What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

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The House of Rothschild from 1934 with George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young and Robert Young


"We require an agreement, a treaty, signed and guaranteed by your governments giving to our people absolute freedom. In this agreement, they would lose their chains, they would have the right to follow any trade, to own land, to live with respect and...remember what our father said, Mama,... to walk the world with dignity."
- Nathan Rothschild


There are two ways to view the 1934 movie The House of Rothschild, a movie about a notable Jewish banking family in the 19th century: one is as a traditional movie where it proves adequate hagiography, and two is as a strong rebuke to the pernicious antisemitism of the era.

Once the Motion Picture Production Code was fully enforced by the end of 1934, few movies dealt as openly and honestly with the evils of antisemitism until Gentleman's Agreement was made in 1947. But in precode Hollywood, nearly everything was fair game.

The House of Rothschild begins with a Jewish family forced to live on "Jew Street," where the Prussian government, literally, chains the street closed (and Jews in) at night.

Barred from owning land or entering trades like construction, the Rothschilds turn to money lending—and are hated even for that.

Fast-forward and the five Rothschild sons have each opened a bank branch in a major city in Europe, creating one of the first banking empires. It is an empire that funds the European governments' war against Napoleon.

The governments took "Jewish bankers' money" when they needed it most, but after winning the war, they – led by a virulently antisemitic Prussian count – 'squeezed' the Rothschilds out of a lucrative bond deal simply because they were Jewish.

When Napoleon returns from exile to attempt a second takeover of Europe, the governments shamelessly turn again to the Rothschilds to fund their war against the petite dictator. This time, the Rothchilds extract the agreement quoted at the top in return for their financing.

The story climaxes with the head of Rothschild bank, played by George Arliss, putting all the family's banking capital at risk to save England's stock market during the war and, by proxy, all of Europe. It's a nail-biting move as it could be ruin for the Rothschilds.

It's a good story and, at a very, very high level, it is true, but many liberties are taken along the way. It's also why the movie can simply be seen as a fawning docu-drama about the Rothschilds in the early 19th century.

Arliss is excellent portraying the head of the Jewish banking concern who repeatedly faces off with his antisemitic nemesis, the Prussian count, played menacingly by Boris Karloff. It was Karloff who led the effort to keep the Rothschilds out of the bond deal.

Karloff also tries to thwart Rothschild at every turn, proving to be a baleful foil to the banking family. Karloff, effectively, is the embodiment of inveterate European antisemitism.

There is a nice and completely made up side story about Arliss' daughter, played by lovely Loretta Young, falling in love with a young English captain, played by Robert Young (had they married in real life, Loretta wouldn't have had to change her monogrammed towels).

Their story highlights the antisemitism of the era. Arliss is against the marriage not because he dislikes Robert Young, but because he believes his daughter would never be accepted into R. Young's world and would face an unhappy future, effectively, exiled by her husband's family.

All the above makes the movie an engaging story, but its real value is its raw exposé of the virulent antisemitism in Europe at that time, starting with the Rothschilds living on "Jew Street." Later, they are subject to pogroms across Europe, stirred up by Karloff.

Banking is one of the few businesses open to them by law, but they are then denounced as "money changers" and "shysters" when they are successful at it. Arliss' "agreement," quoted at the top, is a spirited attempt to change this antisemitic construct, but it is flawed.

Jews can win legal rights – "the right to follow any trade, to own land –" through legislation, but they can't win the right "to live with respect and...to walk the world with dignity" with words written on even a fancy piece of legal paper with a bunch of important signatures on it.

No law, rule, or regulation can change what is in people's hearts. You can't legislate away hatred.

From the pogroms, to the Holocaust, to today's protests, it will take a massive societal and cultural change to relegate antisemitism – and racism, sexism, and all the other stupid evils that divide people into groups and then pit them against each other – to the dustbin of history.

20th Century Fox deserves plaudits for taking on an unpopular issue in 1934's The House of Rothschild. Its honorable stance imbues the big-budget movie with a moral clarity that did surprisingly well at the box office, while also earning the picture a Best Oscar nomination.

It is a bit hokey and obvious in places, yet 20th Century Fox managed to make a "message movie" in 1934 that is still entertaining and relevant today. Modern moviemakers, with their sanctimonious message movies, could learn something from The House of Rothschild.

