The Dark Corner (1946) Henry Hathaway

Long before video became the standard home format for movies taken by family of loved ones, friends, and maybe even of some gory accidents you happen to come across that may make it on the local news, there were 8mm home movies. One of my uncles was the first in the family to have an 8mm camera which he purchased around the time of the birth of their first child and my cousin. We lived near each other and subsequently I made it on to the grainy screen in quite a few of the 50 foot reels. While most of the movies were dedicated to family there were a couple of minutes of celluloid my uncle shot that had nothing to do with family. This was way back in the 1950’s and they were dismantling the 3^rd Avenue El, the last of the above ground subways to run in Manhattan. My uncle shot some footage and its amazing footage to watch of a New York City now long gone.

Crashout (1955) Lewis R. Foster

Short Takes: Ladd, Stanwyck, Flynn and Seduction, Italian Style

Alan Ladd’s first major screen appearance, a tepid thriller with Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn and a wicked satire from Italian film director Pietro Germi hightlight this week’s short takes.

This Gun For Hire (1942) Frank Tuttle

Alan Ladd is a nasty hired killer out for revenge after he is paid off in marked bills and he soon finds the police are quickly on his tail. Based on a novel by Grahame Greene, the movie comes across as one part foreign intrigue and two parts a noir crime film. Ladd is good as the pretty boy killer, with a soft spot for cats, who inadvertently becomes involved with a group selling chemical secrets to the Japanese. Veronica Lake is recruited by a senate committee to help expose the men selling the secrets becomes mixed up in the police hunt for Ladd. Ladd’s killer eventually finds redemption through Lake’s character who befriends him.  This was the first teaming of the handsome Ladd and the gentle soft beauty of sexy Veronica Lake. It’s also the film that made Ladd a star. The memorable Laird Cregar, so good in “Hangover Square” and “The Lodger,”  makes for an interesting weasel like neurotic criminal. I admittedly have always found Robert Preston, here he play the police Lieutenant in charge of the case, rather dull and he does nothing here to change my mind.