I Love Trouble (1948)

And I just love the title of this film noir. I Love Trouble is one of those films noir with so many twists and turns that you have to follow the plot closely and, as is typical with so many films noir, it helps to see the film more than once. It also has plenty of snappy dialogue, which adds to the fun. And to make things even better, I Love Trouble has plenty of roles for female actors, with not one femme fatale among them.

Just writing that last sentence is something of a spoiler. And just so you know: This article has more spoilers ahead.

I Love Trouble is in the public domain. You can watch it for free at the Internet Archive by clicking here. There are a few versions of the film at the Internet Archive, but this one was the best print that I could find there.

Private investigator Stuart G. Bailey has been hired by Ralph Johnson to learn more about Johnson’s wife. Johnson is a prominent local citizen in Los Angeles (L.A.); he is the estate planning commissioner and chair of the civic council. He has been receiving notes hinting at his wife’s dark past and threatening blackmail. Bailey has gotten on his bad side from the start because he is following Mrs. Johnson (aka Jane Breeger) in L.A., not digging around in her past in Portland, Oregon, as he was instructed to do. Bailey’s work in L.A. has paid off, however. He asks Johnson if he knows about his wife’s account at a bank in Westwood. Johnson knows nothing about it. He decides to retain Bailey’s services after all, but he still wants him to investigate his wife’s past in Portland.

In Portland, Bailey discovers that Jane Breeger’s former home address is now a shipping yard. The address for her first job, at a club called Keller’s Carousel and owned by a man named Keller, was closed by the police years ago. Bailey keeps looking for Keller and finds an illegal club in what appears to be an abandoned building He meets someone there named Reno, who just so happens to be working for Keller. Keller tells Bailey that Jane Breeger left Portland in 1941 with a comic named Buster Buffin. When Bailey leaves Keller’s club and reaches the street outside, someone attempts to run him down—twice. When that doesn’t work, someone knocks him out. Bailey believes Reno is responsible so, before he leaves Portland, Bailey returns to Keller’s club, punches Reno twice, and knocks him out. This antagonism between the two men will flare up again during Bailey’s investigation back in L.A.

Bailey’s next stop is Buster Buffin’s Buffet in Venice, California. (The film is yet another one from the period that shows the beach studded with oil derricks, back when California was a major oil producer, back before the environmental movement took shape.) Buster Buffin now owns a café on the beach in Venice, and he tells Bailey that Jane Breeger once worked under the name of Janie Joy at Club Zorro in Long Beach.

Bailey was followed on his way to Buffin’s Buffet, and he stops his car to confront the person following him. The person just drives away, but Bailey is followed repeatedly throughout his investigation, and this particular person and his associates, including Reno, catch up with Bailey eventually.

Mrs. Ralph Johnson has a very complicated past that adds to the very complicated plot of I Love Trouble. She has changed her name, moved from Portland to L.A. (and from a past that seems to have been obliterated by new construction more than once), and lied to her husband about when exactly she left Portland. Why all the lies? And why are so many people so hesitant to talk about Janie Joy? Why does her sister, Gretchen Breeger, fail to recognize the one photo that Stuart Bailey has of Jane Breeger? Gretchen Breeger moved to L.A. to work as a model, and she has changed her name to Norma Shannon. But this naturally draws more suspicion, at least at first, on the part of Bailey. Stuart Bailey falls for Norma Shannon, but he confirms everything that she tells him before acting on his feelings.

Why is Keller, Jane Breeger’s former employer, so interested in finding her? He goes to great lengths to learn what Bailey knows, setting Reno and two men named Sharpy and Herb after Bailey. They kidnap him and try to beat information out of him. The police, Lieutenant Quint in particular, start to believe that Bailey isn’t very forthcoming with information about the murders, first Buster Buffin’s, then Mrs. Ralph Johnson’s, both of which occur only after he has started his investigation. Someone tries to frame Bailey for the murders, and Lieutenant Quint is happy to take Bailey into custody. Although viewers know that Bailey is innocent, police suspicion complicates his life and the plot even further.

Stuart G. Bailey is a competent private investigator. He solves the mystery and even gets the girl in the end. I enjoyed the fact that his secretary, Hazel Bixby (played by Glenda Farrell), is just as competent at coming to Bailey’s rescue on more than one occasion. Bixby keeps the office tidy and functioning smoothly, and she can trade wisecracks with Bailey, especially when clients get huffy. And she can handle a gun and herself out on the streets. Stuart Bailey owes some of his success to Bixby.

