william bendix

poster

In my review of the 1935 adaptation of The Glass Key, I mentioned a scene in the 1942 remake that starred William Bendix. In that scene, Bendix plays a thug who gets to slap around Alan Ladd’s character. He does so with such gusto that he nearly steals the movie. It made me an instant fan.

I’ve since watched 11 films starring the actor where he’s mostly played tough guys, loveable lugs, and the like. He was a bigger man physically, and not exactly handsome so he fits the role of the heavy, but there is a goofy warmth to him, which makes him interesting.

In Cover Up he plays Larry Best the sheriff of a small, Midwestern town investigating a murder. Except he doesn’t seem all that interested in investigating it at all.

It is actually an insurance investigator, Sam Donovan (Dennis O’Keefe) who does most of the investigating. The dead man was shot and the sheriff ruled it a suicide. The trouble is the gun is nowhere to be found, and there are no powder burns on the body which would indicate being shot at close range. When Sam pushes Larry for answers he just shrugs it off. In fact, no one in the town seems all that interested.

Turns out the dead man was good and hated by pretty much everyone. Clearly, he was murdered and clearly, it is being covered up. Almost everyone in town is helping with the cover-up because whoever killed him is well-liked and the dead man deserves to be dead. To a normal investigator, this would be enough. Suicide prevents an insurance pay out and that’s that.

But Sam is no normal investigator. He pursues the matter strongly even if murder means a double indemnity payout. The film owes a clear debt to Double Indemnity but it is nowhere near as good.

Naturally, there is a girl. Anita Weatherby (Barbara Britton) becomes the love interest. She’s also the daughter of one of the prime suspects. But there is little heat between her and Sam and almost no cleverness to their dialogue. Even my beloved William Bendix doesn’t add much. He’s fine, but rather more reserved than usual.

The mystery is serviceable and it is set at Christmastime which adds a nice holiday theme to what is really a rather cozy film noir. That’s the thing, it isn’t a bad film, it is exactly the kind of movie you might throw on during the holidays while you are at your in-laws, full of ham and good cheer.

the dark corner

I love me some William Bendix. He’s one of those great character actors that you don’t necessarily notice at first but then he keeps showing up in small parts in all sorts of films and you go, “oh there’s that guy again.” And he’s always good. I probably first noticed him in The Glass Key (1942) where he played a jovial gangster who rather enjoyed beating up on Alan Ladd.

He’s a heavy in The Dark Corner as well, but he’s smarter and more crafty, but not nearly as fun to watch. He’s been hired by the film’s true villain to spy on the hero of our picture, Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens). He intentionally does a bad job of it so that Bradford will know someone’s keeping an eye on him. And then later trying to kill him.

Lucille Ball plays Galt’s secretary, but she doesn’t quite fit. Obviously, she was a gifted comedienne and a true treasure, I just wish they’d done something different with her character. They could have used her comedic talents and made something like The Thin Man where she wisecracks her way through the film. Or they could have made her the smartest person in the room. That’s what all the descriptions indicate she’ll be. I was expecting the Galt character to be rather dim-witted and she’s the smart secretary secretly solving all the crimes. Instead, she’s just a regular secretary and the love interest but is given very little of interest to do.

The story is fine, there are some good twists and it has the look of a good noir. But it never quite did it for me.

This makes yet another Noirvember film this month put into the just OK category. I fully expected this to happen as I intentionally picked relatively obscure films to watch instead of the well-known classics, but I have to admit I’m ready for something really good.