Le secret d'argile

Stylish B starring William Gargan and two TV moms - Barbara Billingsley and Marjorie Lord, along with John Banner, and Ralph Byrd.

Similar to the Maltese Falcon, Gargan is Harry Mitchell, a newspaperman who is singled out among a bunch of newspapermen at the hospital to see an injured reporter. The reporter gives him an album cover for "The Argyle Album" but before he can say much more, he is dead, supposedly from a heart attack. Rip back the covers and there's a knife in his heart. Mitchell takes off.

The Argyle Album is an album with the names of people who profited from the war, traitors and people who made deals feathering their nests no matter who won.

Everyone is after it, including Lord and a gang of tough guys. Barbara Billingsley plays the dead reporter's secretary.

There were some neat things in this - spiral effects with swirls when Mitchell is knocked unconscious; and the cop who comes home, says goodbye to Mitchell, a former neighbor, and then opens the newspaper to his wanted photo on the front page.

Reminiscent of another fast talker, Lee Tracy, Gargan's voice box was removed in 1958 due to cancer, and from thereon he had an artificial voice box. While it stopped his career, he became an anti-cancer spokesperson for the American Cancer Association, living for another 21 years.

Everyone wants the argyle papers that have the names of nazi sympathizers on them and could be used as blackmail. A reporter searches them out and gets caught up in a web of betrayals.

This is basically just a redo of the Maltese Falcon on a low budget with no names. It's not bad at all and is entertainingly brief. It's just by the book and uninteresting. What was the deal with everyone calling the lead youngster and new kid when he's clearly 50 years old?

Guy goes to look for the papers, gets captured, hears exposition, escapes, rinse repeat. Kind of bleh when you get right down to it, but it's nice to see that it's stayed alive after disappearing for so long.

Very rare low-budget film from director Endfield (Zulu) plays like a not-bad student film version of The Maltese Falcon-- the supporting performances aren't always convincing but there are nice touches of visual imagination and good pacing.

If, like Ben Mankewiecz the other night, I were to extol the tragic, shamefully HUAC truncated career of writer/director Cy Enfield, this agressively ordinary murder/espionage mystery with way too much dull narration and a rather flat acting job by lead William Gargan would not be my first choice as evidence. Think I'd go with either "Zulu" or "Hell Drivers" instead. Still, it's always nice to see the future June Cleaver get clocked and Enfield brings the thing in at under seventy minutes, which is almost always a plus in these kinds of el cheapo Saturday matinee type deals. C plus.

... and not his best movie by far : very talkative, dull casting, no rhythm, only a few good scenes in an hour movie that lacks a real script. Cy Enfield would do a much lot better two years later with "The Underworld Story" and "The Sound Of Fury", in 1957 with "Hell Drivers" and of course in 1964 with "Zulu", strong movies with real casting. But forget this dull "Argyles Secrets".