711 Ocean Drive (1950)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Beautiful, moving film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

This is a fairly decent picture but it was largely of interest to me for the backdrops. It was great to get a good look at the cutting edge telephone technology of the day, which was probably not without it's inaccuracies. Plus we get to see what was still relatively new at the time, the Hoover Dam in all it's glory. The film also featured a short scene at Gilmore Field, a PCL baseball park which was located at Beverly and Fairfax in LA. It was demolished when the Dodgers came to town and is where CBS Television Studios currently stands. While you won't see a ballgame, you can go to the site now to be in the audience of 'The Price is Right.'

711 Ocean Drive was indeed preachy, as attested to and confirmed by the blurbs at both beginning and end. Still, I found the film interesting and entertaining (although D.O.A. remains my all-time favorite O'Brien, and one of my top favorites, overall). The character of Mal Granger really presented a sharp and unexpected contrast to that of Frank Bigelow in D.O.A. The real surprise in this film came early on when the personality of Granger, itself, did a 180-degree turnaround, from the benign, carefree and kindly telephone repairman (who insisted his co-worker accept a few bucks that he was in need of), to the ruthless, unscrupulous, and murderous "operator" for whom even a little power is seen to surely corrupt. Although the early-on character of Granger is seen for only the first 15 or 20 minutes of the film, the contrast remained with me throughout. An excellent characterization by O'Brien, as usual.

The address of Edmond O'Brien's posh Malibu digs -- 711 Ocean Drive -- lends the title to this semidocumentary noir about bookmaking. Unfortunately the movie is bookended by sermons instructing viewers on their civic responsibilities: the two bucks you put on a horse go straight to graft and murder! In between, it's not bad. O'Brien, always better supporting than, as here, in the lead, is a money-grubbing telephone technician who brings his electronic expertise to the illegal-betting circuit. The profits his innovations generate oil his swift climb up the syndicate ladder; his ruthlessness greases his slide down. Along the way, the movie casually includes what may be the first Hollywood episode of severe wife-battering, perpetrated on Joanne Dru. At the end, O'Brien's grasping ambitions are dwarfed by the enormity of Boulder Dam, and viewers are left with a sense of his brief notoriety being but a single cog in a vast, unstoppable crime machine. It's a dated message in a time when, increasingly, gambling with the government's blessing has become the new civic responsibility.

Reliable Edmund O'Brien stars in this fairly routine B-thriller as a phone company repairman who uses his electrical knowhow to set up a highly efficent bookie system for a local gangster. When the gangster is shot to death by a poor schlub he's been squeezing for gambling debts, O'Brien takes over the operation. Suddenly several big boys from the "syndicate" back east come into Los Angeles to get a piece of the action. O'Brien's reach extends his grasp when he sets up the murder of one of his new partners (Don Porter), because the hit man decides that he should also be getting a cut of the action. The movie's best scene is its big finish at Boulder Dam (aka Hoover Dam), where O'Brien and Joann Dru take the tour down into the guts of the concrete beast to elude the cops. Despite the 1950 charm of Los Angeles, a couple of ominous characters and the rapid changes in O'Brien's fortunes, "711 Ocean Drive" (possibly a reference to O'Brien's Malibu digs) never seems to work up a good head of steam until the very end.