I Can't Escape

"I Can't Escape" is a perfect example of a good 1930s "B" movie -- short (about 65 minutes,) stylish, well-acted and frequently surprising. The star is Osgood Stevens who had the looks of a Gable but a weakness for booze which short-circuited his career. Opposite him -- and every bit as good -- is Lila Lee, thinly disguised as a prostitute until she meets Stevens and settles into happy domesticity. After getting out of jail and pounding the pavements, Stevens encounters a pair of swindlers who are happy to hire him as the perfect fall guy when they take off with their clients' cash. How he avoids another prison stretch is ingeniously plotted, excitingly filmed. In short, "I Can't Escape" is a fine example of what's meant by the phrase, "they don't make 'em like that anymore."

This earnest little quickie has the usual opening sequence in a nightclub and a climax set at an airfield to end the film with a wallop, and in between contrives to take a sober look at the problems faced by a young Onslow Stevens as an ex-con out on parole without references. It's sufficiently compelling to have you wondering how on earth its increasingly involved plot can possibly be resolved happily, and manages a conclusion that is contrived but satisfying. Released just days after the introduction of the new Production Code at the beginning of July 1934, it still retains the cheerful amorality and social conscience of that lost era, with the profession of the faded but still gorgeous Lila Lee being immediately obvious.

A dapper-looking Onslow Stevens meets up with Lila Lee. They fall in love and get married. He's on parole as the fall guy of a stock-swindle scheme, trying to go straight, but no one will give him a chance. Finally, Hooper Atchley and Otis Harlan hire him as a salesman for their investment house. They figure when they abscond with their clients' money, he'll take the rap.

It's directed by Otto Brower briskly, to the point of brusqueness, but Stevens and Miss Lee are quite charming in their scenes, as is Russell Gleason, searching for Stevens for ruining his father and driving him to suicide, searching for revenge. Clara Kimball Young shows up to acquit herself well as a widow whom Stevens unwittingly swindles, and while it's not a great movie, its short length keeps it watchable throughout.