In New York, a bank robbery of $300,000 goes unsolved for a year, until some of the marked bills are found in a Los Angeles drugstore theft. Police detectives Cal Bruner and Jack Farnham investigate and are led from the drugstore to a nightclub, where singer Lili is another recipient of a stolen bill. With Lili's help, the partners track down the remaining money, but both Lili and Frank are dismayed when Cal decides he wants to keep part of it.
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Two very exciting action sequences are both staged in the first half of this movie. Unfortunately, the rest of the "private hell" centers around a very plodding story, which eventually comes to a really nothing climax. There are also some dull romantic interludes. All told, almost all the acting with exceptions of Steve Cochran's contribution and, of course, the lovely Dorothy Malone's is, somewhat understandably, rather glum. For one thing, Ida Lupino is getting far too old for the femme fatale bit. And to add to our woes, even the music score by Leith Stevens could be described as no more than nondescript. I would also rate the cinematography as a bit below Burnett Guffey's usual high standard. Maybe he was rushed, or forced to shoot with insufficient light?
A standard movie critic's cliché is "Good cast tries hard but can't overcome the material." That is the case with bland 1954 cop drama Private Hell 36, but with the added debacle of Ida Lupino struggling to overcome her own lousy script! The dialog is particularly bad. What may have been a misguided attempt at give the characters' lines an every-day realism succeeds so well it is downright boring. Director Don Seigel blamed it on drinking and other misbehavior on the set by Lupino, her co-screenwriter and ex-husband Collier Young, who also produced, and dissipated co-star Steve Cochran. For all that it doesn't seem much worse to yours truly than Seigel's average output, which except for his magnum opus Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956), never rose much above mediocrity.Don Seigel has a worshipful following amongst devotees of the auteur philosophy that seems all out of proportion to his modest accomplishments. He was an auteur for whatever that's worth all right in the sense that the pictures he directed show his imprint. Unfortunately that imprint is boring, predicable, and lacking in artistry. Which describes Private Hell 36.With no sure direction the unusually competent actors founder. Cocharan sleepwalks through it. Conversely Howard Duff overacts to the blood vessel popping point. Poor Lupino seems to get more and more hysterical as the doings progress without her finding a line of her own writing into which she can infuse any drama. Beautiful, talented Dorothy Malone, miscast as cop Duff's drab housewife, stumbles through the proceeding with a "what am I doing here?" look. Only ever-reliable Dean Jagger, as the Police Captain, shows any life, and the picture perks up only when he's on screen. Even the cinematography by Burnett Guffey, who had just won an Accademy Award for his camera work in From Here To Eternity (1953), is bland and lacking artistry. Guffey and Seigel show little imagination in using the wide screen, simply centering the characters in the 1.85:1 frame or overusing giant closeups of faces.Others liked this picture, but yours truly and the grouchy old wife can't figure out why. She bailed out before the halfway point. Unfortunately oldblackandwhite is one of those self-flagellating types who has to watch on the the bitter end no matter how bad. Private Hell 36 is lifeless, draggy, talky, predicable and just plain bad. An awful waste of a talented cast and also a waste of whiskey if drinking a lot of same on the set is what Ida and her pals believed was the key to movie-making. Only for die-hard fans of Ida Lupino and rock-hard, desperate insomniacs. Others should avoid it as if it were and amateur barber friend with a new set of clippers.
***SPOILERS*** One of director Don Siegel of "Dirty Harry" fame earliest work involves a robbery in NYC of $300,000.00 that ended showing up, the stolen cash that is, in LA some 3,000 miles away. With LAPD detectives Carl Bruner, Steve Cochran, and Jack Farnham, Howard Duff, on the case they track down a 50 dollar bill from the robbery to a night club that it's top performer singer Lili Marlow, Ida Lupino, got as a tip from one of the customers there.It soon becomes obvious that the person who gave Lili the fifty was involved in the robbery and both Det. Bruner & Farnham together with Lili who can identify him stake out the Hollywood Race Track where he's known to spend his spare time and money, the stolen money, at.Track down the person they do when he makes a run for it in his car and ends up driving off the road killing himself.It's when the stolen money is found hidden in a safe box in the fugitive from justice, George Docksharden, car that Det. Bruner gets the idea of taking a large amount of it,$80,000.00, for himself and his partner, in order to keep him quite, Det. Farnham. Who's going to miss it anyway since no one has any idea of how much Docksharden spent anyway.Hiding the cash in a trailer park at lot #36 it seems that no one will find out what the two did even though honest cop and family man Jack Farnham has second thought about all this.***SPOILERS*** As things soon turn out the dead Dockshader had a partner in the $300,000.00 robbery who now want's his cut of the money. And he knows who has it Detectives Bruner & Farnham. And is also more then willing to expose their crime to their boss in the LAPD Capt. Michaels, Dean Jagger, if he doesn't get it! Unexpected final that will blow you away in how the two got caught in the act of returning the $80,000.00 that they stole to the man who they planned to double-cross who was blackmailing them. Like the saying goes "Crime doesn't Pay" it's only those who commit it that do.
Two cops are tracking down the source of hot money that is being passed that came from a robbery murder. They eventually find the man and the money--after a high speed chase that ends in the murderers death in a deserted area. One of the cops decides to help himself to $80,000 of the money as he has a new girl friend with expensive tastes. Unfortunately his partner gets scruples. The police department suspects something and launches a sting. In the denouement the bad cop is killed and all ends well.A film noir I suppose but with the typical Hollywood moral ending.I saw the sting a mile away...this is no where as good a movie as Charlie Varrick which Don Siegel made in 1973. It is however tight and well executed but the story is not full of fun unexpected twists and turns. Disappointment.It still gets a 6 as is very watchable but just average writing. Watch Charlie Varrick it is so much better.RECOMMEND
