7/10
There's A Lot Of Shooting In The Borough Of Churches
1 May 2023
Maurice Murphy leaves prison. He heads to the hospital where sister Sally Eilers works, and meets her and smooth hoodlum Larry Blake; he hadn't ratted out Blake when he was captured, and instead asked him to look after his sister. Miss Eilers goes on shift. Blake starts to take Murphy to Eilers' apartment, offers him the cut from racketeering on a wharf. Murphy says he intends to get a job and keep his head down. They are quarreling over Miss Eilers when beat cop Paul Kelly shows up. Blake shoots Kelly and, to keep his mouth shut, Murphy, then lams. Both shot men are taken to Miss Eilers' hospital, where Murphy is pronounced dead, and Kelly is touch and go for a while, while the cops look for Blake. Blake convinces Miss Eilers that Kelly shot Murphy, and they're framing him. In order to track down Blake, Kelly makes nice with Miss Eilers. In order to short-circuit their search for Blake, Eilers makes nice with Kelly.

Miss Eilers sounds like Loretta Young, and looks like her in several of the shots. She's pretty good in this early movie directed by S. Sylvan Simon, who would make his reputation as a comedy specialist at MGM. There's a good deal of comedy here in a sequence on Long Island with Lucille Gleason, and Simon shows his chops at suiting the direction to the performer by not making a fuss over any of the gags, and then shifting neatly back to drama. The result is an unpretentious programmer that moves along at a good clip, showing polish in the performances and keeping the audience -- well, me, anyway -- engrossed.
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed