Hell's Half Acre

source: Hell's Half Acre

I am not surprised by this Republic Pictures film noir, this studios was famous for mixing up some genres, western musicals, modern western, so why not exotic adventure crime noir movie? This one is not uninteresting because of its charm and atmosphere, and this story of the wife seeking her husband trace, supposed killed in action at Pearl harbor, this scheme is rather unusual in a film noir. This is a cute little crime flick from this studios specialized in serials and westerns. Wendell Corey seems to get bored, not convinced by his character, maybe the studio executive Herbert Yates should have chosen Forrest Tucker or Rod Cameron, the "home" studio stars, instead of Corey. And I was expecting the bland but not that bad Vera Ralston, Yates's wife, as the female role.

Evelyn Keyes flies to Hawaii. According to Navy records, he was killed at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, Wendell Corey has just been arrested by the Honolulu police for murder, and the picture in the papers looks like her husband, twelve years older and with a scar. She can't be sure, so she shows up at police chief Philip Ahn's office, only to find that Corey has fled into the city's red light district. This might be set in Hawaii, but despite the sunlit views of the Big Island and the languid steel guitars, director John H. Auer leads us into a darkening and corrupt world that it all looks and sounds menacing, despite the low-key acting of the two leads. It's not great, but it's always interesting, with nice turns by Elsa Lanchester, Marie Wilson and Jesse White.

It looks like a giant hide and seek play in Hawaiian paradise ("hell" is too strong a word to depict even the shady places ) ; the screenplay is derivative as it blends film noir with war melodrama .Both stars , Corey and Keyes only meet halfway through the film. Keyes plays the most endearing character of the story : she's in search of a man she was married to for three days ,left with a son she depicts as the seventh wonder of the world ; she made sure he was carefully brought up to become....what his father could have been .When reality is too hard to live with ,it's better to keep the legend .Mainly for a teenage boy in a military school.

An offbeat drama with a dream-like guitar score and a strong female contingent, including hard-bitten floozy Marie Windsor. Shot in glacial black & white on location in Honolulu by cameraman John L. ('Psycho') Russell. The script by Steve Fisher looks as if it began life set on the mean streets of New York; which would account for the unexpected presence of Elsa Lanchester as a taxi-driving Earth mother who takes Evelyn Keyes under her wing in the search for Ms Keyes' amnesiac husband Wendell Corey.

The story is interesting. After a honeymoon of three days Wendell Corey has to break up to serve in the war and happens to Pearl Harbour, where he is almost killed but not quite, but he survives with his face damaged for life. He gets stuck on Hawaii and tries to make a life of his own there in a casbah-like nest of murky activitieds, where he gets mixed up with local rackets but also makes some local career as a singing poet. His wife back home has received news that he is reported missiing, supposed dead, in which assumed fact she lives on for years, until she hears a song of his and recognizes his words on a modern record. She goes to Hawaii to search for him while he gets deeper involved with murders and rackets and refuses to acknowledge her or his life before the war. Of course there are further complications. Wendell Corey was never a favourite actor of mine, he was almost a disappointment to me in every film I saw him in for hisstiffness and lack of expression, but this film is saved by the story. The other actors are rather mediocre as well, but fortunately there is Elsa Lanchester as a helpful taxi driver, who actually contributes in saving the film. The local touch is also excellent, with sweet ukuleles singing and swinging all over the place and everywhere you go, and the environment is lovely and enchanting, of course. Only Wendell Corey is not, and he is only saved by the sad story of his fate.

There's something to be said for putting Wendell Corey in Hawaiian shirts; It makes him seem alive rather than the boring suits he wore in films such as "The File on Thelma Jordan" and "Harriet Craig". Here, he's a victim of blackmail whose girlfriend kills the blackmailer and ends up being killed herself with Corey blamed for the first murder. When his ex-wife Evelyn Keyes learns about this, she heads to Hawaii just three days after getting re-married to help him and tell him about his son which he seems never to have known about. Along with a rather chatty taxi driver (Elsa Lancaster, cast in a thankless role even in spite of being given third billing above the titles), Keyes ends up in Hell's Half Acre, a hiding spot for criminals and even works as a taxi dancer briefly to make contacts. Corey's business partner (Philip Ahn) is obviously involved in something shady, while Keyes must deal with a ton of creepy characters, including Jesse White who drunkenly attempts to rape her. This is a film that is sometimes a bit hard to take, too sleazy to be believable yet not sleazy enough to not be. The characters are mostly one-note, and the original murder (done by Nancy Bates, quickly dispatched soon afterwards) is never set up to give us a potent reason behind the blackmail. Marie Windsor, as White's floozy wife, at times looks exactly like Bates did before getting bumped, so that's another detail that can't help but go unnoticed. Charlie Chan's "number one son", Keye Luke, is the only element of nobility in the film as the police detective determined to help Corey prove his innocence if only he'll stay put. Ahn's seemingly classy villain is given an obvious evil temper, yet somehow, the motivations, even if sinister, are never convincing. As far as film noirs go, this is one of the weaker ones, and you may long for a classic episode of "Hawaii Five-O" after this to get the bad taste out of your head. The finale is so unconvincing that I spent a few minutes shaking my head with its unbelievability and supposedly honorable ridiculousness. Even though Corey has sprung to life a bit in this and Keyes is a lovely heroine, the enormous number of improbabilities here make this one for definite warning.

