Tall, Dark and Handsome

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Movie
Original title Tall, Dark and Handsome
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1941
length 78 minutes
Rod
Director H. Bruce Humberstone
script Karl Tunberg
Darrell Ware
production Darryl F. Zanuck
Fred Kohlmar
20th Century Fox Film Corp
music Emil Newman
Ralph Rainger
camera Ernest Palmer
cut Allen McNeil
occupation

Tall, Dark and Handsome is a 1941 American film directed by H. Bruce Humberstone . Cesar Romero plays a soft-hearted gangster who wants to find his way back on the right path.

action

On Christmas Eve 1928, the Chicago gang leader Shep Morrison was staying in a department store when he noticed a pretty young girl who was looking after the customers' children. It is Judy Miller who is helping her mother who works there. In order to get in contact with her, he pretends to be a widowed banker SJ Morrison with two children and asks them to visit him and his children once in the next few days, because he is looking for a carer for them and makes Judy a very lucrative one Offer. To keep up his lie, he sends his right hand man, Frosty Welch, out to get him children. Frosty returns with Harry Detroit Jr., a shrewd little fellow who is not easily intimidated. Reluctantly, he agrees to play Shep's son. Shep wants to tell Judy that his second child is with the grandmother. Just as he is decorating the Christmas tree with Harry, his work is interrupted because his worst rival Pretty Willie has sent his henchmen Puffy and Track to kill him. However, Frosty and Shep manage to maneuver both of them into the basement and lock them up there. When Judy comes the next day, the three of them spend some nice hours, which are suddenly interrupted when Pretty Willie appears herself and this time has gathered more of his people around her. Now it is no longer hidden from Judy that Shep is not who he pretended to be and also that Harry is not his son at all. Shep desperately tries to make up ground with Judy and promises to really take care of Harry in the future, who has now developed affection for him.

Time goes by and both stay in contact, whereby Judy realizes that Shep is really a lovable person and without her wanting it, she also falls in love with him. Pretty Willie is not at all developing things right. When Shep proposes marriage to Judy, she accepts him. After a while, she confides in Frosty that she is afraid of spending her life with a killer. Frosty then confides to her that Shep has never killed anyone and that he enables his suspected victims to have a good life in a basement. To dispel any doubts, Frosty then shows her the cellar dungeon. One of the imprisoned men manages to steal the bag with the keys from Frosty. As things take their course, Pretty Willie also realizes that Shep's reputation is nothing but hot air. He is determined to take it out of circulation for good. Again he sends his assistants Puffy and Louie to kill Shep. Since Shep has done the two of them several favors, they let him escape. Shep hides first, because Pretty Willie and everyone else are supposed to think he is dead. Frosty sneaks up to him and tells him when he visits that nobody knows where Judy and Harry are. Shep has an idea and asks Frosty to deposit his wallet and ring with an unidentified body in the morgue. In fact, his plan works and it is widely believed that Shep is the dead. Shep attends his own funeral disguised and veiled, to which Judy and Harry have also appeared. He succeeds in pushing train tickets to Judy. A little later he can convince Puffy and Louie to testify about Pretty Willie's machinations, whereupon the gangster is arrested. Shep meets Judy at the train station, who agrees to start a new life with him. After their arrival in Rio de Janeiro , he arranged a meeting with a minister who will give them start-up help.

Production and Background

Filming began on November 12th and lasted until early December 1940. The film's department store scenes were shot in the I. Magnin Store in Wilshire , a borough of Los Angeles . Working titles for the film were The Under Crust and Ready, Willing and Beautiful . The film opened in US cinemas on January 24, 1941.

According to the Hollywood Reporter and Los Angeles Examiner , Betty Grable and Jack Oakie were to star in Tall, Dark and Handsome , and SZ Sakall was in discussion as a gangster. The Motion Picture Association of America referred the studio to the PCA , which would not approve a large number of dialogues containing undesirable sexual innuendo, as well as downplaying criminal activity. The hero's transformation must also emerge from the dialogues and it must be clear that he is renouncing crime and wants to start from scratch.

Stanley Clements makes his debut in this film; for Milton Berle it was his first film since appearing in the RKO comedy Radio City Revels in 1938 . Tall, Dark and Handsome was the first film Fred Kohlmar produced for 20th Century Fox. Directed by Alexander Hall , a remake of the film was made in 1950 under the title Love That Brute with Paul Douglas , Jean Peters and Cesar Romero. Romero played the role of the rival gangster there. Fred Kohlmar acted again as producer for 20th Century Fox.

Music in the film

- Music: Ralph Rainger , text: Leo Robin -

  • Hello Ma! I Done It Again sung by Virginia Gilmore
  • Wishful Thinking sung by Virginia Gilmore
  • I'm Alive And Kickin ' sung by Charlotte Greenwood

criticism

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times drew comparisons to Edward G. Robinson and the film A Slight Case of Murder , which is known as the inspiration for the genre of quirky gangster comedy. The story itself is unspectacular, but the way it is told is amusing and clever dialogues with surprising twists provide pleasant entertainment.

Awards

1942 were Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware with Tall, Dark and Handsome in the category "Best Original Screenplay" for an Oscar nomination. However, the award went to Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles for the landmark drama Citizen Kane .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941) Original Print Information at TCM - Turner Classic Movis (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941) Notes at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  3. ↑ Bosley Crowther: Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941) A Sprightly Comedy In: The New York Times, January 24, 1941. Retrieved February 5, 2014.