Cinq millions dans une poubelle

Joe Miracle returns from World War 2 to find that his San Francisco nightclub has been taken over by the mob. To get even he steals $100,000 from the club and plans to leave the country. He hides out in a settlement and falls in love but can he stay out of danger?

Set at Christmas, but not a festive film as such, this is an entertaining offering despite the ambiguous ending. Glenn Ford stars as the veteran who develops a conscience and the principled head of the settlement is played by Evelyn Keyes.

I see from other reviews that some viewers are troubled by this film's failure to fall squarely into the comedy or noir genres. Maybe that's why I like it, for isn't life a mixture of comedy and tragedy? My interest didn't flag during the movie as I found it fresh and original and the plot twists unpredictable. I'm not a big Glenn Ford fan but he hits this nail squarely on the head. Even though his Joe Miracle is more accurately a victim than a baddie, he has been sucked into the world of crime and violence. Can the beautiful Jenny Jones redeem him, and can he even survive? It's lineball all the way. Evelyn Keyes is just lovely to look at, and there's lots of character actors doing their bit, some of them only children. I'm going off to do a bit of research on who wrote it and who directed it. They deserve kudos. Surprisingly good entertainment.

Here is a strange movie. Depending on what part you are tuned into, you may be watching a gangster movie with vintage Depression-era wise-guy chatter, or a heart-touching true-meaning-of-Christmas film, or a comic variation on a "Crazy House"-type theme, featuring scenes with eccentric characters pontificating weirdly. Then I saw that there were two directors, so maybe that is why the film shifts so much.

Not that it is bad. On the contrary, "Mr. Soft Touch" is quite an entertaining movie, with a fast-paced script that barely ever pauses to catch its breath. The reason this film works for me is that Glenn Ford so easily slides from film-noir to romance to comedy and back and forth again. A very interesting role for Glenn, perhaps inadvertently given a chance here to show how versatile he could be.

Evelyn Keyes plays an interesting character as well. It is unusual for a film made in what was still the 1940's to feature a character who so openly refers to, and sometimes uses manipulatively, a handicap such as deafness; the references to the hearing aid may make a modern viewer a little uncomfortable.

The only character who seems out of place is John Irelands's crusading reporter. He wears a pair of dark-framed, "please don't hit me" glasses, which don't seem right for some reason. His character is perhaps a good guy, perhaps not; we never really find out, and in the end, neither we nor the directors seemed to care. Just not sure how he really fits in.

From a social standpoint, "Mr. Soft Touch" presents an up-close and intimate look at private charity in the days before the government took over that role. We get a chance to spend quality time with those caring souls who fought tirelessly against an endless shortage of money and supplies, and who believed that it was worth helping people, even if it was only one person at a time. No one in this movie whines about getting a check from the government.

The bottom line, then, is that you have a film that is part "Little Caesar", part "Its a Wonderful Life", part "Bowery Boys", and part "You Can't Take it with You". If you accept the genre-changes that occur haphazardly throughout the film as all part of the fun, then you can have yourself an enjoyable hour and a half in the company of "Mr. Soft Touch".

The credentials for a superb Noir are all there: Glenn Ford has been one of the most convincing (and still strangely unsung) anti-heroes American cinema has produced. The wonderful opening sequence (in which Ford escapes both the police and the mob) is as minimalistic ally brilliant as the seemingly tight budget would have allowed. Yet after only a short while the film's tone changes radically: sweeter music, romantic comedy and a (however underplayed) Christmas tear-jerker emerge from what promised to be a crisp, economic little masterpiece.

I'm not saying the uneven pacing ruin the film completely but my suspicion is, looking at the credits (no, I don't mean the cast which features a wonderfully noir-ish array of characters: Evelyn Keyes, John Ireland, Ted de Corsia) there are TWO directors (one made good noirs with Ford, the other made Rat Pack flicks with Sinatra, Davis Jr, Martin et al), TWO directors of photography...

For what it's worth my guess is the producer got cold feet and hired a second director to save (a lame comedy? a routine noir?) a product he wasn't very happy with. He probably made a mistake...

I was expecting a crime drama, maybe even a noir...what I wasn't expecting was a holiday film just shy of a holiday romance. WWII veteran Joe Miracle comes home to find a gangster has killed his best friend and business partner and taken over their night club. Joe has an inspired idea and steals the money out of the nightclub safe, although as one reporter put it...it is not exactly stealing if it is your money. With both the gangster with his men and the police after him, Joe seeks out first an old friend. There, he is mistaken for the friend and almost arrested if not for the interference of citizen do-gooder Jenny Jones. She offers up an alternative to arrest on Christmas Eve, counseling at the settlement home...but when Joe discovers the boat ticket his friend purchased for him isn't for another day and a half, he decides that a good place to hide might be in jail with his new mistaken identity. He proceeds to ring a bell and create a ruckus until the police return and arrest him. Unfortunately, Jenny Jones ends up interfering with the judge once again...which is how Joe ends up staying at the settlement home where he is put to work decorating for their upcoming Christmas party.

With bell ringing Santa's, Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, bells and a Christmas choir singing Christmas carols...this was a surprisingly festive holiday film. There is an overall moral message and a romance...the only thing I was surprised by was the ending it didn't quite match the overall holiday cheer. I loved the interaction between Joe and the boys in the Settlement house, but my favorite scene besides the bell-ringing one was the boys cutting down a Christmas tree in the park.

This is recommendation from me, while not my favorite crime drama it was fun to have a holiday offering in the genre.