Good reviews - both here and from the pros, but I found this flick not so good. The acting isn't particularly good and the drama is tepid. Additionally the look of the leads leave lots to yearn for. Elsa Lancaster plays a former teacher from Wisconsin who is now a taxi driver in Hawaii with a British accent. The continual implanting of annoying choruses singing Hawaiian songs gets on my nerves. The plotting is slow which emphasizes the lack of good acting. I wanted to enjoy this movie, but I didn't

It's almost mandatory that when you film in Hawaii you film in color. But that would have put Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures on the horns of a dilemma. They were making a noir film set in Honolulu which is most often done in black and white anyway. And Yates was trying mightily to keep his studio afloat with the advent of television which overtaking Republic's bread and butter, B westerns. Evelyn Keyes and Wendell Corey star in this film where Evelyn hears that the husband she thought lost on the Arizona in December of 1941 is on trial for murder in Honolulu. She goes to Hawaii to investigate. Corey the long lost husband is now a syndicate big shot and has confessed to killing a former partner. A third partner Philip Ahn is looking to take advantage of the situation and inherit all of Corey's assets. No sooner does Keyes arrive in Hawaii than she's hip deep in the case when she tries to visit Corey's current girlfriend Nancy Gates. She spots Ahn near the home where he has just recently murdered Gates. That puts both Corey on a personal hunt and the Honolulu PD on a hunt for Ahn. I have to say that while Ahn has played villains before, he was never quite as brutal as he is in this film. His opposite number Keye Luke plays Honolulu's chief of police and he's a wise and compassionate soul and really in the end comes through for Keyes. Corey also does the decent thing in the end. A couple of other interesting roles are Jesse White as a hapless drunken gunsill and his slattern of a wife Marie Windsor who next to Gloria Grahame played the most tramps of the Fifties. Some story plot holes that you could have driven the Arizona through when it was afloat unfortunately mar Hell's Half Acre. But the characterizations are just fine. I only wish that color had been used because having been to Hawaii black and white doesn't do it justice.

Hell's Half Acre is directed by John H. Auer and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor, Nancy Gates and Leonard Strong. Music is by R. Dale Butts and cinematography by John L. Russell. Filmed and set in Hawaii, one could be forgiven for thinking this couldn't possibly work as a piece of film noir. In fact, the opening credit sequences lends one to think this could well be a frothy Elvis Presley type of movie - but it most assuredly isn't. Cash or Cave in? Story has Corey up to his neck in femme fatales, shifty criminal acquaintances and coppers. Which is not bad for a guy who was apparently killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor! The Hell's Half Acre of the tile is what is termed in the film as a shabby tenement district, this is the seedy underbelly of what we know as the paradise island. The location makes for some excellent atmospheric noir touches, with the production line abodes and the ream of wooden stairs and banisters making for a moody backdrop. At night the shadows come in to play, hanging nicely off of the alleyways and tawdry bars. Dirty Rat! Though a little too contrived for its own good, the many characterisations on show make the annoying itches easily scratched. From two-timing dames and thugs in need of anger management - to alcoholic slobs and batty taxi drivers, this has a roll call of colourful people drifting in and out of Hell's Half Acre. There's even some censor baiting going on, though the whiff of violent misogyny could have been less pungent. Some serious noir credentials are found with the makers, Auer (City That Never Sleeps), Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming), Corey (The Big Knife), Keyes (The Prowler), Windsor (The Narrow Margin), Gates (Suddenly), Lanchester (The Big Clock) and Russell (Moonrise), and that's only really scratching the surface. With its distinctive setting and well controlled unfurling of noir conventions, this is well worth a look by the noir faithful. 7/10