Film Review
Edward L. Cahn may be best remembered today for the
Our Gang series of film comedies he
made for Hal Roach in the early 1940s, but it is worth knowing that he
also put in some sterling work in the B-movie line,
Destination Murder being perhaps
his most memorable foray into film noir territory. With a plot so
convoluted and so riddled with holes it makes even Howard Hawks'
The Big Sleep (1946) look like
a model of narrative clarity, and no big name actors to help disguise
this unpleasant fact, it is hard to account for the enduring appeal of
such a formulaic, low grade crime drama as
Destination Murder. The film
is unlikely ever to rate as a classic but it is, improbably, an
enjoyable romp, deliriously daft in places and yet somehow sustained by
some odd moments of sporadic brilliance.
It's probably best not to pay too much attention to the plot - if you
do, you'll only give yourself a skull-shattering migraine and end up
missing the film's main selling point, which is the mind-blowing
absurdity of what the screenwriters have concocted for us, presumably
after several liquid lunches. Do we think it credible that a
sophisticated society girl will start dating an uncouth
good-for-nothing mail boy, knowing that he is the man who shot dead her
father? It is remotely believable that the central villain's moll
will switch allegiance half way through the film and go into
partnership with the aforementioned mail boy?
And what exactly is the relationship between the two principal
villains, the suggestively named Stretch Norton and his boss/henchman
Armitage? Norton perhaps says more than he ought when he screams
"I don't like women!", which he proves by arranging a nasty demise for
Myrna Dell, the only member of the cast with something approximating to
star quality. Add to all this a police chief who knows far more than he
admits but is still incapable of acting (in both senses of the term)
and you soon realise that
Destination
Murder was never intended to be taken too seriously. It's
ludicrous, drunkenly convoluted and wildly unconvincing from start to
finish but that doesn't prevent it from being fun. This is
B-movie as it should be - respectably silly.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
When her father is shot dead on his own doorstep by an unknown
assassin, Laura Mansfield resolves to find the killer and bring him to
justice. At an identity parade, she correctly identifies her
father's murderer as mail boy Jackie Wales, but police lieutenant
Brewster has insufficient grounds to make an arrest. Laura takes
the law into her own hands and starts dating Jackie, hoping that she
can obtain the evidence to prove his guilt. To finance this
burgeoning love affair, Jackie attempts to extort more money from the
man who hired him to kill Laura's father, nightclub owner Armitage, but
ends up being beaten up and sent away empty handed. Armitage's
girlfriend Alice sees an opportunity to make some easy money and
persuades Jackie to blackmail his criminal employer, threatening to
send a signed confession to the police unless Armitage pays up.
Meanwhile, suspecting that Armitage holds the key to the mystery, Laura
gets herself hired as a cigarette girl in his nightclub, not realising
that her real enemy is Amitage's apparent second-in-command, Stretch
Norton...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.