Ooh, the hair on the women in
99 River Street and
Kansas City Confidential!
Did that European pixie cut look good on anyone other than Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron? And even those ladies looked better with longer hair too. Lucky
Ellen Drew got to keep an alright 'do, though she wore some of those postwar skirts that made her look like a walking lampshade, so none of the ladies got off easy.
Btw, this is not the first time I've seen 99 River Street, but I still rub my eyes in disbelief when
John Payne warms up to
Evelyn Keyes (or any woman) after that stunt she pulled at the theater. Doesn't that bond between
Payne and
Keyes seem awfully unlikely to anyone else? Oh, and I was so impressed with
Brad Dexter's oiliness this time out. The man just gets better and better in that creepy part, doesn't he?
Just finished watching
The Crooked Way, which I liked, though maybe
John Alton could have broken down and used a tad more wattage in a few scenes--though
Robert Florey was big on Stygian gloom in most of his movies (especially the horror movies), so maybe the two of them conspired to make the viewer feel as though she was going blind. The enjoyable part of this movie for me was the appearance of
Percy Helton, who showed up clinging to his kitty and coughing as though he had a furball, and
Rhys Williams as the detective, who drifted through the movie apparently clucking his dentures. I thought that
Sonny Tufts, who wore every long boozy night of excess on his face, like Dorian Gray in reverse, was pretty good as the hood nursing a grudge against
Payne, though his character wasn't developed enough for me. I kept wanting to know who decorated that banker's mausoleum he lived in? Why did
John Doucette waste his time on being this guy's gopher?
However, I never entirely believed in the character of the amnesiac played by
John Payne. Payne may have been beaten up more in this movie than in
99 River Street and
Kansas City Confidential combined. Personally, after being thrown down the fire escape stairs face first, I think I would have hopped the next greyhound out of LA and considered myself lucky to be starting off with a clean slate in a new place. Since this appeared to be Payne's first foray into film noir, maybe his lack of connection to his character and the people around him was just a reflection of the actor's lack of experience at that point.
Now, if TCM could just get the broadcast rights to
Sentimental Journey (1946), I'll be there for one of
Payne's best and bleakest portrayals...though it kills me to admit it, he's even better than
Maureen O'Hara in that movie, though nobody can touch
Connie Marshall for deep dish angst!
Above: John Payne suffering behind his shades in Sentimental Journey while William Bendix tries to cheer him up.