Une blonde dangereuse

Dorothy Patrick shows up in town to marry the guy who sent her a ring. He's not at the train station to meet her. In fact, he's just reported a robbery at his jewelry store, put in a claim for insurance, paid off his bookie, Gerald Mohr, and disappeared. Marrying girls for their money was one of his rackets, but his disappearance causes District Attorney Robert Rockwell to arrest her. Mohr bails her out, gives her a job, and makes a play for her. Even though the evidence against her is flimsy, Rockwell tells her that if she wants off, she'll have to provide information on Mohr. Otherwise, news of her trial will be very embarrassing to her family back in Kansas. But she's come to love Mohr, and he's asked her to marry him.

It's a soft-hearted tale of the rackets, where the bad guys, it turns out, are the cops on the take, and Mohr loves his old Italian mama, Argentina Brunetti. There are a few holes that puzzled me while watching it, like the title, and a telephone that's ripped out of the wall, but works perfectly for the bad guys, but it's an interesting upside-down sort of film noir from Republic Pictures that has a pleasant air to it.

Dorothy Patrick (Gloria) is blackmailed into working for the police to get evidence against gangster Gerald Mohr (Joe). Unfortunately, for them she falls in love with him and doesn't want to play ball. Good for her.

This film has the opposite effect of what I suspect was intended. I rooted for the love affair between Patrick and Mohr to succeed and against the police as headed by Robert Rockwell, who incidentally should not be top-billed. This film belongs to Dorothy Patrick.

The story is not too bad - ruined somewhat by the Code that was in place concerning any bad behaviour needing to be punished. It could have gone in a much better direction. The cast are also good except for a standard annoying portrayal of an Italian mama by Argentina Brunetti.

The quality of the film is not great and had it been given a bigger production could have been something very good. It is good for what it is - a short film. Patrick does well to deny Rockwell his devious ploy but we all know that good has to defeat bad. It shouldn't have been the case with this film.

A nice little item from 1950, the movie tells the tale of a good girl who does some bad things who gets involved with a bad guy quite capable of doing good things. The plot is nicely developed for a Republic B, and the lead actors, Gerald Mohr and Dorothy Patrick, are surprisingly effective. Mohr is particularly good in the sort of Bogart role he could obviously handle quite well but was scarcely ever permitted to do. For once he is well cast.

The film has at times deeper emotional qualities than its makers perhaps realized at the time. For all the plot machinations one comes to care a good deal for the two major characters. As their story unfolds their romance is so credible that the movie seems to have gone from being a crime picture to a romance. Most crime films have some romantic interludes in them, but The Blonde Bandit is so carried away by them that it becomes, for a while, another kind of movie altogether. When it reverts, in the end, to its generic form, one is almost as heartbroken as the fictional characters over what has become of them.

Harry Keller was known for being a solid western director in the fifties, such as DAY OF THE BAD MAN, QUANTEZ, SEVEN WAYS FROM SUNDOWN.... But he also began for Republic Pictures, as Thomas Carr, RG Sprinsteen. This one is amusing, fast paced but not a gritty crime film either. You have romance, action, nothing really exctiting, just a rare little gem for movie goers and Harry Keller's stuff searchers. Keller also gave us UNGUARDED MOMENT, a drama with criminal element, but not a crime film. So, this one is not a bad film, just a curiosity because it is made by a western provider. A very gifted one.

because the only thing the "Blonde Bandit" steals is the heart of a gangster. Dorothy Patrick plays Gloria Dell, a girl who comes to the big city from Kansas to be married to a guy she's never met before, but has been corresponding with for quite some time. He never shows up at the train depot, so she heads off to his return address on his letters, armed with a photo. She gets there and discovers the guy is a con artist who has been marrying and bilking women for quite some time. Fortunately, he was picked up by the cops that morning. Not so fortunately, she doesn't have the money for a return ticket home. The owner of the bar, Joe Sapelli (Gerald Mohr), tells her about a jeweler who will buy her ring from her and thus she can get the return money home. What she doesn't know is that the jeweler owes a big gambling debt to Sapelli, and after the transaction he claims the jewelry store was robbed by Gloria, hoping for an insurance pay-off that will cover his gambling debt.

The police pick up Gloria and jail her, not buying her story. Who comes to her aid? The gambling mastermind Sapelli who gets her out on bail and gives her his own attorney, believing her story and feeling partially responsible for sending her to the jeweler in the first place. He also gives her a job as his assistant while she is awaiting trial and the two begin to fall for each other. It turns out Sapelli is not such a bad guy - he has old fashioned notions about marriage, loves his mother, and just seems to be providing a service - gambling - that people would do anyways.

The whole thing made me wonder - Where was head censor Joe Breen when this script crossed the censors' desk? It pretty much busts the production code wide open - not in a sexual way, but in the way criminals and law enforcement were portrayed during the code. Here Sapelli is practically Sir Lancelot in his nobility in sacrificing for Gloria. It is law enforcement that you want to hiss at because they are determined to get Sapelli, even though he is kingpin of a victimless crime and seems to treat his employees - the bookies - quite well. The bookies even get bonuses if they get picked up by the police while in the service of Sapelli.

In contrast, D.A. James Deveron is completely unconcerned with Gloria's guilt or innocence. He just seems to be happy to have someone who is up against it (Gloria) and in Sapelli's good graces whom he can strong-arm into ratting Sapelli out so he can get a case against him. He doesn't seem to care about what might happen to Gloria if she was found out, and Deveron threatens her with the news of her arrest getting back home to Kansas where her sister is about to marry into a prominent family. Like Oz's Tin Man, Deveron really needs to wish for a heart.

I highly recommend this little B film with B players who all acquit themselves marvelously in a rather complex little crime drama that will keep you guessing up to the end. It's an interesting little code buster that hits all of the right notes.