Double Deal (1950)

Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

You can tell that "Double Deal" is a B-movie. At a little over one hour and a cast of mostly B-list actors, it's clearly meant as a second feature. However, it's a pretty good film regardless.When the story begins, Buzz Doyle (Richard Denning) arrives in town and soon ends up working for a guy who is trying to strike oil. But, oddly, the man's biggest rival is his very own sister and she seems willing to do just about anything to ensure that the well comes up dry. First, she tries to hire away Buzz and when he won't throw in his lot with her, she has him beaten. Is this the end of it? Nope...soon folks start dying.The film offers an excellent and unexpected twist ending. My only complaint is one of logistics...why would the killer bother to take Terry (Marie Windsor) to his place to kill her? Why not just kill her where he abducted her and be done with it? Oh, well...it ain't perfect...but it is still pretty good.By the way, if you don't recognize Denning, he played the Governor of Hawaii during the entire run of the original "Hawaii Five-O". He also starred as Lucille Ball's husband in the very successful radio show "My Favorite Husband"...the show that was later re-tooled into "I Love Lucy"...minus Denning, of course.

The material here would have made a fine noir had it been made by a visual stylist; and coming from the Mecca of noir, RKO, I'm surprised at the straightforward filming. After all, many icons of noir are already present—the lonely bus, the seedy bar, the penniless male lead, and, of course, the queen of slutty vamps, Marie Windsor. Except here, she's playing a good girl, of all things, a role a thousand lesser actresses could have handled.Nonetheless, it's a good little potboiler that manages to avoid many clichés of its kind. Everybody's conniving to get hold of an oil well that has gusher potential, including good guy Denning. But I'm especially impressed by Fay Baker who makes a scary hard-nosed villainess, plotting as ruthlessly as the men. The cast itself is full of colorful characters, especially Taylor Holmes who can't pass up anything that's spelled a-l-c-o-h-o-l. The script also includes a good surprise ending I didn't see coming. All in all, the 70-minutes is better than most programmers of the time, even if the great Marie Windsor is wasted.

How many B-films start with a stranger hopping off a bus in a lonely town, sidling into the local bar, sliding up to the femme fatale, and getting up to his neck in trouble? In this version, the hero (Richard Denning) google-eyes Marie Windsor's frame, breaks up a crooked dice game, and finds himself embroiled in an internecine oil-wildcatting war. It's a potboiler, but very watchable thanks to a decent plot, sharp dialog, and especially the offbeat characters and tried-and-true B-list performers who play them. Unfortunately, like most low-rent films of the time, the visual quality is only a couple of notches above TV, and most scenes are pretty static until the breakneck climax.Miss Windsor gets a softer role than usual here; it's Fay Baker who scores the man-eating ice-queen role. Best of all are Jim Hayward as a world-weary bartender (talking like a Ben Hecht creation), and Tom B. Henry (of the formidable proboscis) as a hardboiled but fair sheriff. Oh, and a pet monkey plays deus ex machina.

This movie should have been titled "Triple Deal". It has a dozen plot twists, some very surprising sexual overtones, and a totally unexpected ending. This is the kind of perfect "B" that will never be made again. Richard Denning, Marie Windsor, Taylor Holmes, and James Griffith - all reliable "B" players we have learned to appreciate over the years. It is movies like this that make us mourn the studio system.