{"id":6651,"date":"2011-10-08T13:57:09","date_gmt":"2011-10-08T17:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2012-07-21T22:18:36","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T02:18:36","slug":"blackmail-1939-h-c-potter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/6651","title":{"rendered":"Blackmail (1939, H.C. Potter)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edward G. Robinson (eight years and twenty movies later, still being billed on posters as “the screen’s Little Caesar”) has a lovely wife (Ruth Hussey of The Philadelphia Story<\/a><\/em>), an annoying son, and an assistant named Moose (Big Boy Williams of Lucky Star<\/a><\/em> and City Girl<\/a><\/em>). Ed and Moose run a thriving company putting out oil-well fires with explosives. But Robinson has a secret past – convicted of a robbery a decade earlier, he escaped from the chain gang and changed his name. This being 1939, we wouldn’t be allowed to root for a crook, so it turns out Robinson was innocent, wrongly imprisoned.<\/p>\n

Check the well-fire reflection in the car next to Ruth:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The real thief (a broken-down-looking Gene Lockhart of Meet John Doe<\/em>, The Devil and Daniel Webster<\/em>) tracks Robinson down and blackmails him for all he’s got, including his new oil well, and gets Robinson sent back to the chain gang as well. A few hardass prison scenes and depressing letters from home later, Robinson escapes again – his fellow escapee getting shot to death in the process, but no matter – sets fire to his own well and waits for Lockhart to call Moose to put it out. A punchout, a coerced confession, and Robinson’s name is cleared.<\/p>\n

Slimy Lockhart:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Tight little thriller. Loved the infernal opening and closing scenes in front of well fires. Wonder how much fuel was burned up while making this movie. I also dug the chain gang singing “Take This Hammer”. This has nothing at all in common with the other HC Potter movie I’ve seen, Hellzapoppin’<\/a><\/em>, besides that they’re both really good. Actually there’s a scene at the beginning where so-called fireman Big Boy sets a trash can ablaze while on the phone, setting a comic tone that is immediately lost when the sinister Gene Lockhart arrives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Also enjoyed the superimposition showing Robinson digging his prisoner’s pick into the grinning face of Lockhart, and Robinson’s Cape Fear<\/em>-style escape clinging beneath a truck.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Whole pile of writers, including Hertz & Ludwig (Love Crazy<\/a><\/em>), Dorothy Yost (The Gay Divorcee<\/a><\/em>) and Brown Holmes (I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang<\/em>, unsurprisingly).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward G. Robinson (eight years and twenty movies later, still being billed on posters as “the screen’s Little Caesar”) has a lovely wife (Ruth Hussey of The Philadelphia Story), an annoying son, and an assistant named Moose (Big Boy Williams of Lucky Star and City Girl). Ed and Moose run a thriving company putting out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[343,344,1385],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1930s","tag-edward-g-robinson","tag-hc-potter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7913,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions\/7913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}