Appointment with Danger (Lewis Allen, 1950)

I wasn't expecting much from Appointment with Danger since two of Lewis Allen's well-loved vehicles, The Uninvited (1944) and Desert Fury (1947), convinced me that Andrew Sarris was right to ignore the director in The American Cinema. But this solid-plus noir suggests that Allen had a feel for beefing up certain moments, perfect for someone like me whose mind drifts off most narratives. As it is, I can barely recall the specifics of the story, something about postal inspector Al Goddard (Alan Ladd) protecting nun Phyllis Calvert who witnessed a murder committed by Jack Webb and Harry Morgan. Ladd looks luscious. Here he is during a nasty game of hand ball with Webb.

 

He gets to peep in on postal workers. I had no clue there was (is?) so complex an operation.

He drops in on a suspect, Paul (Stacy Harris), at one of the smokiest bars in noirdom. 

 

You could tell cigarettes were a dime a two dozen for how quickly they were discarded. Ladd lights a cigarette as soon as he enters (note the cigarette machine on the left).

 

They're both smoking as Ladd approaches the suspect and pulls him away from the pool table.

The suspect discards his cigarette (on the barroom floor!) as he walks over. 

 

Ladd puts out the cigarette even though he just lit the damn thing!

Then the suspect lights a cigarette even though he just threw one away! 

Jan Sterling of Female on the Beach renown is on board as Dodie, a moll with a love for bop. She runs into Ladd at a drug store where she's come to purchase some records. "Do you like bop?" she asks him. 

Al: "Bop? Is that where everybody plays a different tune at the same time?" 

Dodie: "You just haven't heard enough of it. Have you heard Joe Lily's "Only Mine"? Come up to my place and hear it."  

Al: "As a favor to Joe." 

Dodie: "What he can do with a horn. He belts it, melts it, and rides it all over the ceiling." 

Al: "Can he play it?" 

 

Up at her place, Ladd tries to pump her for information but she'd rather get into the music.

 

I love how the scene reverses the typical polarities of music fandom. Here, the woman performs some close textual analysis while the man sits confused on the sidelines. Although I always itch when people don't hold records on their sides.

Best of all, it does NOT end with the formation of a heterosexual couple. Can't, really, with Calvert as a nun. Here's Ladd with Dan Riss as he, what else, lights a cigarette for him. And we know what cigarettes meant before a fade in classical Hollywood - SEX! Good show. 

Grade: A-minus

Cactus Flower (Gene Saks, 1969)

Clever, well-plotted but everyone's kind of a jerk in this feel-good movie, no? I love the record store scenes, though! Grade: - B-minus, C+ when I fail a test on it next month. 

Records and not records in Trog and Keep it on the Floor

Joan Crawford's last film and the epitome of her Grand Guignol, woman-past-a-certain-age era, Trog (Freddie Francis, 1970) is no less watchable than many of the MGM horrors that placed her in the box office top ten in the 1930s - The Gorgeous Hussy or, hell, even the bafflingly overrated Grand Hotel. The scene I remember most is when classical music calms Trog but rock 'n' roll sends him into a rage. And the record spun is a not-all-that-noisy freakbeat instrumental. I wonder what would have happened had Crawford requested The Stooges' recently released Fun House.

I'll be presenting a paper on Leave It on the Floor (Sheldon Larry, 2011), a sort of dramatization of Paris is Burning with happier endings, later in the year. So I'll just note the presence of spontaneous outbursts of song (including a Sweet allusion in the opening ball sequence) and Lady Red Couture from Hey Qween!, my guiltiest pleasure of 2015.

 

Records and not records in Take Care of My Little Girl (Jean Negulesco, 1951)