The whole idea of anti-Semitism was something dimly heard in the distance until I was bussed from all-Black PS 40 to all-White PS 201 in Flushing. Both schools served NY City Housing Projects but the denizens were completely different. PS 40 was and is still predominantly Black while PS 201 was about 100% white and 80 percent Jewish. My neighborhood had been chosen to be part of the great "Bussing Experiment" in 1965. Until that time I had no experience with white kids of any religious persuasion. For a while I really didn't notice much religious friction though I'm sure there was some. I was busy trying to find my own way in a strange new world. Things stayed that way till the 6-day war broke out and suddenly I was being asked questions about which side I supported. Confused, I asked my mother what was going on since I knew she was "the help" for several Jewish families about 2 miles from the school.

As best she could, she filled in the blanks about the history of anti-Semitism in the States and how it related to us. It took me a bit to get my mind around the fact that White people hated each other at times as violently as they hated us. Of course as I aged, I read about the Spanish Inquisition, the Pogroms etc... and of course, the Holocaust was covered in depth in school. Many of the administrators of the Public Schools I attended and some of the teachers as well, had fought in WWII so... when the subject was taught, it often contained first hand accounts of what was done, and what was seen. In NY City at that time, religion was as violent a battlefield as race but I couldn't see it. Eventually I became aware of the story of the Rothschilds via books and the Broadway Musical. I'll have to see if I can catch this film. Thanks for the review.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Terror on a Train from 1953 with Glenn Ford, Maurice Denham, and Anne Vernon


Post-war British cinema is a treat. Its movies are usually modest-budget affairs, with taut plots, a talented cast, smart directing, and crisp black-and-white cinematography. Many are small gems that show how good storytelling trumps large budgets and elaborate special effects.

Terror on a Train, despite being made by an American company – MGM at its British Studios – is very much like other post-war British movies as MGM husbanded its big budgets for its American productions.

Terror on a Train starts when the police discover that a saboteur has planted a bomb somewhere on a freight train of sea mines, which is destined for Portsmouth. The on-the-fly plan is to divert the train to a siding in a smallish village, while calling in a munitions expert.

This sets off a series of events, including a mass evacuation of the village, which it turns out, isn't as "small" as one might have envisioned. Simultaneously, the police begin a time-critical search for the saboteur, as evidence and deduction indicates the train will blow up in about ten hours.

Working another angle, the railway security chief, played by Maurice Denham, contacts the only nearby munitions expert he can find: a former army officer, played by Glenn Ford. Ford, after a tough night, which includes his wife leaving him, throws on his coat and heads off to the train.

That sets the stage for an engaging Act Two, as Ford begins a painstaking and nerve-racking mine-by-mine search for the bomb, while the police search for the saboteur, the town is evacuated, and Ford's wife, played by Anne Vernon, has second thoughts about leaving him.

There is nothing amazing going on here – no dramatic special effects, no gut-wrenching melodrama – but there is the one thing that works: British stiff-upper-lip aplomb in the face of a crisis.

Almost to a man and woman, everyone does what they have to do. Even with their lives on the line, there are few histrionics. If a true reflection of the culture then, it's an impressive display that hints at how the country managed to hold up during the Blitz and other setbacks in WWII.

Ford methodically goes mine by mine by himself – why endanger others? – until Denham joins him when he can truly help. Once he can't help anymore, Denham leaves the blast zone. It's all rationally done: they argue calmly for a moment – Denham wants to stay – but logic prevails.

Director Ted Tetzlaff uses the UK studio and location shots to give the movie that quintessential cold, damp, and slightly dreary, but not-defeated post-war British look and feel that somehow makes even a suspense thriller feel oddly comfortable in an ineffably English way.

Act Three brings a few good twists and surprises, as all the threads get tied up. Plus, there's one move that might raise some moral hackles today, but the Brits were a lot less squeamish back then.

While Ford is the star – and he delivers a fine albeit subdued performance – it is really Denham who holds the movie together and imbues it with all its wonderful Britishness. He's the man you want heading railroad security in a crisis.

Watch how when Denham is presented with several pieces of evidence, some conflicting, he pauses, thinks, and then confidently issues an order. This impressive process is at work in the scene noted above when he leaves the blast zone. He is "calm in crisis" personified.

