Manhandled *** (1949, Dan Duryea, Dorothy Lamour, Sterling Hayden) – Classic Movie Review 10,964

Director Lewis R Foster’s 1949 Manhandled is a very tolerable 1940s black and white film noir thriller and represents a nice change of pace for Dorothy Lamour as Merl Kramer, who is mixed up in murder and mayhem when she works as a fake psychiatrist Dr Redman (Harold Vermilyea)’s secretary.

Client Alton Bennet (Alan Napier) reveals to Vermilyea a dream in which he kills his unfaithful wife Mrs. Alton Bennet (Irene Hervey), who is promptly found dead for real with her jewels gone, and Napier is believed guilty by insurance investigator snoop Joe Cooper (Sterling Hayden) and the cops. But Lamour has told her weasly gumshoe lover Karl Benson (Dan Duryea) about the dream and he sees a golden opportunity.

It is a fair-to-middling, low-budget thriller from Pine-Thomas Productions, with the right cast (especially Duryea and Hayden, who are both outstanding) but perhaps the wrong co-writer/director in Foster, who fails to hurry it along or make it as urgent and compelling as possible. Nevertheless there is enough intrigue, suspense and noir atmosphere to keep it involving.

Unsurprisingly, Lamour’s escapist movie fans didn’t come.

The screenplay by Foster and Whitman Chambers is based on L S Goldsmith’s novel The Man Who Stole a Dream.

Also in the cast are Irving Bacon, Art Smith, Harold Vermilyea, Philip Reed, Alan Napier, and James Edwards.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,964

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