The Man Who Cheated Himself

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

Two of my favorite writers, Seton I. Miller and Philip MacDonald, worked up this somewhat familiar plot (husband tries to murder rich wife and make it look like a burglary but he gets killed instead) into a moderately suspenseful police thriller, which maintains interest with a few clever plot twists and a thrilling bit of action across downtown San Francisco roof-tops, before coming to a really grand climax at the marvelously spooky Fort Point, followed by a winningly ironic conclusion (which surprisingly got past the censors back in 1950). Cobb astutely underplays the lead role of the seasoned, crime-weary detective. Jane Wyatt's heroine-in-distress commendably follows Cobb's lead, leaving all the histrionics to the second-string team of John Dall and Lisa Howard. Despite Dall's efforts, however, it's Alan Wells as murderous punk who easily walks away with the movie's acting honors. Felix Feist has handled all the action with his customary competence, and other credits are equally serviceable. When this film was originally released much was made of the remarkable fact that it was produced by Jack Warner, Jr, the son of Warner Bros mogul, Jack L. Warner. Jack Jr made three movies: The Admiral Was a Lady (executive producer), then this one, and finally Brushfire (1962) which he also wrote and directed. Oddly, none of these movies were distributed by Warner Bros, though Jack, Jr, worked for some time as an executive in the Warner TV division.

Sunday June 11, 1:30pm The Egyptian 'The Man Who Cheated Himself', follows the popular "bad cop noir" theme, starring Lee J. Cobb as Police Lieutenant Ed Cullin. When his lady friend Lois Frazer (Jane Wyatt), shoots her husband while the Lieutenant is 'visiting', he confronts the choice of coming clean or covering up, "I didn't know what I was doing! You know the truth!" "The truth can get you twenty years!" Cullin's kid brother Andy (John Dall) is new to homicide division and does his best to solve the crime while the Lieutenant tries to cover his tracks. "How am I doing?" " OK kid. Do any better and I'd be out of a job." The film makes use of locations in and around San Francisco including the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Telegraph Hill and Fort Point. The complex plot twists involving the gun, its disposal, reappearance and an errant slug are particularly entertaining.

The question that must arise from the beginning,m and which turns this movie doubtful from the start, is how such an experienced and qualified detective as Lee J. Cobb could allow himself to be lead by such a woman to his own bad end? He must realize from the beginning that it must be impossible at length to get away with such a cover up. All the same, it's an interesting intrigue, the plot is formidable as Lee must perform a complicated double play which is bound to constantly get more difficult, but what saves the film is the tremendous finale. Hitchcock must have been inspired by this set-up at Fort Point under the great bridge with its fantastic opportunities for a thriller finale. There are many details adding to an excellent thriller, like her scarf blowing off in the end, the Italian family incident, the great introductory scene with its opening the door to any possible crime that only can be guessed at - and which leads to crime that no one wanted to commit. Lee J. Cobb's foolery is questionable, but the film is great in spite of its foibles and should be worth restoring to its original quality indeed.

Some viewers are born fans, some achieve fandom and others have fandom thrust upon them. Right, Malvolio? My continually expanding passion, if you can call this insatiable thirst for black and white/old/scratchy films like this one a passion, certainly feels like it has been thrust upon me. I didn't start off loving this stuff because it was just the sort of film my mom and dad would never have let me see as a kid in the 50's. I forget the 60's and was raising kids on the Berenstain Bears and Curious George in the 70's and 80's. Now, here we are in the reclining years and there is the wonder of NOIR exploding on my screen like that meteor busting in on the Russian skies a few days ago. The Man Who Cheated Himself was painlessly easy to watch in spite of the places where the source material suffered from the hiccups, staggers and jags. I liked it very much. Some of the scenes evoked recollections of the camera work in The Third Man, interestingly enough itself made just one year earlier. If you are a noir fan and aren't picky, you'll love this. If you are a critic or anal retentive about only watching films in better condition than before they originally went into the can, well...you may only like it. One objective subjective observation...the writers did a fine job of getting me to the place of feeling younger Cullen's pain. Ouch! :-)