Ford and Vernon's marital difficulties feel a bit forced or tacked on, but the writers needed to pad the story as it has a short runtime, and they needed to get a good-looking woman in there somehow. Plus, the subplot helps to round out Ford's character.

Movies like Terror on a Train rightly don't win awards or garner almost any attention today, but for classic film fans, these small British efforts are surprisingly engaging and thoughtful movies that do the one thing all movies are supposed to do: they entertain.

 

[tamoko]

Showing Alexandro Jodorowsky films. Amassing art shows how filmmakers was created real Art without multi million budget. Modern film just a time wasted.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Lady without Passport from 1950 with Hedy Lamarr, John Hodiak, George Macready, and James Craig


Some movies are good, and that's enough, but with iconic beauty Hedy Lamarr starring – a leading lady who all but never made a truly notable movie – there's a disappointment in A Lady without Passport for being just another good but average post-war noirish thriller.

It is fair to note that at thirty-six, one of Hollywood's great beauties is starting to show her age. Great beauty has a bitter aftertaste, as its inevitable fade is most noticeable in those to whom it was most kind. Lamarr still looks luminous here, but you can see the slight slip from perfection.

That would have been less noticeable if the story were anything more than a noirish post-war reshuffling of Casablanca's story into a much less interesting immigration story where Europe's displaced persons (DPs) yearn for the freedom and opportunity of America.

Lamarr is one of those DPs, a Hungarian stuck in Cuba who is also, gratuitously to buy our sympathy, a concentration camp survivor. But before we get to Lamarr, we see an American immigration official, played by James Craig, investigating an alien smuggling ring in the U.S.

Evidence traces the ring back to Cuba, and the ring's leader, played by George Macready. Craig assigns his man in Cuba, played by John Hodiak, to the case. Hodiak goes undercover as a wealthy Hungarian trying to get into the U.S., just like Lamarr; although, she's without funds.

Since classic film fans, and film fans in 1950, had already seen Casablanca, it's hard to get overly worked up about a bunch of DPs being stuck in (at the time) democratic Cuba. There are no Nazis breathing down anyone's neck here or enticing "letters of transit" to kill or bribe for.

Sure, Lamarr kind of has to pay with the oldest currency on earth – it's all vague owing to the movie Code – but she's not choosing between a former romantic lover and the heroic leader of the underground, nor is her life really on the line.

The bad guy trying to collect payment to smuggle her in is played by the always good at playing slimy sinister characters Macready. He and Hodiak have a few good exchanges as Hodiak tries to get Macready to smuggle him to the US so that he can then arrest Macready.

The movie mainly takes place in Cuba, with Hodaik romancing Lamarr, who's more interested in getting to America than she is in sex. It's filmed on location, so look for some incredible shots of the island when it was nicer and wealthier than it is today as a communist paradise.

Eventually – for a short movie, it moves slowly – Macready, realizing he needs to get out of Cuba before the police close in, and wanting Lamarr for himself even if he has to hold her by force, takes a group of aliens, including Lamarr, into the US by plane with Hodiak in pursuit.

After a somewhat boring plane-trailing-plane sequence, there's a reasonably good climactic chase scene in the Everglades, but it's no "start of a beautiful friendship" ending.

That is A Lady without Passport in a nutshell: it's a poor man's post-war Casablanca without the Nazis, geopolitical significance, or a love triangle for the ages.

It's fine for a workaday noir, but disappointing as it's just another average movie for Hedy Lamarr. However, with immigration in the news once again, it is interesting to see how an earlier era viewed this presently hot-button issue.

 

[Edward]

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They All Laughed from 1981 with Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, Blaine Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Stratton, and Patti Hansen


If you come for the plot in They All Laughed, you've made a mistake, as director Peter Bogdanovich doesn't really care about the plot in his paean to Golden Era Hollywood's screwball comedies and romcom-detective movies.

He cares so little about it that it will take you more than half the movie to figure out the plot, and even then, you're wondering if you really know why everyone is doing what they do. So instead, just do what Bogdanovich wanted you to do and enjoy the characters and aura.

You can also enjoy the Woody Allen-style time travel to early 1980s New York City, when the metropolis still had a hardcore Gotham vibe of amped-up commerce, amped-up sex, and amped-up urban decay at the edges – quite possibly New York City's last golden moment.

