Crime Against Joe (1956)The point of seeing a B movie like this isn't always to find a great masterpiece in the rough. There are the moments or originality, the bit performances, the style of photography or writing. But there is also the glimpse into a time period that sometimes seems more real exactly because it isn't all polished up and idealized.And this is a pretty interesting, not so bad movie. It's set and shot in Tucson in 1955 (there's a calendar on one wall), a very low point for Hollywood movies, and this is coming from the fringes of that (one of the producers was the "third writer" in "Casablanca). There is one star, of sorts, a white crooner (and looker) named Julie London, who is lovely and sincere and not half bad..John Bromfield is the centerpiece, and if he's a hair clunky, this makes him kind of more believable as a good-looking guy named Joe Manning on the outs. He's an ex-soldier who thinks he's an artist but knows not a very good one. He drinks too much. He wants a woman in his life, and the movie begins with him kissing his wise mother goodnight and he goes out on the town. "Well, I'm looking for a girl," he says to the singer from the bar (another torch singer, Alika Louis, who appears here in her only movie).One of the social revelations of the movie is attitudes toward drinking and driving. Joe gets hammered while sitting in his car, drives to a diner, and is visibly drunk as a couple of cops say hello to him (one even chuckles, as if it's kind of funny). More chilling encounters with the cops come later. A killer is bumbling around town, and it looks like it's either Joe (and we don't know it) or the cops are going to think it's Joe (and it's not). It's a pretty tense situation held back only by some occasional awkwardness.What makes it work, though, is the down to earth acting because it builds up the Hitchcockian mood of a wrong man under suspicion. Witnesses misinterpret things, evidence gets piled up based on presumptions. It's good stuff. And then Joe has to figure out the crime for himself, which he applies himself to with intelligence. (His acting gets better as he sobers up.)And by the end you see why the movie has its title. It's no masterpiece, but it has enough going on to keep a movie lover glue, I'm sure.

B minus... I watched this only because Julie London was in it...unfortunately the movie revealed that she is not nearly as pretty as her record album covers suggest...she has sort of a wedge shaped head what looks like a bad nose job. It didn't help that she was too old for the part she plays. I now understand why she never became a film star of note.Movie: Joe is a 30s something semi-loafer who lives off his mother and paints pictures...some sort of psychopath has been killing women in the small town he lives in. He is suspected of these murders by circumstantial evidence--his year high school pin is found near one of the victims. Julie London is in a love with him (he didn't know) and supplies him with an alibi. The quack psychiatrist who over reads things into poor Joe's past is the most realistic thing that happens in this plot.A sort of living nightmare murder rap against Joe closes in around him. Believable to a degree to any one with experience in these things.In the modern world with DNA evidence and such none of this would have happened (we hope).--but I would not count it out.I suspected the fat cab driver about mid way through the thing although at this point didn't really care as this script is so lame.There is a subplot about a sleep walker and her incestuous father that leads no where. Why was it even put in--to eat up some film time maybe? = B double minus. However gets a 5 because these kinds of judicial/police malpractice and psychiatric nonsense do happen. Also witnesses lying and distorting things. If not for that it deserves a 1. One reviewer said it was filmed in 5 days; I believe it and written on the fly.OK for a quick 60 minute watch.

Up until the end, I didn't mind this film too much--it seemed like an okay B-film from a small studio. However, by the time the credits began to role, I was irritated--irritated at such a poor payoff and such dopey acting by the real killer. I am sure audiences must have snickered at this! Joe is a war vet and full-time freeloader and binge drinker. On one of his many nights out, he happens to be about when a murder is committed and police assume he's the guilty party. There are people who can exonerate him and in the real world this would have happened, but the writer included a dangling plot element about a seemingly incestuous father and his creeped out daughter is never at all developed properly--and eventually it just dangles and disappears from the film. Later, after tracking down graduation pins from 11 years ago, they are able to get the real killer to appear...and overact horribly.The bottom line is that the film had promise but made nothing of it. Julie London and the rest of the cast are pretty much wasted and the film is disappointing when you put all the pieces together. Only worth your time if, like me, you have relatively low standards.

Amiable and entertaining crime story involving a genial, unemployed painter--still living with Mom, whom he calls by her first name--wrongly accused of attacking girls at night. He's temporarily released from police custody after a smitten car-hop comes to his defense, but her alibi doesn't hold up (she lied because she loves him!); the two amateur sleuths then decide to solve this mystery on their own. From Bel-Air Productions, distributed by United Artists, and strictly a second-biller. Still, if the production was minuscule it doesn't always show: there's some good location shooting and photography, particularly near the climax at the high school's indoor swimming pool. In the lead, John Bromfield keeps a cool head and has a nice, unselfconscious manly swagger that is amusing and natural. Playing his secret sweetheart, Julie London is a bit too mature and refined to be convincing as a drive-in waitress, yet her stoic demeanor also proves to be enjoyable (no girly business with this lady). The denouement is effective and caught me by surprise, and a weird sub-plot about a society girl under the thumb of her wicked, possessive father is a hoot. Not bad! ***1/2 from ****