Blackmail 1939. H.C. Potter. 1939.
I thought this was gonna be a noir movie? But it sure starts off a a screwball comedy.
And that guy looks so familiar…
Nope, doesn’t ring a bell…
Oh, he’s been in over 200 movies, starting in 1919 and ending in 1961. I’ve probably seen him around.
So, Edward G. Robinson is the big name here. He usually plays gangsters, right? Here he plays one of those guys who go around putting out oil well fires (using explosives).
Exciting!
*gasp* The plot thickens! Perhaps it is a noir after all? A… screwball noir? The fusion genre we’ve all been waiting for!
I really like this movie, but the structure is just weird… I’m now at the half-way point, and Robinson is now on a chain gang… so I’m guessing the rest of the movie is about breaking out of jail?
In a more typical movie, we’d be here after twenty minutes.
The oddness of the pacing adds to the enjoyment, perhaps.
Well, it started strong, but I felt it lost a lot of tension towards the end, even though it tried so hard. And the ending is just kinda… “will this do?”
This blog post is part of the 1939
series.