DVD review by Ann Snuggs

No, not Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but some of the most intriguing films of British B-noir of the 50s fill this set of three double feature DVDs. This first Collector’s Set of Hammer Film Noir Double Features includes volumes one, two and three of the series from Kit Parker Films distributed by VCI Entertainment. Disk one celebrates – or should I say, exploits – two beautiful – but dangerous – blondes with Bad Blonde and Man Bait.

Bad Blonde stars a real life bad blonde, Barbara Payton, who, according to film noir commentator Richard M. Roberts, spent more time on the cover of the early scandal magazines, such as Hollywood Confidential, than on the screen. That’s sad, because she made a perfect femme fatale in front of the camera. Handsome Brit Tony Wright as Johnny Flanagan makes a perfect foil for her in this one.

Payton plays Lorna, a former taxi dancer – you know, a dime a dance girl – who snagged a wealthy Italian husband, Giuseppe Vecchi (Frederick Valk). He made some of his money managing boxers so when his old buddies, Sharkey (ever-so-good Sidney James) and Charlie (John Slater), bring in their new young find – who happens to be also a blond and hunky to boot – Giuseppe comes out of retirement and the writing is on the wall.

The viewer does have to admit that Giuseppe contributes to his own downfall, insisting that they all be one big, happy family and practically shoving his mercenary young wife into Johnny’s arms, but she didn’t need much help. Once she gets a mental picture of trading in her older, paunchy husband on a newer, more attractive model, nothing will stand in her way.

 The story is clichéd but the treatment – not to mention the supporting cast – makes this bad blonde very good to watch.

Man Bait was the title for the U.S., focusing on the lovely young Diana Dors, who is neither the female lead nor the evil manipulator of the film. The British title, The Last Page, while not exciting nor the type of promise to pull in an audience in the U.S., is much more appropriate. This noir, with an evil male rather than female manipulator, is set in a book store. How prosaic!

Nevertheless, it works fairly well.

John Harman (George Brent) manages a book shop. Ruby Bruce (Diana Dors) is one of the employees, chiefly noticeable because she is habitually late to work. Contrary to the hype promoting this film, he is not uncontrollably drawn to her for an affair, nor does she kiss him while working late with the idea of blackmail. Anyway, one kiss does not an affair make. No matter what the synopses may try to tell you, that isn’t the way it was. Not one blurb I read before seeing the film, presented what I felt was an accurate rendition of the story.

That said, it doesn’t matter. The fact that Ruby is one of the manipulated not the manipulator doesn’t make the film any better or any worse. It’s nice, standard, second-on-bill, B-noir. It doesn’t stand out as the best of its class nor send the viewer whimpering away in agony.

Lovely Marguerite Chapman as Stella Tracy is the real female lead and thus the one in final jeopardy as the tale winds down. She deserved better billing than she got.

Poor Man Bait. For all the busty, blonde come-ons, it still deserves second billing on this disk.

Volume 2 of the Hammer double feature releases holds A Stolen Face with Lizabeth Scott and Paul Henreid and Blackout with Dane Clark and Belinda Lee.

The premise of A Stolen Face is intriguing but the story as it unfolds is totally predictable. The leads are quite watchable. Scott was lovely and a solid performer. Henreid delivers a nicely defined character but he is awfully sentimental for noir.

Philip Ritter (Henreid) is a doctor, a cosmetic surgeon, who works himself to the point of exhaustion – caring for patients who will pay when they can, volunteering his services at a prison to help those whose physical deformities encouraged a life of crime, and turning down high fees from the rich whose desire for surgery is a vain whim.

When he almost kills himself and his partner by falling asleep at the wheel, his associate sends him on a vacation. Forced to stop by a driving rain storm, he finds lodging in a small inn. His neighbor in the next room is suffering from a very noisy cold and, being a good-hearted doctor, he offers medical advice via a note slipped under the door.

Imagine his surprise when the noisy neighbor turns out to be a beautiful blonde concert pianist, Alice Brent (Scott). They remain at the inn for a week in the country and a whirlwind romance. He has fallen deeply in love (he does wear his heart on his sleeve!) but she intended this to be temporary, as she was already committed to another man.

They part. She begins a concert tour of Europe and he half-heartedly returns to his practice.

While Ritter is moping around his lab, his partner reminds him of the promise he made to a young woman at the prison, Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), a girl horribly scarred during the World War II Blitz. He promised her a new face.

If what happens next isn’t becoming obvious, the viewer just isn’t into these dark movies. The good and very soft-hearted – soft-headed? – doctor not only gives her the face of his lost love, the pianist, he marries the young criminal, convinced that with his love’s face she will take on his love’s persona.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It’s a once-a-criminal, always-a-criminal tale.

Alice returns from her tour unmarried because she couldn’t marry another when she loved Phillip only to discover a new Mrs. Ritter with her face. (Scott now in a duel role.)

No spoilers here but the ending was wrong for pure, classic noir. It probably satisfied studio bosses and some audiences but noir purists will find a major flaw.

Blackout , one of Dane Clark’s excursions to England for the Lippert/Hammer alliance, is more riveting. It gets top billing for this disk, despite the fact that Clark is a little too boyishly charming physically to fit the image of the brooding noir protagonist. Even when he’s brooding, his features project more of a boyish pout than that of a jaded loner or loser.

Certain scenes from Blackout have an absolute perky feeling about them. His “yes, dears,” even in sarcasm bring a giggle. Despite that, this film has more twists and turns than a switchback, mountain road. It becomes a whose-truth-is-the-truth story that pitches a new curve up till the end.

