La voleuse

This "B" movie fails to rise above its budgetary restrictions, but still entertains. In essence, it gives you a villain you love to hate.

Margie Foster (June Havoc) loses her job and becomes desperate to make ends meet, especially if she wants to be a good girl. She runs into a woman named Pearl (Iris Adrian), who shows her how to make money via theft. Margie then tries to turn her life around, leaving San Francisco for Los Angeles, where she finds a job waitressing. She makes some good friends and builds a stable life.

Then she meets Mitch Moore, played with delicious unctuousness by Cesar Romero. She fails to see through his façade of caring and pays the price. Besides Romero's solid performance, Lon Chaney, Jr. Is very watchable as Mitch's sidekick, Gus.

This is no noir classic, but it is like watching a train wreck. The viewer can anticipate almost every development. Most of the film is told in flashback, to explain how Margie comes to her final condition. And it is done seamlessly.

However, some of the acting lacks verisimilitude. And the film's score is melodramatic, intrusive and overcooked---more like what you might expect in an episode of "Dragnet".

A shoplifter (June Havoc ) tries to go straight but falls for the wrong man (Cesar Romero).

This a low budget but watchable crime film, directed by Billy Wilder's brother W. Lee Wilder. He seems to be trying to imitate his brother's films like "Double Indemnity" and it is all told in flashback. Havoc is very good in the lead and Romero oozes sleaze as the womanizing bookie. The real reason I wanted to see this was because I am big Lon Chaney Jr fan and was trying to see as many of his films as I could. It was a little disappointing since he is just playing another Lennie type role from "Of Mice And Men" but he does get a bit more screen time then he usually got in 1950s films. He adds a clever bit to his character where he constantly holds his eyeglasses by the ear piece in his mouth. This is worth seeing if you like gritty B movies of this era, plus there is some nice on location shooting in seedy Los Angeles.

1950's "Once a Thief..." is enhanced by its low budget status, populated by small time chiselers and hoods, and the women who fall for them. Top billing goes to Cesar Romero as Mitch Moore, the same kind of cad role he'd been playing since his film debut in 1934's "The Thin Man." June Havoc, younger sister of Gypsy Rose Lee, is the latest moll to fall for his charms, after doing time for petty theft (she soon gave up an unspectacular movie career for the stage and television). Lon Chaney is a pleasant surprise as Gus, who runs a gambling den behind a dry cleaners, who may be a crook but has the heart that others lack. Still echoing his lovable Lennie from "Of Mice and Men," and yet another example of how his career continuously received a boost from his typecasting. The girls who aren't jailed wind up dead; alas, Marie 'The Body' McDonald, in one of her last roles, committed suicide at 42 in 1965, her tabloid coverage far greater than any of her movies. It's an honestly gritty title from director W. Lee Wilder, older brother of Billy Wilder, whose films are mostly guilty...of boring the audience.

Here is Cesar Romero as the ultimately garish but smooth cad(driving a Cadillac on the repo list to boot) who is out for what he can get and getting away with it for most of this tacky but tantalizing little opus. Poor June Havoc is the harried heroine who gets hooked up with the wrong people with virtually every turn she makes.

Marie Mcdonald('The Body'coined by some overheated, trench-coated Hollywood press agent) plays "Flo" the virtuous girl next door yet she still radiates a measure of OOOOMPH! on screen.

Made on a frayed shoelace budget, this film still uses its minimal set pieces to the max. The dialogue is as strong as a scalding pot of coffee bubbling on a hot plate. Watch out for Lon Chaney,Jr. as Romero's 'yes man' with a heart. Iris Adrian as the girl who leads June Havoc down the wrong path almost steals the show as well.

ONCE A THIEF is like cheap perfume. Packaged properly, one whiff and you're hooked. Give it ***(out of **** stars).

The bit actors with two lines speak like zombies. The score is intermittent and overwrought. The plot is set in motion by a voice-over, and then stupidly recapitulated by actors. Yet this movie is a tough film noir about how ex-shoplifter June Havoc gets dragged down by cheap, chiseling, womanizer Cesar Romero, and it works because he is such a dull, cheap thug, living off little people who hope for something decent and nice. He sucks them dry and throws them away and walks off, thinking he's smart because he only plays the sure thing.

Producer-Director W. Lee Wilder (brother of Billy Wilder) clearly did everything in this production to make it as cheaply as possible, but the three leading actors (Havoc, Romero and Marie McDonald) and the script are good enough to overcome him. Fans of old movies will be pleased to see perpetual dumb cop Fred Kelsey as a desk sergeant.