The Mysterious Mr. Valentine (1946)

Memorable, crazy movie

I'll tell you why so serious

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Director: PHILIP FORD. Original screenplay: Milton Raison. Photography: Alfred Keller. Music score: Mort Glickman. Art director: Hilyard Brown. Set decorators: John McCarthy Jr and George Milo. Costume supervisor: Adele Palmer. Film editor: Richard L. Van Enger. Make-up supervised by Bob Mark. Assistant director: Jack Lacey. Sound recorded by Richard Tyler. Associate producer: Donald H. Brown. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.Copyright 2 September 1946 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 3 September 1946. U.K. release through British Lion: floating from June 1947. No original Australian theatrical release as rights were sold direct to the 16mm market and released through the Home Talkie Company. 20th Century-Fox acquired Australian distribution rights on 1 July 1950 and this film was eventually released to cinemas on 5 November 1953. 56 minutes.COMMENT: Directed by John Ford's brother, Philip, this noirish entry is a cut above the average Republic lower-case "B" picture. Admittedly the script is rather childish and full of holes, but it certainly has plenty of incident and is fast-paced. And the photography by Alfred Keller is quite inventive for a production of this sort. Even the music score by Mort Glickman is well above the pedestrian. And the playing is much more animated than in similar films.

Linda Sterling (Janet) seems to be caught up in a big, complicated mess that involves murder, blackmail, adultery and theft and we see it all in the first 10 minutes or so. William Henry (Steve) is the private investigator who helps to solve the case and keeps her protected. He gets involved with various characters but you need to pay attention as no time is wasted in this fast-paced offering.The acting is good although we get a few lame comedy attempts, eg, Linda Sterling pretending to be a secretary and wearing big glasses that means that she can't see properly. Yes....very funny. Actually, Linda Sterling is quite funny on another occasion, albeit unintentional. When William Henry is taking a beating and fighting for his life in the same room as Linda Sterling, she phones the police and does absolutely NOTHING to help him. And then, when the bad guy runs off, she shouts at Henry to get after him. WHAT? Get after him yourself, you silly bitch. Like I said, it is actually quite funny.This film is a fun way to spend an hour but make sure you pay attention or you will lose the plot. And I doubt you'll guess who is behind it all.

Linda Sterling stars in complicated (at least to start) tale of a young woman who gets a blow out while driving home. Walking to get help she stops in a chemical plant. There she startles a chemist moving a body, and is photographed by a jealous wife who thinks here husband is having an affair. Leaving she finds her car outside and driving away she ends up running over a body in the road.(it will make sense when you see it) Blackmail and murder follow as Sterling tries to untangle the web of intrigue she's found herself caught in.Good but overly complicated, especially for a film running only 55 minutes, this is a film that spins out so many plot threads in the first 10 minutes that it races to tie the remaining time. It doesn't do it badly, its just that the intensity of those opening minutes isn't sustained and the rest of the film seems almost too restrained as a result. I like the film, and I look forward to seeing it again. I just wish the film had maintained the sense that anything can happen that it has at the start, which makes it seem as though it isn't headed for the almost conventional ending it has. Even with the complaints this is very much worth a look.

The Mysterious Mr. Valentine packs a whole truckload of plot into its first few minutes. A sudden blowout forces a young woman (Linda Stirling) off a deserted road late at night; a tumbledown factory nearby holds the only prospect for help. A chemist inside seems distracted, even nervous, as well he might, since a body that was lying in the back laboratory amid the flasks and retorts has up and vanished. Nonetheless, he produces a bottle (of hooch) to offer Stirling a hospitable drink. Suddenly, as they toast, the door bursts open and a flashbulb goes off; the chemist's wife, it seems, has her suspicions. Scared witless, Stirling bolts outside and tears off in the nearest car, only to run a man down. But we know something that she does not: It's the corpse that was in the back room....Too bad the rest of the movie, a Republic crime programmer, doesn't live up to its breakneck opening. It looks surprisingly good, though, with a noirish fondness for crisp, intricate shadows. The story involves a brash, smart-mouthed private eye (William Henry) who tries to help Stirling locate the `Mr. Valentine' who's blackmailing her about the hit-and-run with a series of unsettling phone calls. The clean cinematography, unfortunately, belies a muddy plot, with more characters and subplots than its brevity can accommodate. It still generates a passing amount of fun and suspense, and stands as an example of how the light mystery programmers so popular in the late1930s came to take on the more freighted style of the late 1940s.