A homicide lieutenant, Lee J. Cobb, has a rich girl friend, Jane Wyatt, who is about to divorce her husband. The husband has been planning to kill her and make it look like a burglary gone wrong. Cobb stumbles into their sitting room just as Wyatt and her husband are struggling for the gun. Hubby winds up shot twice and dead. Instead of reporting the incident to the police, Cobb disposes of the body elsewhere and throws the gun off the Golden Gate Bridge. He's assigned to the case, however, and is to be assisted by his younger brother, John Dall, a rookie sergeant. All kinds of twists and turns follow. The gun thrown from the bridge evidently landed in the net of a fishing boat instead of the sea. And another gun is used in a robbery that is microscopically identical to the gun in Cobb's case. A witness to Cobb's disposal of the body turns out to have been color blind and made a mistake concerning the color of the coupe Cobb was driving. John Dall finally twigs. Cobb cold cocks him and he and Wyatt leave for a temporary hiding place at Fort Point, but Dall discovers them and they are arrested. Final scene: A charming Wyatt is cuddling her lawyer in the courthouse, saying, "Oh, you'll get me out of this, won't you? I have lots of money." After a contemptuous stare, she passes the handcuffed Cobb without a word. It's a workably formulaic plot -- investigating yourself, or having your brother investigate you. "The Big Clock" probably did a better job of it. More recently it was borrowed for "Presumed Innocent." I don't know how many other examples have been floating around. This exemplar is pretty humdrum. Lee J. Cobb is a magnificent actor and has done fine work elsewhere, especially for Elia Kazan. Here, he's dour throughout. Even at the beginning, when he's supposed to be joking with his newly arrived kid brother about the kid's forthcoming marriage, he seems to be performing a duty instead of enjoying himself. Nor is this Jane Wyatt's kind of role -- the treacherous, perfidious rich dame. She was attractive and perceptive and sensible. Here, the director (Felix Feist) has her overacting to the point of dolor. (She faints twice in the same scene after some hysterical babbling.) Dall doesn't add much but he's given at least a more complex role. The story itself doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. After all, Jane Wyman had been whining abjectly about her husband's plans to murder her -- and she was RIGHT. Hubby had jimmied the door, bought a gun, and did what he could to arrange a fake burglary and was caught and killed just in time to prevent him from achieving his goal. So why does an experienced policeman like Cobb, without a moment's reflection, decide to cover up the death? How can two guns have identical lans and grooves? And what is the likelihood of their BOTH being used in murders within a few days of each other? I'll tell you what the likelihood of that's happening is. The probability is exactly .00012848329. Come to think of it, I'm not sure about how one of those guns wound up in Tito Vuolo's fishing net. Was it the gun that Cobb threw from the bridge? Or did the gun belong to Vuolo's ne'er-do-well son? And, if I remember, blue-green color blindness is less common than red-green. Not that it makes much difference in everyday life. I mean, when was the last time anything important depended on your distinguishing blue from green? The Samoan language has only one word for the part of the color spectrum that includes both blue and green and the Samoan people are doing quite well, thank you very much. I've kind of made fun of an unambitious B feature, I know, and maybe I shouldn't, but it really is a little dull and sometimes jarringly discordant.

Lee J. Cobb and John Dall give nice performances in this medium-slow paced noir thriller. It is also nice to see a 20 year-old and lovely Lisa Howard in a supporting role as Dall's new wife (famous for her news coverage of Kennedy and Castro in the early 1960s, and her subsequent suicide/overdose at the age of 35). Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that Jane Wyatt did a fine job of playing the femme fatale. Her role is a bit different from the standard noir FF, and Wyatt is a bit strange as well. Wyatt's Lois Frazier is a rich, beautiful, seemingly naive and nervous woman suffering through an abominable marriage. Senior Police Lieutenant Cullen (Cobb) is having an affair with her. Lois' husband has just left on a suspicious business trip, when Lois discovers he has purchased a gun. She believes that her husband plans on killing her. Eventually, he returns to their house and sneaks in through a door connected to his study. His wife shoots him twice at close range in the chest. Cullen, knowing that the husband had an airline ticket for that night (his planned alibi) dumps the body off at the airport. This is the basic premise. What follows is an edgy, tense and nicely photographed story, as Cullen's younger brother (Dall) - a smart fledgling detective - begins to unravel the plot. The chase scene offers some really nice noir cinematography, and interesting sets. The soundtrack is also fairly good and the editing and directing are fine (though the edition I saw did have a few missing frames and other problems. The plot offers some interesting convolutions, but also mixes these with clichés. All considered - a good film for noir fans.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) "Yes, for one thing, a dame." A fast, curious, edgy crime film that depends on a fabulous, simple twist, which you learn right at the start and keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. The clash of two cops who are brothers begins innocently, and turns and builds in a very believable way, as the details of a murder are revealed. By the end, with a fabulous scene below the Golden Gate Bridge, it's a chase scene of pure suspense. Lee J. Cobb (more usually a brilliant secondary character) takes the lead as a cop who does his job with steady weariness, and yet when faced with a woman he loves too much, puts everything in danger. He's just perfect in his role, right to the last scene when you see him look down the hall with the same feeling he has at the beginning of the film. His kid brother played by the slightly quirky John Dall ("Gun Crazy") is all virtue, almost to the point of sweet sadness. And the two main women play believable supporting roles (especially Cobb's love-interest, who is selfish and panicky to just the right degree). This Jack M. Warner production was released by Fox but by the looks of it, it can't be quite a full budget feature movie, and because of that it is relentless and edgy, with no time for polish or emotional depth. Cameraman Russell Harlan ("Blackboard Jungle" and much later "To Kill a Mockingbird") does a brilliant job with great angles and framing. It isn't elegant, but it's visually sharp. Throw in a talented but little known director, Felix Feist, and some top shelf editing (by David Weisbart, one of absolute best) and you have just the mix you need for a small film much larger than life. This is a film noir in the usual sense of style, but also in substance--a lead male who is alienated and casting about for meaning in life, and a lead female who leads him astray. But in the end, what's it about? Crime? No. Love? Yes. The only subject that matters. Cobb: "Do you think I'd throw that away on a sucker play like this?" Dall: "Yes, for one thing, a dame."