Casey Morrow (Clark) is a down and out drunk when he is picked up by a mysterious and, of course, beautiful young woman (Belinda Lee) who offers him 500 pounds to do a job for her. Before he passes out he hears her say the job is to marry her.

The next morning he wakes up in a strange flat, sees a portrait of his new “wife” across the room and is greeted by Maggie Doone (Eleanor Summerfield), a woman he has never seen before. She has washed the blood off his coat and says she took him in because he fell – almost literally – into her door in the middle of the night in the pouring rain.

He soon discovers his missing “bride” is an heiress, Phyllis Brunner, whose father’s murder is on the front page and who moved in with Maggie to hide from her fiancé a while back. Phyllis re-appears, claims Casey as her husband and promptly says if he doesn’t help her find her father’s murderer she’ll tell the police he murdered her father and kidnapped her. It gets even more convoluted from there.

Flawed, cheaply made like this entire set of films, Blackout can still hold its own with any B-noir on the market. It holds interest and has the wicked manipulator element so necessary for the genre. Summerfield is spot on as the helpful friend of both Casey and Phyllis. She is so appealing that the viewer sort of hopes the story will twist around and let her live happily-ever-after with Casey. Oh, well, this is noir. Unlike many films described as noir, Blackout actually qualifies.

The third disk of this set contains The Gambler and the Lady and Heat Wave.

The Gambler and the Lady features Dane Clark again, but he made a bad bet on this one. Lame. And we’re not talking about the crippled newsie on the corner. Remember that whimper we didn’t make earlier?

The story is more crime than noir. The moral edge, or even a semblance of it, is missing. The characters are more stupid than evil and it’s just plain irritating in places – not to mention you can get a headache from all the times you roll your eyes in exasperation. Jim Forster (Clark) runs gambling parlors in England. He fled the U.S. after doing time for manslaughter and wants to become a “gentleman” and escape his past. His butler and his manservant are old buddies and he treats them as such. They caution him that he’ll never make it in society but he just won’t listen.

Nor does he listen when Italian – ooh, can we get some stereotypes here? – mobsters move in and want to take over his operations. At the stables where he rides – like the wealthy folk do – he meets Lord Peter Willens (Anthony Forwood ). He’s titled but broke. Later, the lord and his friends have a party at Forster’s club and Peter introduces the gambler to his sister, Lady Susan (Naomi Chance). The sister falls for him – for real! – but the brother sees him only as a source of money.

I make it a point not to tell endings but I will say nobody wins in this one – including the audience. The whole film is a losing hand. The other film on this disk, Heat Wave, compensates to a great degree for the lost pot of the first one. Not brilliantly original – the pattern for the genre only allows for so much variation – Heat Wave does have a neat little sizzle to it.

It’s a narrative piece, told with voiceovers by novel writer Mark Kendrick (Alex Nicol) who had the bad fortune to rent a cabin retreat across the lake from the lovely Carol Forrest (Hillary Brooke). Style-wise, it had me from the get-go.

Kendrick is working one evening when a strange woman calls to ask if he is the one with the launch across the lake. She and her husband Beverly (Yes, that’s a male name, once not terribly uncommon, especially in England.) are having a party. Their launch isn’t running and friends need a lift to their dock. Well, there goes his quiet life.

Carol invites Mark up for a drink since he helped them out and, though he doesn’t especially like her yet, he’s hooked. Still, at this point, one drink and he is out of there. At the dock Mark discovers he is out of gas and gets some from the man who is working on the Forrests’ launch, who just turns out to be Bev Forrest (Sidney James), his host.

Bev invites him to come have a real drink – bourbon, not Scotch – with him and they play billiards until dawn. This is James’ second appearance in this set and once again he is a joy to watch. Not a familiar face to a lot of U.S. fans, Sidney James was a prolific character actor in Britain after World War II. His appearance in one of these films drives the quality up a notch. He delivers exactly what is needed in his role – big or small – to move the story and involve the viewer. Heat Wave is no exception. It’s a shame he died so young.

Carol is having an affair with a pianist, Vincent Gordon (Paul Carpenter) – flagrantly, right under her husband’s nose. He knows it but is so in love with her that he puts up with it. After all, Vincent is not her first affair.

He’s not the last in this film either because soon, no matter how good his intentions nor how much he likes her husband, Mark is caught by her spell.

Tell us the story one more time. Beautiful, unfaithful wife. Weak man, unable to resist her advances. Wealthy husband who is all that “stands between us and happiness forever.”

It’s kind of sad how many dumb men populate the annals of film noir. Kendrick is but yet another one, yet this telling is highly entertaining.

Nicol’s physical presence was a good fit for the genre. His writer on the skids is convincing. We believe him. Brooke doesn’t make a false step as the calculating Carol. Okay, it’s not a big budget, top writer, cast of stars noir, but it is good. It’s solid and it is true noir.

Heat Wave , the last entry in this set, just may be the best of the bunch. One of the most appealing assets of the packages put out by Kit Parker Films and distributed by VCI is the block of extras.

This set includes selected bios for each film and some commentary about Hammer noir in general as well as comments about the individual films. It should be noted that the commentaries are separate featurettes, not voiceover tracks added to the films as they run.

Especially, in these times, bottom line cost has to be a consideration but someone at Kit Parker Films loves these oldies and it shows.

Ann Snuggs is an award-winning columnist, film historian and freelance writer. And she’s back from the dead.