The character Stuart G. Bailey likes the ladies, and he meets many in this film. I hear that Franchot Tone, the actor who plays him in I Love Trouble, might have been similar. He was married four times to several actresses, including Joan Crawford, and his private life may have been more scandalous that Stuart Bailey’s. For more information about Tone and the film’s production, click on the following links:

◊ Wikipedia—Franchot Tone—Personal Life: The entire entry at Wikipedia gives a lot more information about the actor, but the focus on his personal life is fascinating. Many fans of film noir may already know about his troubles with the actor Tom Neal.

◊ Noir Alley—I Love Trouble (1948) Intro, September 25, 2022: As he always does, Eddie Muller gives lots of great information about the film’s production; the screenwriter, Roy Huggins; and Franchot Tone. But I do suspect that he overplays Franchot Tone’s relationships with women just a bit.

I Love Trouble is a lot of fun, and I cannot recommend it enough. Watching it more than once to make sure I followed the plot was a pleasure. So many film noir regulars have parts in this film that the fun also comes from watching the supporting cast. Glenda Farrell, Janet Blair, Janis Carter, Adele Jergens, John Ireland, Raymond Burr, Steven Geray, and Tom Powers all give wonderful performances. It really is too bad that Franchot Tone didn’t make more of this type of film.

January 15, 1948, release date  •  Directed by S. Sylvan Simon  •  Screenplay by Roy Huggins  •  Based on the novel The Double Take by Roy Huggins  •  Music by George Duning  •  Edited by Al Clark  •  Cinematography by Charles Lawton, Jr.

Franchot Tone as Stuart Bailey  •  Janet Blair as Norma Shannon  •  Janis Carter as Mrs. Alicia Caprillo  •  Adele Jergens as Irene (aka Boots) Nestor  •  Glenda Farrell as Hazel Bixby  •  Steven Geray as Keller  •  Tom Powers as Ralph Johnson  •  Lynn Merrick as Mrs. Johnson  •  John Ireland as Reno  •  Sid Tomack as Buster Buffin  •  Donald Curtis as Martin  •  Eduardo Ciannelli as John Vega Caprillo  •  Robert Barrat as Lieutenant Quint  •  Raymond Burr as Herb  •  Garry Owen as Gus  •  Eddy Marr as Sharpy

Distributed by Columbia Pictures  •  Produced by Cornell Pictures

Framed (1947)

I have often wondered while watching films how anyone could believe a tall, thin platinum blonde with perfect makeup and a perfect wardrobe would be working as a waitress in a drab mining town. How could she afford to wear couture outfits on a waitress’s salary anytime she wasn’t in her work uniform? In Framed, Glenn Ford’s character Mike Lambert asks those very same questions of Paula Craig (played by Janis Carter). The fact that he asks the questions shows that he has some smarts. But he wants to fall in love and be loved, which makes it easier to believe that his character would fall for Paula Craig and her lies. It’s a head-versus-heart situation that can only spell trouble in film called Framed.

And Mike Lambert is in trouble from the start, even before Paula Craig makes an appearance. He is behind the wheel of a runaway transport truck owned by the Tri-City Trucking Company on a curvy hillside road. The brakes (both the brake pedal and the hand brake) don’t work. He can’t get the truck to slow down until he arrives in a town center, where the truck finally crashes to a stop when it hits a pickup truck. The driver of the pickup truck sees the accident and wants money for the damage, but some managers of the trucking company (who just happen to be in town) refuse to pay. Mike Lambert demands the money he is owed for driving the truck and then gives some of it to the pickup truck driver, Jeff Cunningham, thus earning himself a friend.

You can find Framed online. Click here to see it free at the Internet Archive.

Mike Lambert heads to La Paloma Café in the town, which has no name (none is ever given). At the café, Lambert is served bad whiskey, and he meets the waitress, Paula Craig. Police officers, accompanied by one of the Tri-City Trucking Company managers, arrive in the café to question Lambert. Lambert is already in trouble it seems, and it doesn’t help that his driver’s license has expired and that he knows no one: He is new in town and looking for work as a mining engineer. The officers haul him out of the café and is quickly brought before a judge. He pleads guilty to driving recklessly, driving though a stop sign, and driving without a license. But he also protests that he was given a truck that didn’t have working brakes. No one knows him, however, and no one is inclined to believe him. He is fined fifty dollars, but he doesn’t have the money so he will have to stay in custody for ten days. Paula Craig has followed him to the courthouse, and she offers to pay the fine. Paula Craig quits her job at the café that night.

(This article about Framed contains a few spoilers.)

