It's time for another Weird Ass Wednesday from down in The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is a special for for all the quadruple F'ers out there, you know, the card carrying members of the Freakin' Femme Fatale Fanclub!
"Night Editor" doesn't seem like a very exciting title, but it's a movie that was based on a very popular radio show of the time, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
New York City, circa 1946.
Not the New York Times, but the New York Star!
Love this shot of the storyteller with the cool silhouette in the background! So it's newspaper guys sitting around waiting for something to happen while playing cards and shooting the shit!
This story is about New York police Lieutenant Tony Cochrane as played by William Gargan!
Tony's got lots of problems! He's a happily married cop with a psycho socialite girlfriend, and because of it, he doesn't have a lot to gain, but he sure has a lot to lose! Femme fatale Jill Merrill is played by Janis (The Woman On Pier 13) Carter!
Tony and Jill have parked it and are smooching when a car comes speeding in. They see the driver beating a young lady with a tire iron, and when approached, he runs off into the night!
Tony's got a big problem now! He's a cop, and he's witnessed a murder, but he can't do anything about it without damaging his career and his marriage!
And it doesn't help things one bit that Jill is a total bitch!
Tony arranges to meet Jill in the library where they can talk undisturbed!
In the meantime Tony realizes that the rich sleazy weasel Douglas Loring is the guy he saw running from the car! Douglas is played by the classic Frank (Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, End Of The Beginning) Wilcox.
Now it gets really complicated. Tony finds out that Jill and Douglas are good friends, and that she also knew the dead girl, a little matter she never told Tony!
Tony is now officially screwed!
A lot of the time William Gargan reminds me of Eddie Constantine in one of his Lemmy Caution roles! Not quite sure why, but I think it's his demeanor.
The only person who has any sense is Tony's partner Ole. Police Lieutenant Ole Strom is played by Paul E. (The Mummy's Tomb) Burns. Paul was also the janitor in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Escape Clause."
If that's not all bad enough, Douglas and Jill are also lovers!!
Not too subtle!!
"Night Editor" is a simple enough movie, but it kept me plenty entertained! My copy is part of a four film set of Columbia Classics called "Bad Girls Of Film Noir," that also includes "One Girl's Confession," "Women's Prison," and "Over-Exposed," a pretty nice package that you really ought to check out if you like this kind of stuff!
"Night Editor" doesn't seem like a very exciting title, but it's a movie that was based on a very popular radio show of the time, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
2 comments:
Poor Tony.
In film noir, the moral often seems to be: "You're (bleep)ed."
And it's usually because of some femme fatale, so the ending is often: "this is the (bleep)ing you get for the (bleep)ing you got."
IIUC, Columbia intended to do a series of "Night Editor" B-movies, but, AFAIK, there were no sequels.
The only one I know on that set you mention (and I don't know it all that well) is "Women's Prison." It has Ida Lupino as a scary warden and her husband Howard Duff as a humane prison doctor who stands in her way, which is a whole set of reasons to watch it.
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