The three male leads – Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, and Blaine Novak – work for a detective agency straight out of the 1940s, including the boss banging the secretary. She enjoys the sex and is less worried about his wife than he is – it's a 1940s detective agency without 1940s movie censorship.

The agency's surprisingly hard-to-keep-straight scorecard has Gazzara following a jealous international businessman's wife – she's played by Audrey Hepburn – while Ritter and Novak are following another jealous client's wife – she's played by the ill-fated Dorothy Stratton.

But it doesn't really matter as the fun is watching the three men tail the two women all over Manhattan, which becomes trickier when Ritter falls for Stratton and she, hesitatingly at first, for him, while Gazzara and Hepburn, later, begin a meaningful affair.

Thrown into the mix is Colleen Camp, playing a fast-talking country singer who falls for every man she meets. Camp is Carole Lombard, or any of those screwball comedy actresses from the 1930s – think Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday – if they could have casual sex all the time.

The other fun actress to look out for is Patti Hansen, who would become Mrs. Keith Richards in 1983. She is stunning to look at and engaging as the low-key but wise-beyond-her-years Checker cab driver. You'd have predicted a bigger career for her based on this small role.

Half the movie is just watching Gazzara playing a Bogie-ish-style detective, Ritter playing a John Ritter-style detective – tripping and falling all over the place – and Novak – with a 1970s mountain of curly hair – play a hip, young detective on roller skates.

The other half of the movie is the pretty women. Stratton – who was tragically murdered by her husband before the film's release, dooming this uneven film – is all blonde hair and a dynamite smile, while Hepburn, now fifty-one, is grace and elegance in middle age.

That's really it. They All Laughed is a 1980s movie with a heavy shot of a 1930s screwball detective romcom, a confusing plot, and full-on New York energy – but with engaging actors and characters. It's tedious in spots, but for old movie fans, there's enough throwback cool to make it worth the ride.


Great early-'80s NYC street scenes:
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Plus there's a cool 1940s vibe to the detective office:
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Probably also the last era in which this sort of office and business hadn't changed in nature significantly since the 40s (aesthetic superficialities side). A dozen years later, and word processing, email, the web would have changed everything.

 

[Fading Fast]

Probably also the last era in which this sort of office and business hadn't changed in nature significantly since the 40s (aesthetic superficialities side). A dozen years later, and word processing, email, the web would have changed everything.

Very true. I was 18 years old in '82 when I was "summer help" for a Wall Street firm only a few blocks from where the office in the movie was. The office I worked in was all paper that - and get ready for this - was moved around by vacuum tubes, these little conveyer belts, and a small army of inner-office "mail guys."

To your point, in a little over a decade, every desk had a computer and faxes were common - plus, soon, email dramatically reduced paper, the number of secretaries, and the number of inner-office mail guys. It was a big shift in just over a decade – not quite the Lenin decade-in-weeks moment for offices, but pretty dramatic.

 

[Edward]

Very true. I was 18 years old in '82 when I was "summer help" for a Wall Street firm only a few blocks from where the office in the movie was. The office I worked in was all paper that - and get ready for this - was moved around by vacuum tubes, these little conveyer belts, and a small army of inner-office "mail guys."

To your point, in a little over a decade, every desk had a computer and faxes were common - plus, soon, email dramatically reduced paper, the number of secretaries, and the number of inner-office mail guys. It was a big shift in just over a decade – not quite the Lenin decade-in-weeks moment for offices, but pretty dramatic.

It's amazing the changes that have happened. I do way more of my own admin work in academia now than would have been expected of any of my tutors back in the 90s. Of course that's partly education being overtaken by the profit motive, but also the fact that so often now it's just so much simpler for it to be done directly, owing to computerisation. It's definitely made, for good and ill, we academic much more accessible to students than was ever the case in my day.

When I started university in 1993, the web as we know it wasn't yet a thing. The university had its own intranet, and we all had email. Not many faculties made much used of it... during my brief tenure as an Arts student, it was the archaeology department that taught me how to use email. When I jumped ship to law, I didn't so much as look at my email address (or have any reason to) until I was in my postgraduate year, when our tutor communicated significantly with us via email - and the Laws building got *web enabled* computers for the first time. I wouldn't want to go back to a pre-web era, though I could certainly do with less information overload sometimes.