Mike Lambert has been drinking and is passing out at one of the café’s tables. Craig decides to get a hotel room for Lambert and leaves some money in his wallet. Then she goes home to the Park Court Apartments, where she gets dressed for a meeting with Steve Price. Price picks her up in the center of town. It is obvious that this is a routine for them and that they already know each other. Craig tells Price, “I found him,” “him” being Lambert. He is the same height and has the same build as Price. (Or so they say. I don’t think the two actors Glenn Ford and Barry Sullivan look anything alike, but I figured this was more of a plot device.) They arrive at Price’s place, where they talk about a safety deposit box, the keys, and signing a card for access to it. They seem to have a heist on their minds.

Price drives Craig back to their original meeting place and then goes home to his wife, Beth. Beth Price is well aware that her husband keeps odd hours. He says that he never lied to her about who and what he is. She has some regrets about marrying him and about her father getting him a job at the Empire Trust and Savings Bank. She wants to talk about splitting up. Steve makes Beth so angry that she slaps him and walks out instead. This scene doesn’t advance the story much, but it does reveal two surprises: Steve Price is married, and he has an important job and social standing thanks to his wife.

Mike Lambert, on the other hand, wakes up in his cheap hotel room. He’s hungover, not sure where he is or how he got there. He finds the money that Craig put in his wallet and doesn’t remember anything about that either. When he goes downstairs to the lobby, he asks the desk clerk how he got to the hotel, and the clerk talks about “the lady” who brought him in and paid the hotel bill. He also gives Lambert the note that she left with her phone number. It’s obvious that the clerk read the note because he points out the phone booth in the hotel lobby. Everyone in town and especially in La Paloma Café is cynical, and the hotel desk clerk is just one more example.

Lambert stops in the J. B. Smith Assay office to ask about new mines that might be opening and jobs for mining engineers. The man working there, Sandy, tells him to wait for someone who just recently brought in a mining sample for testing. This person turns out to be Jeff Cunningham, the pickup truck driver, and he is very happy to meet him again. The sample that Cunningham brought in has some valuable ore, so Cunningham and Lambert leave to talk business. Cunningham offers Lambert a job that will pay a percentage rather than a salary, and Lambert is happy with the offer. Cunningham leaves to apply for a loan at the Empire Trust and Savings Bank, and he meets with Steve Price, vice president at the bank—another surprise.

When Mike Lambert returns to his hotel room, Paula Craig drops in on him because he never called her. Lambert is packing to leave town and start working at the mine. He tells Craig enough of the particulars that she goes to a public phone to tell Steve Price not to approve a loan for Cunningham. Cunningham is angry about the change, and then he has to tell Mike Lambert that their deal is postponed until he can find another bank to lend him the money.

Paula Craig is just getting started telling her lies to Mike Lambert. What’s so amazing about them is that some of them are so plausible. The story is mostly Lambert’s, and so it is easy to identify with him and his point of view. The first time I saw the film, I believed one or two of Craig’s lies before she was exposed. Her lies are part of the long list of plot twists and turns that makes the story interesting and entertaining.

One thing that Framed doesn’t have is the same on-screen chemistry between Glenn Ford and Janis Carter as there is between Ford and Rita Hayworth in Gilda, which was released the previous year. This isn’t really a drawback, especially if you are fan of Glenn Ford, as I am. It didn’t make Ford’s character Mike Lambert seem less likely to fall for Paula Craig, but it also didn’t give the film the same romantic intensity that Gilda had. Paula Craig was simply a femme fatale through and through, with no husband like Gilda’s in the background to play sinister jealous games.

Glenn Ford is one of my favorite film noir stars, and he is so good at portraying the upstanding guy who falls in with the wrong people, as he does in Framed. Ford is definitely the star of the film—and I am not saying this just because he is one of my favorites. He gets top billing on the title card, over the title of the film. He is the reason to see Framed. His character Mike Lambert is smart enough to ask questions like the ones I mentioned and more, but Paula Craig is the femme fatale who is desperate enough to get what she wants. And Mike Lambert almost makes the perfect dupe for her and her boyfriend’s plans.

May 25, 1947, release date  •  Directed by Richard Wallace  •  Screenplay by Ben Maddow  •  Based on a story by John Patrick  •  Music by Marlin Skiles  •  Edited by Richard Fantl  •  Cinematography by Burnett Guffey

Glenn Ford as Mike Lambert  •  Janis Carter as Paula Craig  •  Barry Sullivan as Steve Price  •  Edgar Buchanan as Jeff Cunningham  •  Karen Morley as Beth Price  •  Barbara Woodell as Jane Woodworth  •  Jim Bannon as Jack Woodworth  •  Paul E. Burns as Sandy, the assayer  •  Art Smith as the hotel desk clerk

Distributed by Columbia Pictures  •  Produced by Columbia Pictures