top, and I for one lost interest in the story quickly.

Not really much to recommend this. Doe Avedon, who plays Elsie, was the inspiration for the Audrey Hepburn character in "Funny Face."