The True Story of Lynn Stuart (1958) Tail Fin Noir

This was the final film of Lewis Seiler.

At Warner's Seiler directed quite a few gangster films (his only other Noir was Over-Exposed (1956)). This film was based on the newspaper articles of Pat Michaels concerning what the police fed him as the "official" true story of the woman known as Lynn Stuart who in reality went undercover for 6 years. The film makes it look like a couple weeks. In the real story she was actually involved in mob activities including drug purchases. The screenplay was by John Kneubuhl.

Cinematography was by Filn Noir vet  Burnett Guffey (Guffey lensed My Name Is Julia Ross, Night Editor, Framed, Johnny O'Clock, In a Lonely Place, All the King's Men, The Reckless Moment, The Undercover Man, Knock on Any Door, Private Hell 36, Human Desire, The Sniper, Scandal Sheet, and Sirocco).

The film stars Betsy Palmer (The Tin Star (1957) a mostly TV actress but she made a comeback in 1980 to films in Friday the 13th) as Phyllis Carter, also known as Lynn Stuart, Jack Lord (another mainly TV actor Hawaii Five-O) as Willie Down. Barry Atwater as Lt. Jim Hagan, Edmund G. Brown as Himself, and Gavin MacLeod as Turk, and John Anderson as Doc, among others.

Lynn Stuart (Betsy Palmer)

Willie Down (Jack Lord)

The Story 

The film is a quasi police procedural so we get a law enforcement prologue by future California Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown. He was the state's Attorney General at the time.

Orange County, California

A high speed car chase

A tragic end

Orange County. A police car chase. A crash. Two teens are killed. In the wreck we see a box with syringes and packets of heroin. Druggies! Both were high as kites. At the coroners inquest the aunt of one of the boys, Phyllis Carter is upset enough to denounce the weak police efforts to combat illegal drugs.

Phyllis Carter/Lynn Stuart at inquest

Phyllis consoling her sister

So Phyllis is so enraged that she volunteers out of the blue to become an undercover narcotics agent for the police, yea sure.

Phyllis volunteers

There has got to be more to it that the police have sealed away for ever. Lets with our gritty sleazy noir shaded glasses on go over some of the possibilities.

Maybe it was her husband who sold the teens the heroin or was some other way involved. Maybe Phyllis was one of those part time housewife prostitutes who turned tricks for dress money or extra cash, got busted and this deal with the police was her to stay out of jail, keep that arrest out of the papers and a way out doing jail time. Maybe Phyllis or her husband or both got busted for making stag loops, or got picked up on lewd and lascivious conduct and this was a way to avoid the publicity and shame. Maybe Phyllis' husband was a homo who got arrested and etc., etc., see above.

It's too far fetched as the tale plays out in the film, it may have been swallowed by fifties audiences, but an awful lot of truly bizarre scenarios have come to light in the last sixty years, we're too cynical to believe that official bull shit now.

Meanwhile.....

a police stoolie

He brushes off a bar fly

a tip off to the police

Stoolie about to get whacked by Willie Downs (Jack Lord)

According to the film the Orange County sheriff's office accepts Phyllis' offer after one of their stoolies is gunned down in a phone booth in Tijuana while he's making a tip off.

Santa Ana City Hall

So we are made to believe that now of course they happily reconsider the offer of a mere housewife with no training and a young child at home, as if there were no police women anywhere in Southern California that could do it, yea sure. So they give Phyllis an alias as an ex con Lynn Stuart out of West Virginia who did a stretch of 18 months for bank robbery, and a job in Stan's Drive In, that's a known drug dealer hangout.

A Stan's BTW was also featured in an earlier Film Noir The Crooked Web (1955) with Frank Lovejoy and Mari Blanchard. The Googie style architecture Stan's was a chain of burger joints in the Los Angeles area in the 50's and 60's.

Phyllis/Lynn meets Willie Downs

Phyllis is quite a piece of eye candy. While on the job she finally attracts dealer Willie Down (Jack Lord). Phyllis becomes his girlfriend. Yea sure. Again, here you got to ask yourself how she managed to keep the hoods attention without putting out. It's highly implausible that it was a platonic relationship. Especially when you are aware of the fact that the real "undercover" job went on for six fucking years.

Phyllis/Lynn Bowling on a date with Willie

reporting in to the police

So Phyllis integrates herself into the gang, getting the skinny on the drug operations and tipping off the police to what is going on. In the film the fact that she's married is played down with her husband meekly agreeing to everything she does. The dynamics of her relationship with her husband is never really satisfactory explained. We just have to guess. So I'll noir-ishly guess she possibly told Willie that her husband was either impotent, or a closet fairy. Whatever it was, Willie bought it.

Its OK dear Willie's junk ain't anywhere as big as yours.....

and besides it's only been five years.

So in the film we get this dramatic build up and then right before a drug run which will be a big police breakthrough, Phyllis husband chokes and wants her to quit. However she can't because Willie shows up unexpectedly and whisks her away.  They are going to hijack a drug shipment from a competing mob.

setting up the ambush

So they use Phyllis as a decoy. She plays a lady in distress with a broken down car blocking the roadway. It all goes Noirsville when Willie murders the two truck drivers when they get out to help.

Phyllis already distraught by the killings has the drama is turned up to high by the screenwriter adding the sudden sickness (pneumonia) of her only child. (In real life remember she had two) This is accomplished by the improbable "over the radio" bulletin announcing that the police are searching for Phyllis Carter, whose son is very ill.

The big showdown in a nice touch takes place at a motel.

Noirsville

John Anderson as Doc rt.

In the film it's the death of her nephew that triggers her quest to go undercover, in the "official" real story she sited that it was just her fear that her sons may get addicted when they became teenagers. Sounds a bit too far fetched and you got to wonder what the hell was up with her husband to agree to go along with the whole scenario. Me thinks there was a lot more going on that we don't know about.

Was she a True Crime fanatic? A Police Junkie?, or did the police catch her or her husband or both, doing something he, she, or they shouldn't have been doing, and this was their way out, an "I'll, we'll, do anything, anything, to keep this out of the papers" deal. That scenario seems way more plausible than the "good citizen volunteers to go way, way, above and beyond their public duty to turn in drug dealers" pap. Whatever, back in 1958 the public bought this explanation but looking at it from a 2019 perspective and knowing all the shenanigans that went on in law "enforcement," it sounds way too pat. Watch and see what you think.

The film is a decent watch with nice cinematography, Palmer and Lord are good in their parts. 6/10

Here is a good example of a story that could very well be remade today into a very sleazy fictional period Neo Noir.