| Vintage Pulp | May 27 2023 |
When America's borders are penetrated the government unleashes a load of C-Men.
This is a pretty interesting poster for the crime drama 'C'-Man, a movie dealing with the intrepid customs men who confiscate contraband passing through U.S. borders and arrest the criminals who broke the law. Though the possibility amuses us in the most juvenile way, we don't think customs men were ever called c-men, and the reason why is obvious. In any case, Dean Jagger stars as a New York City c-man who investigates the murder of his pal and colleague who'd been investigating a ring of jewel thieves. He goes undercover, takes a couple of beatings, and develops an affection for Lottie Elwen, who plays the dupe girlfriend of one of the smugglers.
This is strictly a low budget affair, barely viable even as a b-movie. It was shot fast, all the sound except for one nightclub scene was recorded natively, and it doesn't seem as if retakes were usually an option. There's no doubt the c-men will come out on top, and when you add in the opening thank-you to the “agents of the U.S. Treasury Department, without whose assistance this film could not have been made,” what you have is a cheap propaganda piece, one in which the lauded and noble subjects of the cinematic stroke job don't even come out looking that great. There are infinitely better vintage crime dramas, as well as better propaganda flicks, so in our opinion you can skip this one. 'C'-Man premiered today in 1949.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 23 2020 |
A trapper's job turns into a battle of wits and a test of survival.
The movie Swamp Water is based on Vereen Bell's 1941 novel of the same name. We read the book a while back and loved it, so having a look at the movie adaptation was mandatory. Jean Renoir directs a heavyweight cast: Walter Brennan, Walter Huston, Dana Andrews, an eighteen-year old Anne Baxter, and even John Carradine. Brennan is the key character, playing a murder suspect hiding in the Okefenokee Swamp. He's considered an all-time great actor, and here he plays a backwoods good ole boy, mouthing dialogue like, “I bet I been cottonmouth bit a dozen times.” When we heard that line we had to laugh, because it prefigures his famous soliloquy from 1946's To Have and Have Not about being “bit by a dead bee.”
There's more excellent dialogue in this. Our favorite line: “It's gettin' so I don't expect nothin' from you 'cept a bossified tongue and a cussin' out.”
While the script is fun, we didn't think Bell's book would be easily adaptable and we were right. One of the pleasures of the novel is its extensive focus on the geography of the swamp, but there was no way that could fit into the film. The air of deep foreboding and mystery is also missing. For those and other reasons what you end up with is a so-so old movie made from an excellent old book. The script closely follows the source material, so if you want to know a bit more about the plot, we posted a short write-up on the novel here. Swamp Water opened across the U.S. in November 1941, but before its national debut had a special premiere in the town of Waycross, Georgia, where much of the movie was made. That was today, 1941.
GeorgiaWaycrossSwamp WaterWalter BrennanWalter HustonDana AndrewsAnne BaxterVirginia GilmoreJohn CarradineVereen BellJean Renoirposter artcinemamovie review