The Man Who Cheated Himself is directed by Felix E. Feist and written by Seton I. Miller and Phillip MacDonald. It stars Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, John Dall and Lisa Howard. Music is by Louis Forbes and cinematography by Russell Harlan. Ed Cullen (Cobb) is a cop who is having an affair with wealthy Lois Frazer (Wyatt). When Lois, in a fit of panic shoots dead her husband, it cause Cullen no end of grief. You see, he was there as well, a witness to the crime... Don't forget to change your will. This is a film noir entry that contains most of the elements that form that brand of film making. Something of an under seen - and undervalued - piece, it manages to rise above a few minor itches to play out as potent. Cullen (Cobb excellent) gets spun into a vortex of self inflicted trouble on account of his eye for a dame, essayed by a cast against type Wyatt. Both are unfaithful, she's unreliable and he's quick to break his own laws with dishonesty and a corruptible soul. Things spice up when Cullen's younger brother, Andy (Dall), himself a police officer, joins his brother in investigating the "now" mysterious murder case. So we have a family crisis brewing as the younger Cullen tries to crack the case, all while his elder brother tries to throw him off the scent of his own complicity. Wonderful, because like a few other great noirs (Scandal Sheet, The Big Clock et al) we have a protagonist effectively investigating himself. And with the brothers being polar opposites in life values, it keeps things simmering nicely in the intrigue pot. The dialogue is often clip like and the police procedural aspects are finely played with believable strokes. Close calls come and go as the detective work lurches from almost solved and closed to "hang on a minute something smells fishy here" , while tricky collusion's smile like a Cheshire cat. The great Russell Harlan (Gun Crazy/Riot In Cell Block 11) continually keeps things moody with shadows and low lights, whilst simultaneously bringing to life the splendid San Francisco locations. None more so than for the finale filmed out at a derelict and decrepit Fort Point, a perfect setting for noir if ever there was one (Hitchcock and Boorman thought so too!). Wyatt is just about convincing enough as a femme fatale, but you can't help but ponder what one of the true noir actresses could have done with the role. While you can't get away from the fact that really both Cullen and Frazer simply had to front up for a self defence case at the beginning and there would have been no hassle. But as weak as that aspect is, there wouldn't have been this noir tale to tell, all of which is crafted with careful and knowing hands by Feist (Tomorrow is Another Day). 7.5/10

This was a disappointing film for me. It came to me via a boxed set entitled, "Classic Film Noir," which was a gift from someone who knows I typically enjoy films done in that style (I insist that noir is a style, not a genre). I do not think it is a noir film at all. There seems to be a tendency these days to label and market every black and white B movie made from 1947 to 1955 as noir, and the label does not always fit. There is a persecuted male protagonist, Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb), and most of the film's action takes place indoors. Those are just about the only noir elements that I could see. There is no pervasive paranoia, or any real reason why one should sympathize with Ed Cullen. Jane Wyatt was overdressed and unconvincing as a femme fatale. I do not want to spoil this film for potential viewers. However, I would be interested in hearing what other connoisseurs of film noir have to say about it.