I Was a Shoplifter

When the daughter of a judge is caught shoplifting, she has to sign a confession in order to go free. "Faye" (Mona Freeman) is not the only one in the shop who's been apprehended in this annual $100m scam - "Jeff" (Scott Brady) has also been arrested and he is determined to befriend his new rookie friend. She works in the library and receives a visitor summoning her to a bar where she meets up with the manipulative "Ina" (Andrea King) and now she finds herself involved in a blackmail plot to ensure she continues to lift goods to order for the gang. Luckily for all, "Jeff" isn't quite what he seems and what now ensues is a decently enough paced drama that illustrates just how easy it is to steal and just how lucrative a business it is for the perpetrators. There's a strangely miscast, and rather weedy, Tony Curtis aboard here as the rather un-menacing enforcer "Pepe" and at times it adopts a slightly documentary approach to the polling techniques used to ensnare these criminals, but there's enough chemistry between Brady and Freeman and King reminds me of a baddie from a Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" film. The ending is a bit rushed, but it's still worth a watch if you want to know how easy it is to sell-on a dodgy three-blade electric razor!

Although film noir was very popular in the 1950s in Hollywood, I wouldn't exactly consider "I Was a Shoplifter" to be an example of the genre. It's more a police procedural film...and a darned good one. It's also well worth seeing in order to see two future stars in smaller parts before they became famous, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. Of the two, Curtis' role was far larger and meatier...though VERY different from his later roles. He plays Pepe, a guy who is a pusillanimous jerk who loves to stab folks! The film begins with two shoplifters being picked up by a department store. One (Mona Freeman) is the daughter of a judge...and she seems like a kleptomaniac who has no idea why she's doing it. The other seems like a real hard case...a career criminal who has been stealing for years (Scott Brady). But in reality, he's a detective working a case where they are trying to round up a ring of professional shoplifters as well as determine how and to whom they are selling their haul. Of course, there are lots of possible problems, a few fistfights and a dandy and tense finale. The film is very well written, never dull and well acted. I noticed some reviewers really disliked this film...but I thought it was excellent from start to finish.

source: I Was a Shoplifter

Moviecut—I Was a Shoplifter

Director Charles Lamont puts together another effective docunoir on police addressing the growing organized shoplifting problem in California. Scott Brady looks very fit, Mona Freeman very beautiful, stunning Andrea King the intelligent female criminal, Tony Curtis a baby-faced thoroughly evil robber/potential rapist/murderer, Charles Drake, Rock Hudson in small parts. Curiously enough, Curtis, Drake and Hudson would also all appear in supporting roles in another 1950 movie, the great Western WINCHESTER '73, starring Jimmy Stewart. Good photography, state of the art 1950 police plane, vehicles, listening devices and operational gadgets, in effective docunoir.

Or at least the only film noir in movie history speaking of shoplifting and not bank robbers, drug traffic, racketeers., pimps. The story itself is very easy and predictable to follow, not that unusual on the scheme itself. It is a rare film to catch and directed by Charles Lamont, not used to crime, film noirs, or some lousy ones in the thirties, but more comedy movies, light hearted dramas, such as the Abott and Costello series, or ven FRANCIS the talking mule. Useless to say that Charles Lamont was not a great director, but a prolific one, providing rare gems, which some are available on you tube. Not a bad little movie, I repeat, because of the shoplifting element. It could have been question of folks stealing gasoline in car tanks on parking lots. Why not?

Mona Freeman is the daughter of a judge. She's caught shoplifting, and is made to sign a confession by store detective Larry Keating, in return for not prosecuting... this time. It's standard procedure. What's not standard procedure is she's contacted by a gang of shoplifters who have access to that confession, and who say they will destroy it if she does a few jobs for them. It's one of those Universal programmers that they produced by the hundreds, played for a few years, and then were forgotten. It's competently directed by Charles Lamont, competently shot by Irving Glasberg, and competent played by the cast. Andrea King is catlike as the manager of the gang, even though it's quite clear from the set-up and a well- focused shot who actually is in charge. Tony Curtis plays a Mexican-American hood in a good-sized role, Rock Hudson a store detective in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him role. Scott Brady and Charles Drake fill out the top of the credit card, and it's another decent time-waster.

This movie treats a rather unusual subject for a noir / crime thriller, to wit shoplifting. It's not a bad movie, but it takes itself very seriously - in my humble opinion too seriously. The gang of shoplifters is a nasty one, but still : watching the immense police resources being deployed, one cannot but wonder if there weren't more urgent criminal matters to be dealt with, such as murder, mass poisoning or arson. (While we're at it, one also wonders about the criminal business model involved, especially on the fencing side. At this rate, the shoplifters might just as well organize a garage sale next to a lemonade stand.) However, the 1950's look at the department store environment is not without interest. In "I was a shoplifter" one of the main characters is a young librarian whose thieving instincts land her in a world of trouble. Sad, ignorant, vulnerable and immature, this poor soul seems to have been raised by fairies in a forest, or perhaps by poodles on an uninhabited island. Eventually the square-jawed hero asks for her hand in marriage, which is supposed to represent a happy end. A few years of kind-hearted but intensive therapy plus re-education might have been more appropriate. For the rest, there's the appearance of a very very young Tony Curtis, who plays an unappealing punk called Pepe. (Perhaps a hint of racism here ?) It's remarkable how Curtis already projects more star quality than the rest of the cast combined.

This bottom of the barrel B film (pretty low even for Universal before it became a blockbuster studio) is an overly dramatic, unbelievable racket film about a shoplifting ring that blackmails librarian Mona Freeman after discovering she has a past as a shoplifter. She is trained by the glamorous head of the ring Andrea King who ends up kidnapping her and taking her to Mexico where police officer Scott Brady goes undercover in order to break the ring. It's one of the most convoluted, detail missing scripts, giving young Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson early roles but nothing really of quality. The plot and situations which follow are so outlandish that it isn't even laughable, just humourless and boring. it's the type of film that it seems like they took on unproduced scripts out of their vault, change the premise and racket, and rushed it into production. It is so bad, this wouldn't even be published as a dime-store pulp novel.

How about, "I became a Hollywood has been in five films or less." Andrea King and Scott Brady were up and coming stars after World War II. By 1950, Brady was on the booze and it showed. No more A features for him. I don't think Hollywood knew what to do with Andrea King. She ended up on Dragnet 1969 in a turban. Mona Freeman did nothing but play put upon whiners. When she is listed among the cast you know it is going to be a Stinker. You are never clear about how their racket is run and you stop caring. Look out for small roles by Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson during their Universal International starlet days paying their dues on the casting chair.