Crime Against Joe (1956) Unintentionally Humorous Classic Noir

"You can be just as crazy with an education." (Robert C. Dennis0

Directed by Lee Sholem.

Looking up Sholem, he started out making some Tarzan flicks, also Westerns, adventure stories, and Superman and the Mole Men (1951) which I saw on TV. It must have been a sort of pilot film for the Superman TV series that was made based on it that ran 1952-58 (he also directed 14 of the early episodes). Superman and the Mole Men, ran in two or three parts to fit the half hour time slot, so I would have been four, or five years old. It was OK. It captured my interest enough and I still vaguely remember it.

"If only one Hollywood name is synonymous with speed and efficiency, it has to be Lee "Roll 'Em" Sholem. In a 40-year career, he directed upwards of 1300 shows, both features and TV episodes, without once going over schedule--a feat probably unparalleled in Hollywood history." (IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom Weaver)

This is Sholem's only Noir that I know of, though a bayou Crime / Drama The Louisiana Hussy (1959) may be worth checking out.

Written by Robert C. Dennis and based on a story by Decla Dunning. The Cinematography was by William Margulies (The Girl in Black Stockings, Johnny Rocco, and lots of TV including 87th Precinct, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Have Gun - Will Travel, Philip Marlowe, and Emergency!

Music was by Paul Dunlap.

The film stars Josh Bromfield (Sorry, Wrong Number, Rope of Sand, The Furies, Three Bad Sisters, Hot Cars), as Joe Manning, Julie London (The Red House, The Fat Man, The 3rd Voice) as Frances 'Slacks' Bennett. With Henry Calvin (Sergeant Garcia from Zorro) as Red Waller, Patricia Blair as Christine 'Christy' Rowen, Joel Ashley as Philip Rowen, Robert Keys as Detective Sgt. Hollander, Alika Louis as lounge singer Irene Crescent, John Pickard as bartender Harry Dorn, Frances Morris as Nora Manning, Rhodes Reason as George Niles, Mauritz Hugo as Dr. Louis Tatreau, Joyce Jameson as Gloria Wayne, Morgan Jones as Luther Woods, James Parnell as Ralph Corey, and Addison Richards as District Attorney Roy Kasden.

Story

PTSD suffering ex soldier Joe Manning, got back control of himself through art therapy and apparently self medicating himself with large amounts of booze. He found out he is good at Pinup /Pulp Cover Art. His mother thinks he's got talent, so he lives with his mother Nora and paints, she really believes in him.

Josh Bromfield as Joe Manning

He's currently working on his perfect dream girl. The piece is a dark haired woman in a nightie sitting invitingly on a bed and it looks like the great pulp art of the 1950s. We first see Joe getting frustrated at the painting on the easel and disgustedly slashing a smear of red paint across the face of the woman he has just painted.

He tells his mother who just walked in that he just can't get the look he wants right.

Frances Morris as Nora Manning

Nora Manning: [his mother, Nora, enters.] Well, it's different...but is it art?

Joe Manning: Art? It's not even fit to hang in a barroom.

Nora Manning: I wish I looked as good...and I did, once.

[looking at the painting more closely.]

Nora Manning: What's wrong with it?

Joe Manning: I don't know, Nora. I don't know! I can see it in my head, but it doesn't come out on the canvas. I want her to have warmth, and humor, and wisdom...and innocence...a girl you'd want to know.

Nora Manning: Have you ever known a girl like that, Joe?

[smiles]

Nora Manning: No, I didn't think so. She wouldn't be quite human, you know. You're idealizing, Joe.

Joe Manning: About women or art?

Nora Manning: For you, is there any difference? Everything has to be perfect, or you destroy it.

Joe Manning: Aw, Nora, you make me sound like a case.

Nora Manning: The army changed you, Joe. You went away a boy, and came back a man. I wish I knew what kind of man.

Joe Manning: I think I'll get drunk.