 

[Fading Fast]

My Favorite Brunette from 1947 with Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, and cameos by Alan Ladd, Bing Crosby, and others


Bob Hope was his own acting brand, with his movies often being send-ups of familiar genres and tropes. However, Hope was often the butt of the joke. This formula, if you like it, is firing on all cylinders in My Favorite Brunette: Hope's parody of the hard-boiled detective movie.

It opens with Hope on death row – it's hard to imagine the state expending effort to execute him when all you'd have to do is ignore him to kill him. The movie then dissolves into one long flashback as Hope's character explains how he wound up moments away from the electric chair.

Hope plays a baby photographer who has always fantasized about being a private detective like the one in the office next to his. Maybe the best scene in the movie happens early on when Hope begs his office neighbor to let him be his partner.

The detective, whom we first see from behind as Hope enters his office, is chatting up a babe on the phone with noir argot. He hangs up, dismisses Hope's plea to partner, takes a shot of scotch, puts on a trench coat, snaps the brim of his Fedora, checks his gun, and leaves.

It is almost every PI trope perfectly executed by Alan Ladd, one of the quintessential film noir private detectives of the era. Bumbling Hope is left alone in the office looking more effete than ever compared to suave Ladd. It's the movie in a nutshell, but of course, there is a plot coming.

Dorothy Lamour, playing another noir trope – the mysterious woman in distress – enters the office and mistakes Hope for Ladd. She needs help because some bad guys are doing – "something, something –" to her uncle. With that, Hope, Lamour and we, the audience, are off.

The "something something" turns out to involve a map, a mine, and a rare mineral, but it's all a MacGuffin to give Hope – now posing as a PI for Lamour – an opportunity to bumble his way through a parody of film noir detective movies.

Hope and Lamour wind up at a mansion, where they believe the baddies are holding her uncle prisoner. As in any respectable private detective noir, Hope bandies with the bad guys, but eventually, he is chased, shot at, bonked on the head, taken prisoner, nearly killed, and framed.

Lamour is along for some of this, but as in any good PI noir, we never really know if she's on Hope's side or is setting him up – think Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon. Adding to the parody fun here is Peter Lorre riffing on his own noir henchman persona.

Lorre, a regular bad guy in noirs, is one of the bad guys here trying to steal the map to the mine, but he's really here to give the movie a genuine noir feel one moment and then a parody feel the next. Kudos to Lorre for being such a good sport as he makes fun of his own screen image.

You'll only really like this one if you like Hope's brand of hyper-self-deprecating, often slapstick humor. About one out of every three jokes lands, but there are so many jokes – Hope just keeps cracking them until one works – that it's still pretty funny.

Lamour is very good – and sultry – as the mysterious-woman cliché. You'll wish she had more screen time, especially when you see how well she can balance humor and tension in her best scene – the one toward the end where she's playing a chambermaid to fool the bad guys.

You'll also want to catch Bing Crosby’s brief cameo near the end – because, well, it’s Bing. Ladd still owns the best cameo in this one – the man was born to play a cool, aloof film noir private detective – but spotting any one of these cameos is part of the fun.

While the lighting and cinematography are more Bob Hope than film noir – well-lit and cheery rather than dark and brooding – the movie occasionally leans into noir’s shadowy aesthetic, just enough to remind you of the kind of film it’s parodying.

Today we customize our entertainment to the nth degree, but back in the pre-TV 1940s, many people went to a night at the movies and watched whatever A and B pictures were showing. And maybe they went and saw two different pictures at another theater later in the week.

So chances are movie fans who didn't even love film noir were familiar with its tropes when they popped up in a Hope movie, just like some noir fans would sit through a Hope movie even if it wasn't his or her first choice.

This explains why a movie send-up like My Favorite Brunette had a wider audience in the 1940s than a niche parody would today. But for today's classic film fan, these parodies, especially with their cameos, are silly but fun riffs on some of their favorite movies.

 

[Salty O'Rourke]

View attachment 682662
My Favorite Brunette from 1947 with Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, and cameos by Alan Ladd, Bing Crosby, and others


Bob Hope was his own acting brand, with his movies often being send-ups of familiar genres and tropes. However, Hope was often the butt of the joke. This formula, if you like it, is firing on all cylinders in My Favorite Brunette: Hope's parody of the hard-boiled detective movie.

