Lately I have been watching some old b’s that echo film critic Pauline Kael’s view that a “movie doesn’t have to be great… you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line”.
Robert Rossen’s first directing effort Johnny O’Clock (1947) – and he wrote the script – is a strange bird. The movie has a weird disconnected ambience that harkens back to Von Sternberg’s The Shanghai Gesture (1941). It is almost surreal in its distance from what happens inside the frame. Dick Powell leads as the junior partner in a gambling joint, reprising the hard-boiled persona he adopted in Cornered (1945) and Murder, My Sweet (1944). Add a murder, a conniving business partner, two dames, a crooked cop, and an honest cop, and you have a fairly solid mystery thriller that keeps you guessing. Rossen’s camera is nervous as you would expect in a novice effort, and keeps making jumpy moves and self-conscious pans, but he keeps the scenario taught. The dialog is both street-wise and poetic, and delivered with Powell’s signature take-it-or-leave-it. But the “joy” as Kael put it is in the performances, which are full-on engaging. Powell’s partner in racket is a paranoid Thomas Gomez, whose wife has the hots for Powell, and who is not interested. The wife is brassy and beautifully played by Ellen Drew. We have a delightfully world-weary wise-cracking cigar-chewing Lee J. Cobb as a cop. The icing on the cake is the wonderful Evelyn Keyes as the love interest. She is totally beguiling, as only she knows how.
Mickey Rooney’s first noir entry Quicksand (1950) is an ok programmer that moves quickly but predictably to a hackneyed redemption ending. Rooney is a mechanic who gets mixed up with a dangerous floozy and as the title implies gets ever deeper into a spiralling mess after “borrowing” 20 bucks from his boss’s cash register. Rooney does fairly well but his voiceovers have an unfortunate ‘duh’ quality that border on the risible. The hidden treasures here are Peter Lorre’s cameo as a shady penny arcade operator and Jeanne Cagney as the floozy. The veteran and the bit-player deliver in equal measure.
In Time Table (1956) Mark Stevens, who was so good in The Dark Corner (1956), is an insurance dick assigned to investigate a train heist. There are sufficient twists and turns to keep you interested, and one twist totally out of left field just about knocks your socks off. Stevens also helmed in this his second director job after Cry Vengeance (1954). While the picture never goes beyond its b agenda, Stevens and his veteran DP Charles Van Enger deliver at the end with a gripping shadowy South of the border shoot-out on the streets of Tijuana.
FilmsNoir.Net 
Sounds like we have a trio here that are redeemed by performances, not at all surprised in view of the brilliant thespians who inhabit the frames in each. I do think that Kael is right when she opines that plenty of B films are far better than the general perception made by those who regularly ignore components for “the whole.” But if the whole includes some mitigating attributes, well then I think many of these kinds of films are overdue for re-appraisal. In any event, nice to see Rooney featured, and JOHNNY O’CLOCK is definitely a classic. Excellent piece here!!!
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First off,Thanks for a great web-page!
I´ve tried to get the up-dates to my email as “subscribe” but for some reason it´s not working…
Anyway,
The penny arcade scenes in “Quicksand”are indeed very good,it´s what I remember from that movie.And I can only agree with the sentiment that many B-pictures are wonderful,right up there in any “Best of”ranking
Have just finished watching Jean Gabin as Maigret in “Maigret tend un piege”,directed by Jean Delannoy,English title “Maigret sets at trap”,I think.
It´s got a pretty strong “Noir”feel,I must say.
The ending was not much of a surprise since I´ve read the book but although Delannoy is not highly rated( it seems),he turns in a good picture with this one,with a very “Noir” rain falling on old Jules as he walks away at the end,breaking the very french tensión that marks the story.
Thanks again Tony for your good work!
T
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Thanks Big Swede 🙂 Sorry for the delay in responding – I have been on sabbatical. I will have to check out Maigret tend un piege.
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Thanks for the words on these three. I’ve been wanting to see Johnny O’Clock since I first saw the notes on it. If Powell is as good in that one as he was in Cornered, it’s worth it. If Tommy Gomez gives a performance that’s anywhere close to the one he gave in Force of Evil, it’s gotta be worth it. Problem is, I can’t find it anywhere! Time Table looks like a winner, too. Quicksand I’ve seen. Let’s face it, Rooney was just not cut out for the darkness.
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Hi Rob. Sorry for the delay in responding – I have been on sabbatical. Johnny O’Clock is a lesser film than Cornered but still intriguing. Both Powell and Gomez are more than solid. Rooney made a fair fist of it.
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Thanks Sam. Sorry I missed your comment!
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Thank you
http://www.classicmoviesandtvcom.com/product/johnny-oclock-dvd-dick-powell-1947
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