Post by Brad Nelson on May 26, 2021 7:48:30 GMT -8
1950’s Dark City isn’t Charlton Heston’s first movie. (It’s his third.) But it is his first featured role. And all the iconic Heston components are in place at the start.
Heston plays the dodgy character of Danny Haley, the bookie operator whose operation is shut down in the beginning of the film and who apparently has had long familiarity with the law. His cohorts are played by Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Harry Morgan. Webb and Morgan are more adversaries than friends in this.
At a nightclub where his girl, played by Lizabeth Scott, is headlining, Heston lucks upon a potential rube. Don DeFore plays Arthur Winant. And while Winant is paying his dinner bill, Heston notices that he is carrying a $5000 cashier’s check.
That sparks the gang into action. They get him involved in a poker game, seemingly a legitimate one. Winant wins a little and calls it a night. But Heston baits him to come back the next night and try his luck again.
This time they take him for all he’s worth, including the $5000 check. Jack Webb is playing dirty, something that shocks, shocks, Danny Haley when he learns of it. Apparently they were to break this guy legitimately, not cheat him.
That includes Arthur Winant’s psychopathic brother, Sidney. Sidney begins to avenge his brother’s death. How did he know who cheated his brother? Well, he just does.
And the plot proceeds from there with Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) hovering in the background of Haley’s life, trying to egg him on to a closer relationship. But Haley doesn’t want to be tied down. And now that he’s on the run from a psychopath, he has little time for it.
Haley then becomes his own private detective. No one knows what Sidney Winant looks like. So in order to defend himself, he has to find out.
This is a story, despite some holes, that carries itself well enough. I’ve never been a big fan of Lizabeth Scott. I see Lauren Bacall as the proper culmination of that type of character. She moves more elegantly than Scott. But we have Scott and we’ll just have to make due. Overall, this is a good blast from the past of black-and-white charm.
Heston plays the dodgy character of Danny Haley, the bookie operator whose operation is shut down in the beginning of the film and who apparently has had long familiarity with the law. His cohorts are played by Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Harry Morgan. Webb and Morgan are more adversaries than friends in this.
At a nightclub where his girl, played by Lizabeth Scott, is headlining, Heston lucks upon a potential rube. Don DeFore plays Arthur Winant. And while Winant is paying his dinner bill, Heston notices that he is carrying a $5000 cashier’s check.
That sparks the gang into action. They get him involved in a poker game, seemingly a legitimate one. Winant wins a little and calls it a night. But Heston baits him to come back the next night and try his luck again.
This time they take him for all he’s worth, including the $5000 check. Jack Webb is playing dirty, something that shocks, shocks, Danny Haley when he learns of it. Apparently they were to break this guy legitimately, not cheat him.
Well, Winant goes to his hotel room and promptly hangs himself. That money wasn’t his. It was in his care for the company he works for. Capt. Garvey (Dean Jagger) gets involved, somehow associating a random guy hanging himself in his hotel room with Haley's poker game.
And here we run into some weird plotting. There was nothing to connect Winant with Haley. But the cops automatically know that he was playing poker with Haley. This kind of thing happens at least three times in this movie and I stopped the film a couple of times to try to figure out if I missed something, But, no, there was just this secret information that automatically found its way across the ether to whoever needed to know it at the time.
That includes Arthur Winant’s psychopathic brother, Sidney. Sidney begins to avenge his brother’s death. How did he know who cheated his brother? Well, he just does.
And the plot proceeds from there with Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) hovering in the background of Haley’s life, trying to egg him on to a closer relationship. But Haley doesn’t want to be tied down. And now that he’s on the run from a psychopath, he has little time for it.
Haley then becomes his own private detective. No one knows what Sidney Winant looks like. So in order to defend himself, he has to find out.
This is a story, despite some holes, that carries itself well enough. I’ve never been a big fan of Lizabeth Scott. I see Lauren Bacall as the proper culmination of that type of character. She moves more elegantly than Scott. But we have Scott and we’ll just have to make due. Overall, this is a good blast from the past of black-and-white charm.