It opens with Hope on death row – it's hard to imagine the state expending effort to execute him when all you'd have to do is ignore him to kill him. The movie then dissolves into one long flashback as Hope's character explains how he wound up moments away from the electric chair.

Hope plays a baby photographer who has always fantasized about being a private detective like the one in the office next to his. Maybe the best scene in the movie happens early on when Hope begs his office neighbor to let him be his partner.

The detective, whom we first see from behind as Hope enters his office, is chatting up a babe on the phone with noir argot. He hangs up, dismisses Hope's plea to partner, takes a shot of scotch, puts on a trench coat, snaps the brim of his Fedora, checks his gun, and leaves.

It is almost every PI trope perfectly executed by Alan Ladd, one of the quintessential film noir private detectives of the era. Bumbling Hope is left alone in the office looking more effete than ever compared to suave Ladd. It's the movie in a nutshell, but of course, there is a plot coming.

Dorothy Lamour, playing another noir trope – the mysterious woman in distress – enters the office and mistakes Hope for Ladd. She needs help because some bad guys are doing – "something, something –" to her uncle. With that, Hope, Lamour and we, the audience, are off.

The "something something" turns out to involve a map, a mine, and a rare mineral, but it's all a MacGuffin to give Hope – now posing as a PI for Lamour – an opportunity to bumble his way through a parody of film noir detective movies.

Hope and Lamour wind up at a mansion, where they believe the baddies are holding her uncle prisoner. As in any respectable private detective noir, Hope bandies with the bad guys, but eventually, he is chased, shot at, bonked on the head, taken prisoner, nearly killed, and framed.

Lamour is along for some of this, but as in any good PI noir, we never really know if she's on Hope's side or is setting him up – think Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon. Adding to the parody fun here is Peter Lorre riffing on his own noir henchman persona.

Lorre, a regular bad guy in noirs, is one of the bad guys here trying to steal the map to the mine, but he's really here to give the movie a genuine noir feel one moment and then a parody feel the next. Kudos to Lorre for being such a good sport as he makes fun of his own screen image.

You'll only really like this one if you like Hope's brand of hyper-self-deprecating, often slapstick humor. About one out of every three jokes lands, but there are so many jokes – Hope just keeps cracking them until one works – that it's still pretty funny.

Lamour is very good – and sultry – as the mysterious-woman cliché. You'll wish she had more screen time, especially when you see how well she can balance humor and tension in her best scene – the one toward the end where she's playing a chambermaid to fool the bad guys.

You'll also want to catch Bing Crosby’s brief cameo near the end – because, well, it’s Bing. Ladd still owns the best cameo in this one – the man was born to play a cool, aloof film noir private detective – but spotting any one of these cameos is part of the fun.

While the lighting and cinematography are more Bob Hope than film noir – well-lit and cheery rather than dark and brooding – the movie occasionally leans into noir’s shadowy aesthetic, just enough to remind you of the kind of film it’s parodying.

Today we customize our entertainment to the nth degree, but back in the pre-TV 1940s, many people went to a night at the movies and watched whatever A and B pictures were showing. And maybe they went and saw two different pictures at another theater later in the week.

So chances are movie fans who didn't even love film noir were familiar with its tropes when they popped up in a Hope movie, just like some noir fans would sit through a Hope movie even if it wasn't his or her first choice.

This explains why a movie send-up like My Favorite Brunette had a wider audience in the 1940s than a niche parody would today. But for today's classic film fan, these parodies, especially with their cameos, are silly but fun riffs on some of their favorite movies.

View attachment 682664

While Ladd hits all the noir PI notes in this cameo, it's his only outing as a private eye on the silver screen. The closest he came was as an investigative reporter in Chicago Deadline.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Boot - 1985 uncut TV release.

 

[Fading Fast]

While Ladd hits all the noir PI notes in this cameo, it's his only outing as a private eye on the silver screen. The closest he came was as an investigative reporter in Chicago Deadline.

Good on you for catching that. When I read your post, my first thought was "he was a PI in," and then I couldn't fill in the blank. You're absolutely right, despite playing a cool noir guy in a few genre-defining movies, he never played a PI. Thank you for pointing that out. Based on his cameo in "My Favorite Brunette," he would have been a good one. I could see him in "Murder My Sweet," but then Dick Powell carry that role quite well.