La sirène des bas-Fonds

Virginia Mayo is a man trap in "Flaxy Martin," a 1949 noir starring Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone, Helen Westcott, and Tom D'Andrea.

Scott plays a mob lawyer Walter Colby, who's sick of the cases handed him by mobster Hap Ritchie (Douglas Kennedy). He's in love with Flaxy (Mayo), who is two-timing him with Hap, though Walter doesn't know that.

Flaxy talks him into staying until they have enough money to take off. When Walter finds out a witness (Westcott) was paid off to give an alibi to one of Hap's henchmen in a murder case, he threatens to go to the D. A. about it.

Before he knows it, with Flaxy's help, he's been framed for the witness' murder. He escapes from custody and, going on the run, meets Nora (Malone).

Compelling film with excellent performances by Mayo, Westcott, Malone, and Elijah Cook, Jr., as one of Hap's ruthless thugs.

Mayo is as cold as they come, sexy and convincing as she manipulates her men. It's always fun to see Tom D'Andrea, whom baby boomers remember as Gillis in "The Life of Riley" as well. He has a small role, but he's very good.

Zachary Scott is Zachary Scott - he has a strong film persona, a good speaking voice, and does tough well. He's not that slimeball Monty from "Mildred Pierce," though, just someone who works for a low-life.

Well worth seeing.

Odd little noir film with Virginia Mayo as the title character, a total conniving bitch! This must surely be Mayo's most unsympathetic character and shows that she was a better actress than we remember. She played so many "glamour" parts that we forget she could act.

Here she plays a moll working both sides of the fence. She's with a local racketeer (Douglas Kennedy) but also plays his lawyer (Zachary Scott) for a chump. Lots of murders here and there and plot twists aplenty.

Dorothy Malone plays the nice country girl, Tom D'Andrea is Sam the mechanic, Helen Westcott is the hapless Peggy, Elisha Cook plays the gunsel again, Marjorie Bennett is the nosy neighbor, Douglas Fowley is the detective, and Bill McLean is the hotel desk clerk.

Scott actually gets the most screen time because Mayo disappears while he has his country adventure and meets Malone. But everyone is good and works well together. While Malone is stuck in frilly frocks and aprons, Mayo does the glam bit and looks just great.

Aside from solid work from the trio of stars--Mayo, Scott, and Malone--D'Andrea and Westcott are very very good as well. For those of us who remember D'Andrea as the neighbor on The Life of Riley it's always pleasant to see what a good supporting actor he was. I'm not that familiar with Westcott but she is solid here as Peggy. And I always enjoy seeing Marjorie Bennett!!

Catch that great scene where Flaxy (Mayo) beats up a blackmailing Peggy, (Westcott) with the timid hotel clerk hovering outside the door. Big-eyed Westcott really delivers in spades. Too bad the rest of the movie fails to reach that intense level. Looks to me like Warner Bros. used the film as an A-team try-out for cast principals and director. Now, Scott, for one, comes through perfectly as the lawyer with a wobbly compass— I'm just sorry this fine, exotic actor never got the recognition his talent deserved. The material, however, with its nifty double- cross, really merited an A-team director, like Walsh or Curtiz. Instead, the studio gave featurette director Richard Bare a shot, and the result shows he had little feel for the dark material.

Unfortunately, the movie is inferior grade noir, lacking in both style and edge. Take the early scene where Walt (Scott) and Hap (Kennedy) iron out wrinkles in the plot to free Caesar (Overman) from a murder rap. They're standing stock still in Hap's living room, talking, and that's the trouble: they stand stock still for about two minutes doing little more than delivering their lines. Thus, a potentially dramatic scene of rivalry calling for an expressive dynamic falls flat, drained of needed energy and tension.

But Bare seems most at sea in directing the lead actresses. Mayo looks lost in her key scenes with Scott— the second side of Flaxy's devious personality, the calculating side, fails to appear, and thus we're left with a very pretty girl speaking the lines, but without the necessary depth. Catch Malone too in the graveside scene. She's an unsophisticated librarian staring into the open pit of her own doom, but judging from the absence of needed emotion, she might as well be reading a book. Now, Malone later proved a fine actress of many dimensions, (e.g. Written on the Wind {1955}). Here, however, she's stuck in a thankless good girl role, so likely director Bare is at fault for not giving her the necessary cues. I suspect the movie would have improved had actresses Malone and Mayo switched roles.

Then too, Walt's sudden turn-around with 40 grand in his pocket is awkwardly handled. Even an A-grade filmmaker would have trouble making this bit of Production Code hokum believable, but in Bare's hands it comes across as little more than a clumsily developed happy ending. Thus, it's not surprising that the studio returned the director to making the humorous shorts he was so good at following this failed experiment. I also better understand why editors Silver and Ward omitted this entry from their highly successful tome Film Noir. Unfortunately, the movie may have all the trappings of the genre, but like bread dough in the hands of a neophyte baker, the loaf simply fails to gel.

... as almost everybody in this noir makes terrible choices that make no sense. It seems to be the grand champion of bad decisions in noir, just like The Big Sleep is the undisputed champion of indecipherable plots.

The plot is involved but inane but I'll try to explain. Lawyer Walter Colby (Zachary Scott) represents mobster Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy) and is in love with the titular Flaxy Martin (Virginia Mayo). But Flaxy is just using Colby so she can get information for Hap. Flaxy's only true love will always be money. Colby gets tired of the illegal dealings of Hap - just what was he expecting? - and tells Hap he is quitting AND going to the police about some perjury that ocurred.. Bad decision number one. The mob doesn't like people who quit or inform. When Flaxy is implicated in a murder -because she was involved AND allowed herself to be seen - she goes to Colby. Colby foolishly decides to confess to the killing himself but claim it was self defense. The mob can't believe the beauty of its situation and pays off another witness to say he saw Colby kill the girl and that it was not self defense.

On the way to prison, Colby knocks the cop accompanying him unconscious and hopes he actually has the key to the handcuffs on him - he does - and then escapes. A mousy woman sees Colby unconscious on the side of the road (Dorothy Malone as Nora Carlson) and, knowing he is an escaped prisoner convicted of murder, just thinks he has such a darned honest face that she takes him home and shields him anyways. Can you count all of the bad decisions here? From that point I'd say watch and find out if you want to know how it ends. But just let me say that the ending depends on being able to lock somebody INSIDE of their own apartment from the outside. I can't believe that the fire marshal would be OK with this.

I don't know why this film was named after character Flaxy Martin since she actually is not on the screen that much of the time. It's rather ironic that it is Dorothy Malone who is the real lead actress, still with her brown hair and playing the nice girl. Because Malone will later transition to blonde and play the kind of characters in the 50s that Mayo played in the 40s. Actually, Elisha Cook Jr. Is probably on camera just as much if not more than Mayo, and that is fine because he is a joy to watch, playing a very determined homicidal maniac who seems to love his work.

In spite of the goofy plot, this really is fun to watch with lots of good noir atmosphere, themes, and action.

This film starts with overconfident Scott foolishly taking the fall for Virginia Mayo. He ends up in prison and subsequently escapes. He ends up on the run and virtual stranger Dorothy Malone decides to upend her life and follow him.

Strange plot, strange character motivations make this unbelievable, yet it is still entertaining as a B noir.