Like father like son

Joe pulls out a pint of whiskey, unscrews the cap, and knocks one back. So now braced Joe hops into his 1935 Plymouth De Luxe jalopy with the his bottle and sets out to tie one on while on his quest to find a nice girl... (how times have changed)

Joe's '35 Plymouth De Luxe

Cut to Night. Screams are heard.

Gloria Wayne a blonde, wearing a car hop uniform, comes running towards us. She's screaming her lungs out, through a parking lot, across a street, into the police station and ends up in the arms of Detective Sgt. Hollander. She's one of the carhops at Dukes Drive-In and she claims that a crazy man attacked her.

Joyce Jameson as Gloria Wayne and Robert Keys as Detective Sgt. Hollander

Cut to Duke's Drive-In circa 1956. Joe now well into his bender, comes driving in a little too fast and he hits the breaks a little too late, bumping, with a jolt, up against a curb stop. Frances 'Slacks' Bennett a cute carhop waits on him.

Duke's

drunk

Julie London as Frances 'Slacks' Bennett

Are you a nice girl?

Joe Manning: Slacks, are you a nice girl, Slacks?

Slacks Bennett: Well, either way I wouldn't want it known. (wink-wink)

a little subtext anyone?

Slacks is supposedly his friend Red Waller's gal. However Slacks tells him that she and Red have gone "Splitz Ville."

Slacks, after this banter tells Joe that he shouldn't drive. (yay!)

We are not sure if just that would work back in the '50's but fortunately a police cruiser pulls up behind him and he thinks better of driving. He slides across the bench seat and gets out on the passenger side away from the cops. He walks over to a phone booth drops a dime and makes a call for a taxi asking them to send his buddy Red Waller out to pick him up.

As Red drives up, he sees Joe's jalopy with Joe inside it again schmoozing with Slacks and he accuses Joe sort of jokingly "stealing" his gal.

Henry Calvin as Red Waller

Joe wants Red to drive him to the Pago Pago a cocktail lounge with a tiki motif, to continue on his quest for a nice girl. Slacks tells Joe that she will drive his heap back to his mom's.

Outside the moon is up now and its one of those Western / Arizona bright full moon lit nights. Bright enough to throw dark donuts under trees and bright enough that you can drive without headlights if you dared.

Below a post / rack card of the actual Pago Pago in Tucson.

At the Pago Pago, lounge singer Irene Crescent is torching "Looking for a Man." This of course, attracts Joe's attention and he starts making eyes at her.

Alika Louis as lounge singer Irene Crescent

Irene responds much to her boy toy, bartender Harry Dorn's, displeasure. He starts to make faces at Irene who ignores him.

John Pickard as bartender Harry Dorn

More subtext

Harry comes out from behind the bar and escorts Joe out of the lounge, on the way to the door Joe turns, leans towards Irene, points his finger at her, and tells her that she's not a nice girl.

Once out of the lounge, Harry belts Joe. Luther Woods. a cowboy rancher who is watching it all, tells Joe he got bushwhacked and helps him up. All Joe sees is fuzzy after the punch, so off Joe stumbles into the night.

Morgan Jones as Luther Woods

We cut to Joe running into Christine 'Christy' Rowen, a young woman walking down the road in her nightgown. Joe stops, smiles, and tells her "Aah, a chance meeting in the moonlight" then he drunkenly asks her if she's a "nice girl."

Are you a nice girl?

We cut to Joe running into Christine 'Christy' Rowen, a young walking down the road in her nightgown Joe stops, smiles, and tells her "Aah, a chance meeting in the moonlight" then he drunkenly asks her if she's a "nice girl."

Patricia Blair as Christine 'Christy' Rowen

She doesn't respond. He waves his hand in front of her face, she has no responsive reaction, she's in a trance. Joe realizes now that she is sleepwalking so he steers her around and walks her to the nearest lighted house.

Joe rings the doorbell a few times and Mr. Philip Rowen answers. At first he's gruff about being awakened but when he see Christy he thanks Joe and hustles Christy quickly back inside. He tells Joe to wait (as if he's going to give Joe a tip), but Joe stumbles off back into the night.

