WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956) (A-minus) - The best of the fest, this sizzling Fritz Lang comic potboiler with a great cast is also one of the best journalism movies I've ever seen.
Dana Andrews is newsman Edward Mobley, a front-page byliner, columnist and TV news host. He's caught in the competition among three senior editors for the top spot at the Kyne wire service and accompanying newspaper and telecast. The three are chasing the story of the Lipstick Murderer as they vie for the favor of the son of the founder after the elder Kyne dies. The son, Walter, is portrayed as a clueless playboy by Vincent Price. Wire service director Mark Loving (the always-reliable George Sanders) has the inside track. But don't rule out the newspaper side's gruff editor John Day Griffith (Thomas Mitchell, who was Uncle Billy in "It's a Wonderful Life"), who has a gleam in his eye and makes the best use of Mobley, who has an inside source with the police, Lt. Kaufman (the suave Howard Duff, my mom's old favorite). Picture editor Harry Kritzer takes the least-circuitous route: sleeping with Kyne's wife (the voluptuous Rhonda Fleming).
The crazy-eyed killer, who we know from the opening scene, is Robert Manners (an unnerving John Drew Barrymore), who likes to leave clues to the police and who is not very nice to his poor old mother. Cute Sally Forrest is Mobley's fiancee, Nancy, a perky blonde who knows she won't ever tame the lovable drunkard of a newshound. That's quite a set of players. But topping them all is Ida Lupino ("High Sierra") as the wisecracking knockout Mildred Donner, the paper's gossipy "women's columnist." She's got her claws in just about every man in the newsroom, and she particularly knows how to push Mobley's buttons (try alcohol first). Lupino is both the glue that holds this scene together and the force of nature that threatens to rip it all apart.
The dialogue has a Billy Wilder snap to it throughout, landing easy on the modern ear. This was journeyman studio screenwriter Casey Robinson's final screenplay before retirement, and it's a good bet that it was his finest hour. The battle of the sexes comes off as both racy and classy. Robinson has a good eye and ear for the news game as well as the repartee between the players. He also pegs the killer as a disaffected young man corrupted by the scandalous influence of ... comic books! (Obviously, the Grand Theft Auto of their day.) Here's a sample of the script:
Mobley: You know, you have very nice legs.And then there is this one horrifying line, from the newsroom: "Don't give it to the copy desk; ship it directly to the wires." Sure it's old-fashioned, but the movie gets the newsroom scenes right on. (As well as the after-deadline saloon scenes.)
Nancy: Aren't you sweet.
Mobley: Nice stockings too. What holds your stockings up?
Nancy: There's a lot your mother should have told you.
Mobley: I didn't ask my mother. I asked you.
This reminded me of one of Wilder's best, the ribald journalism classic "Ace in the Hole." The actors are at the top of their game, the complicated plot unfolds perfectly and the pacing keeps you pinned to your seat.
(This one doesn't appear on Netflix; it's available for $10 on Amazon.)
BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (1956) (B) - A great idea for a film. To raise awareness about the unfairness of the death penalty, a novelist looking for a good hook for his second book conspires with his future father-in-law to plant evidence to make it look like he's the killer of a woman whose body was found a few days earlier. They will lure the greedy DA into an overzealous prosecution (like in the opening scene of the railroading of another suspect based on circumstantial evidence), get sentenced to death row and then -- ta-da! -- reveal that it was all a set-up (and here are the photographs and the word of the father-in-law as proof).
What could possibly go wrong?
The writer, Douglas Morrow, went from sketching out sports biopics to this and then straight to series television, penning mostly one-off episodes in the 1960s. Here he's got a decent cast, with Dana Andrews carrying the load as the novelist, Tom, and Sidney Blackmer as his accomplice. Joan Fontaine hams it up as the fiancee who stands by her man even though he's left her in the dark about his crazy scheme.
So what does go wrong? I figured something would, but I wouldn't have guessed the clever twist that Morrow came up with. I should say "twists." The plot gets turned a second and then a third time in that last reel, each one juicy and just believable enough.
Clocking in at a succinct 80 minutes, this is compact and entertaining storytelling.
THE LOCKET (1946) (C+) - This little oddity tries to be quirky and mysterious, but it's mostly just confounding.
Lovely Nancy is a sight to behold on her wedding day, wearing a lovely locket. But a stranger appears and takes the groom aside to tell him about Nancy's past. We flash back to a therapy session where Robert Mitchum shows up to tell the first stranger about his own past with Nancy. In that flashback, Mitchum and Nancy are lovebirds. And then Nancy spins a story in flashback to her childhood.
The mind reels. The Russian-doll nesting must have seemed clever on paper. On screen it's annoying. And the mystery behind Nancy's fascination with jewelry isn't very compelling. Nor are the secrets that reveal her to be less than a virtuous woman.
Laraine Day gives it her all, and Mitchum is the right level of creepy. But this one never takes off.
NOTE: It was a disappointing 10-day run this year. All selections came from the Warner archive, curated by a national figure. All were presented, as well, as digital transfers. No more locally chosen obscurities on original film prints, rattling and sputtering through the projector. Progress.
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