At sixty-four minutes, Fall Guy was a fun way to spend about an hour of my time. I had never heard of it before I typed “film noir” into my local library’s database and it showed up in the results. It was one of the DVDs that I decided to take a chance on. The film just barely makes the category of B movie, with its minimalist sets and low production values. It seemed to me that the actors did their own chase and fight scenes at the end. But this should come as no surprise because the film was produced by Monogram Pictures, one of the so-called Poverty Row studios producing films on tight budgets at the time.
The film starts with shots of New York City at night, which were obviously shot on location. They contrast sharply with the use of studio sets for the rest of the film. The film cuts to a police officer who is surprised by the sound of shattering glass: a man (Tom Cochrane) has just broken the glass of a telephone booth. The officer rushes over to find the man slumped and out cold on the pavement.
The film shifts to an out-of-focus shot of three men, two of whom are asking questions about bloody clothes and a knife. After they come into clearer view, the film cuts to Tom, the same man who passed out on the street and who is now lying in a bed. At first, I thought he was in a hospital room because one of the three men is a doctor, but I think it’s a room where the police allow people to sleep off the effects of whatever drugs or alcohol they have been taking because Tom talks later about waking up in the police station.
Two of the men want to interrogate Tom, but the doctor insists that he is incapable of conversation. The doctor says that Tom is under the influence of a narcotic and needs to sleep it off. (The film is based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich titled “Cocaine.”) The two men, who are police detectives, want to question Tom because he was wearing a bloody shirt and carrying a bloody knife before they changed him out of his clothes. While the two detectives talk with the doctor in another room and review the evidence that they found on Tom, Tom escapes and disappears.
The film cuts to a woman asleep in bed. She is Lois Walter, Tom’s girlfriend and on-and-off-again fiancée. She is awakened in the middle of the night by a telephone call from Tom’s brother-in-law, Mac McLaine. Tom has just come home and, according to Mac, he is talking nonsense. Mac wants Lois to come over to see if she can talk to Tom, and she agrees to go. Uncle Jim Grossett has also been awakened and comes out of his room to talk to Lois. He is not happy with Tom in general and his drinking in particular. Lois defends Tom: “Well, it isn’t entirely his fault. Things haven’t gone so well for him since he got out of the service. He can’t get into the work he wants. He’s been moody and restless.” Tom is a World War II veteran and is apparently having trouble adjusting to civilian life.
Lois arrives in time at Tom and Mac’s apartment to hear Tom tell Mac that he thinks he killed a woman the previous evening. She and Mac are very upset by his revelation, of course, but they agree to help him. They try to get him talking so that he will remember more and more of what happened. Tom does begin to remember, and he describes the previous night’s events in flashback.
Someone he met in a bar took him to a party, but the man was a stranger, not a friend or someone he knew previously. He didn’t know anyone at the party, but he does remember a young woman singing. A woman, he thinks it was the singer, gave him a drink and encouraged him to go bottoms up, which he did. Tom remembers blacking out and coming to in an empty apartment. In his confused state, he opened a closet door and found the singer inside dead. She fell forward into his arms, which is how he ended up with a bloody shirt. He stuffed her back into the closet and when he tried to lock the closet door, he dropped the key next to a bloody knife. He put the key and the knife in his pocket and left the apartment as fast as he could. The end of the flashback brings the narrative back to Tom in his apartment with Mac and Lois.
The rest of the film follows Tom and his brother-in-law Mac as they investigate what happened to Tom, with some help from Lois Walter. Mac is a police officer, which adds a bit of tension to the plot when the police detectives show up at the apartment looking for Tom. Mac believes in Tom’s innocence and wants him to have a chance to find out the truth. He and Lois decide to help Tom clear his name.
The narrative felt a bit choppy in places, and the sound wasn’t very clear on the DVD that I watched. Information is given quickly, and if you miss it, you might find yourself wondering about some details. I know I did. For instance, I wondered at first why Tom Cochrane and Mac McLaine are living in the same apartment. How do they know each other? (Mac is Tom’s brother-in-law.) Why is Tom’s fiancée, Lois Walter, living with her uncle, Jim Grossert? (Grossert is Lois’s guardian and not a blood relative.) Fall Guy is another example of a film noir in which the details—those that are provided, that is—matter. The plot doesn’t explain everything and doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, but the story will seem less confusing if you pay close attention.
Elisha Cook Jr. is great as Joe, the character who brings Tom Cochrane to the party and help set him up to be the fall guy. It’s a small supporting role, but he stands out because his acting performance is believable, which is more than I can say for others in the cast. In one scene, Tom is twisting Joe’s arm to get information out of him. Cook looks like he might really be feeling some pain, even though it’s obvious from the cuts back and forth between his face and his arm behind his back that he is not. Tom Cochrane looks like he is enjoying himself so much in this scene that I wondered if the actor in the role, Leo Penn, had trouble staying straight-faced during filming.
Another point of interest to modern-day viewers is that Leo (aka Clifford) Penn is the father of Michael Penn, the singer, and Sean and Chris Penn, the actors. Leo Penn had been blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the late 1940s, and he shifted to television work after working in film. But in his lead role in Fall Guy, I had plenty of time to find the resemblance between him and his three sons, especially Sean Penn.
As I said, Fall Guy is clearly a B movie, with minimalist sets and low production values. But there’s Elisha Cook Jr., and did I mention Iris Adrian as Mrs. Sindell? She and her husband host the party where Tom blacked out, and they provide some comic relief when Tom and Mac show up asking about their party. They argue and fuss and almost forget anyone else is in the apartment. Neither one of them can find the key to the closet until Mrs. Sindell stops to apply some cold cream and—voilà—the key is inside the jar, covered in cream! And the moment I heard Adrian’s voice, I knew I had heard it before in countless bit parts. Her scenes alone are worth the hour or so it takes to give Fall Guy a chance.
March 15, 1947, release date • Directed by Reginald Le Borg • Screenplay by Jerry Warner, John O’Dea • Based on the short story “Cocaine” by Cornell Woolrich • Music by Edward J. Kay • Edited by William Austin • Cinematography by Mack Stengler
Clifford Penn (aka Leo Penn) as Tom Cochrane • Robert Armstrong as Mac McLaine, Tom’s brother-in-law • Teala Loring as Lois Walter, Tom’s fiancée • Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe • Douglas Fowley as Inspector Shannon • Charles Arnt as Uncle Jim Grossett, Lois’s guardian • Virginia Dale as Marie, the singer • Iris Adrian as Mrs. Sindell • John Harmon as Ed Sindell • Jack Overman as Mike, Marie’s boyfriend
Distributed by Pathé Pictures • Produced by Monogram Pictures
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