Main Street after Dark ** (1945, Edward Arnold, Selena Royle, Tom Trout, Audrey Totter, Dan Duryea, Hume Cronyn, Dorothy Morris) – Classic Movie Review 12,055

The pleasingly played 1945 noir crime drama film Main Street after Dark stars Edward Arnold as Lieutenant Lorrigan, who takes a dim view of a criminal family of pickpockets (Selena Royle, Tom Trout, Audrey Totter).

‘The true story of today’s girl gangsters!’

Director Edward L Cahn’s 1945 MGM American noir crime drama film Main Street after Dark stars Edward Arnold, Selena Royle, Tom Trout, Audrey Totter, Dan Duryea, Hume Cronyn and Dorothy Morris.

A criminal family of pickpockets finds slim pickings when the law – in the shape of Edward Arnold as Lieutenant Lorrigan – takes a bleak view of their unique enterprise, in this pleasingly played tale.

Selena Royle plays Ma Dibson, whose thieving son Lefty (Tom Trout) is about to be freed from jail. Ma’s daughter Rosalie (Dorothy Morris) and Lefty’s wife Jessie Belle (Audrey Totter) pick up military servicemen in bars and steal from them.

The cast gives John C Higgins’s and Karl Kamb’s so-so script an added sparkle.

Main Street after Dark was released on 12 January 1945.

It runs 57 minutes.

Writers: John C Higgins (original story and screenplay) and Karl Kamb (screenplay).

Edward Arnold and Dan Duryea had appeared in Mrs Parkington (1944) as father and son.

The credited cast are Edward Arnold as Lieutenant Lorrigan, Selena Royle as ‘Ma’ Abby Dibson, Tom Trout as Lefty Dibson, Audrey Totter as Jessie Belle Dibson, Dan Duryea as Posey Dibson, Hume Cronyn as Keller, and Dorothy Morris as Rosalie Dibson.

Also in the cast are Wally Cassell (uncredited), Kernan Cripps (uncredited), Tom Drake as Radio Broadcaster (voice, uncredited), Dick Elliott (uncredited), Herbert Heywood (uncredited), John Kellogg (uncredited), Nolan Leary (uncredited), Robert Middlemass (uncredited), Lewis Mitchell (uncredited), William ‘Bill’ Phillips (uncredited), John R Reilly (uncredited), Raymond Rohauer (uncredited), William Tannen (uncredited), Ray Teal (uncredited), and Arthur Walsh (uncredited).

Main Street after Dark is directed by Edward L Cahn, runs 57 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by John C Higgins (original story and screenplay) and Karl Kamb (screenplay), is shot in black and white by Jackson Rose, is produced by Jerry Bresler and Herbert Moulton, is scored by George Bassman, and is designed by Cedric Gibbons and Richard Duce.

Audrey Totter (1917–2013).

Audrey Totter (1917–2013) signed a seven-year film contract with MGM in 1944 and made her film debut in Main Street After Dark (1945) and established herself as a popular female lead in the 1940s, especially in film noir, for example the 1947 High Wall. Totter recalled: ‘The bad girls were so much fun to play.’ Her contract with MGM ended after The Sellout (1952) and her film career went into decline, though she worked steadily on TV.

Audrey Totter died of a stroke in 2013, eight days before her 96th birthday.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,055

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