Joel Ashley as Philip Rowen

Cut to a shot of an ambulance and a police car squealing out of a city lot that dissolves into a blanket covered body. One hand is exposed with painted fingernails.

A motorcycle cop straightens up from it as the squad car with Detective Sgt. Hollander shows up.

Their convo almost sounds like dumb and dumber, and it's got a kicker punch line.

Detective Sgt. Hollander: Got another one huh?

Motorcycle Cop: Got this one good, she's dead.

Detective Sgt. Hollander [lifting the blanket and looking at the body]: Looks like she put up quite a battle.

Motorcycle Cop: Yah, but she lost it. This guy must be a psycho.

Detective Sgt. Hollander: Who found her?

Motorcycle Cop: Phone call, he didn't want any credit. [He opens his hand showing a pin] I picked this up, looks like she ripped it off him. A high school pin, how do you like that?

showing the pin

Detective Sgt. Hollander: You can be just as crazy with an education.

We find out the victim is Irene from Pago Pago. She's been raped and murdered or vice versa, we don't get gory details in this Motion Picture Production Code Film.

As stated, in her hand she was clutching a high school pin from the '45 graduating class. So all the graduates are suspect, and Joe, class of '45, was among the last people seen with Irene when she was still alive. But we know where Joe was at 2:00 AM., and he ends up back at moms.

When he walks in she has fallen asleep sitting in an arm chair while waiting up for him. But she wakes up and He sits beside her on his bed lights a cigarette lays on his side and falls asleep. Good thing mom is there to pull it out of his hand, stub it out, and then lovingly throwing a blanket over him, before heading off to bed herself.

So looking back now at this point some seemingly unimportant images take on more significance. The cowboy Luther that helped Joe outside the Pago Pago was also at Duke's Drive-In sitting with his back to us, and we know that Irene had a jealous boy friend Harry.

In the morning Detective Sgt. Hollander drops by moms and picks Joe up, and brings him down to the station for questioning.

It goes Noirsville when, after he tells his story about sleepwalking Christy Rowen, the police bring in Philip Rowen and he lyingly states that he never saw Joe last night.

Addison Richards as District Attorney Roy Kasden rt.

Adding to his woes is the blonde carhop, who comes in to look at Joe and tells the police that Joe could have been the guy who attacked her, besides she states he's always hanging around the drive-in. Good enough. Joe is tossed into the clink, murder suspect number one.

Things look grim until Slacks shows up, and gives Joe a false alibi because she "knows" he couldn't have done it. From here we go into sleuth mode as Joe and Slacks team up to try to find the real killer.

Noirsville

This is very watchable especially if you're not expecting too much. Josh Bromfield playing plastered for seemingly half of the film is pretty entertaining. He's not the overly sloppy, mumbling type, of drunk but more along the lines of a cool, loveable, type of drunk. Think Dean Martin. Henry Calvin, if your my age you'll recognize him by his distinct voice. You won't know him by sight because in Zorro his hair was in a bowl cut and he sported a bushy moustache, he played the comic foil Mexican Sergeant Garcia who'd get "Z's" carved into his uniform.

Julie London is great though a bit under used, and the rest of the cast are good enough to keep it all rolling along.

Lee Sholem throws in some misdirection with jealous Harry and then later with horny Luther who actually does try to get a little frisky with Slacks, tearing her blouse and then trying to run her down with his car. Nothing, head-scratching-ly ever comes of that but hey it's just a "B" film.

If Hollywood would have been savvy back then they would have tied in some Rock & Roll especially at the drive in sequences,1956 was a big Elvis year with Don't Be Cruel, Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel, also Bill Haley and the Comets etc., etc.

Also we can thank the censors for giving us the car hops in slacks they could have been in shorts or skirts (and even on roller skates, lol) instead we get slacks (see below). Julie London would have looked great. Anyway a 6.5/10