HEARTACHES (1947)

HEARTACHES (1947). Director: Basil Wrangell.

Obnoxious Vic Morton (Kenneth Farrell) is making his latest romantic movie, "Heartaches," when he gets a death threat in the mail. Vic's publicity agent, Toni (Sheila Ryan of Railroaded), is afraid that her boyfriend, reporter Jimmy McDonald (Edward Norris), will discover that Vic can't actually sing a note, but is dubbed by the un-handsome Bogey (Chill Wills). Lt. Armstrong (James Seay of Beginning of the End) thinks the business with the death threats -- which keep on coming -- is just a publicity stunt, but then a couple of dead bodies turn up. Potential suspects and victims include Mike Connolly (Frank Orth), Vic's agent, and Anatole Hendricks (Edward Earle),. who can't understand why Vic won't sign a very lucrative radio contract. 

Edward Norris, Sheila Ryan, Kenneth Farrell

Heartaches is better than the usual PRC production (which should stand for "Poverty Row Crap" but actually stands for "Producer's Releasing Corporation"), although this is still a minor murder mystery with the denouement practically a foregone conclusion. It has an interesting supporting cast: Keefe Brasselle as a prop boy who is also a suspect; Western star Lash La Rue as an actor in the film-within-a film whose gun somehow has real bullets in it (this is never really explained); Arthur Space of Panther Girl of the Kongo as a postal executive who investigates the threatening letters; Terry Moore as an actress in a coming attraction; and Minerva Urecal as a cleaning lady who discovers two corpses during her rounds. As for the leads, Chill Wills adds the most flavor as the man who was a lead vocalist with a band and is now just singing off-screen. Ken Farrell is suitably bitchy and twitchy, while Ryan and Norris are both adept but not terribly appealing. NOTE: Chill Wills was also lip-syncing -- the actual singer is unknown.

Verdict: Not since milli vanilli! **1/2. 

WHY MUST I DIE?

Debra Paget cornered by lady convicts

WHY MUST I DIE? (1960). Director: Roy Del Ruth.

Lois King (Terry Moore of Postmark for Danger) tries to make a new life for herself after blowing off her boyfriend, Eddie (Lionel Ames), and father, Red (Fred Sherman), both of whom are crooks. She winds up singing at a tony nightclub owned by Kenny Randell (Phil Harvey of The Land Unknown) and the two begin a romance. Unfortunately, just when things are looking up Eddie and his new girlfriend, the hardboiled safecracker Dottie Manson (Debra Paget), re-enter Lois' life. Lois has to give them information that will enable them to rob the nightclub, but a tragedy results from this. Lois and Dottie wind up in the same penal institution where one of them is on death row and the other hides a guilty secret. 

Phil Harvey and Terry Moore

Why Must I Die?, which also makes a plea against capital punishment, was clearly modeled on I Want to Live, released two years earlier. It's absorbing enough, but low-budget and second-rate, although it was photographed by no less than Ernest Haller. Terry Moore, who also produced the picture, is okay in the lead role but she hardly has the acting chops of Susan Hayward, star of I Want to Live, and overacts quite a bit when she's called upon to get hysterical. That is not the case with Debra Paget, who steals the movie from Moore with her intense and dynamic portrayal of the hard-as-nails Dottie. She's terrific and utterly loathsome.

Lionel Ames and Debra Paget

Other cast members in Why Must I Die? include Robert Shayne (of The Rebel Set) as another club owner who falls for Lois; Bert Freed as her lawyer, Adler; Sid Melton as an agent; Juli Reding as the sexy Mitzi, who also canoodles with Eddie; and Jackie Joseph (of Little Shop of Horrors) as another club employee who is having a fling with Kenny, for shame. Eddie's deadly fall off of a fire escape is well-handled as is the ending in the prison, which has a certain amount of minor power. Parts of Dick LaSalle's musical score remind one of Vertigo. 

Verdict: Paget makes her mark! **1/4. 

POSTMARK FOR DANGER

Robert Beatty and William Sylvester

POSTMARK FOR DANGER (aka Portrait of Alison1955). Director: Guy Green.

Artist Tim Forrester (Robert Beatty) learns that his brother, Louis, has been killed in a car crash along with a young woman named Alison (Terry Moore). Alison's father (Henry Oscar) hires Tim to paint a portrait of her and gives him some photographs and a dress she was fond of. But Tim later discovers that the painting has been ruined and finds the dress being worn by his model, Jill (Josephine Griffin), who has been murdered. We learn early on that Alison is actually alive and that she and Tim's other brother, Dave (William Sylvester of House of Blackmail), are mixed up in a diamond smuggling racket with people who play for keeps. Will Tim and Alison become the latest casualties?

Robert Beatty and Terry Moore

Postmark for Danger is yet another insipid British so-called thriller. It has a fairly good fight scene near the end, and the identity of the chief architect of the diamond operation comes as a bit of a surprise, but other than that, this is the kind of minor movie that you forget even while you're watching it. Robert Beatty was the unseen voice of The Invisible Man in the fifties UK TV series, and was also in Tarzan and the Lost Safari. Terry Moore is most famous as the star of Mighty Joe Young and the supposed widow of Howard Hughes. Her acting in this is adequate. 

Verdict: This is no Laura. Skip it if you can. *1/2.