Pier 23 (1950)

This is actually two stories in one film, two days in the life of detective Hugh Beaumont whom you all remember as daddy Ward of "Leave It to Beaver". He first must solve the mystery of a murdered cop whom he believes to be an escaped prisoner from Alcatraz, then crooked goings-on in the boxing ring. Both episodes are tied together with the help of alcoholic Edward Brophy who appears to be an informer along the lines of Thelma Ritter in "Pickup on South Street". It all has the makings of early TV crime drama, but has the crispy hard dialogue of noir, as well as some great period info on San Francisco's docks in the early 50's. In the first segment, there is savagely dangerous blonde Ann Savage (of "Detour" fame), her dark haired sister Eve Miller and a blonde waitress (Joy, aka Joi Lansing) that it might be difficult not to confuse with Savage. Both Savage and Lansing get some good lines (although Lansing's participation is nothing more than a well written walk on), and Beaumont's first person narration is very interesting as well. There is a good payoff for Savage at the end of the first half that wreaks of irony. The second half isn't as interesting. I noticed that the dirty man who sits next to Beaumont at the Boxing match looks almost like Joe E. Brown. Mike Mazurki is the heavy, and Margia Dean is the bad girl here. She is made dark haired, probably not to confuse the viewers with the two blonds from the first half. Edward Brophy, a veteran character actor, changes his voice from his usual squeak to more theatrical. As a drunk who intends to be drunk when he enters the next world, he is the archetype classic film drunk that is good natured and silly rather than dangerous or pathetic. The fadeout with Brophy will either make you laugh or groan, but he milks it for all it is worth as if he was John Carradine spouting Shakespeare up and down Hollywood Blvd. Far from perfect, but filled with bits that make film noir today probably the most sought after classic genre to be released on DVD.

*Spoiler/plot- 1951, Pier 23, The famous detective, O'Brien gets mixed up with crooked wrestling referee, an equally corrupt area owner, and a murderous wrestler over some lost prize money stolen and hid away. Second O'Brien case involves a murdered cop, and a ultimate film noir major element a double-crossing 'dame' play for keeps.*Special Stars- Huge Beaumont plays hard bitten detective Dennis O'Brien. Mike Mazuki plays the grappler wrestler baddie. Ann Savage plays the fem-fatal in the second case.*Theme- Life can throw you some curves and some of them are on a bad tempered dame.*Based on- Radio play of Louis Morheim.*Trivia/location/goofs- Takes place in San Francisco. Some lost seldom seen film noir of the early 50's. DVD has some nice special features on film noir.*Emotion- A fun and quick paced detective film in the noir style. Interesting to see and hear the dead-pan but colorful dialog of the detective story. Very reminiscent of TV's fast talking cynical SGT. Joe Friday of "Dragnet'. Lovely to see some of the ladies of these stories get some real meaty roles for them to chew-up-the-scenery over. Fun to see early film of the consummate late 50's TV's sitcom calm dad, Huge Beaumont play another wise-guy character role not seen before but thoroughly enjoyable to watch.

(Some Spoilers) San Francisco boat shop owner Dennis O'Brien hasn't been doing any business lately due to the sagging post-war economy on the docks. Supplementing his day job as a private dick Dennis get's a lot more work and action, as well as women, that he ever expected in that deary and empty shop of his.The film "Pier 23" has our hero Dennis together with his constantly drunk companion Prof. Shicker get involved and eventually solve two different murder cases. The first has to do with an escapee from the "Rock"-Alcatraz Island Federal Penitentuary-who ends up dead in a shoot-out at the swanky Nubian Club in downtown San Francisco. The escaped convict was out to get some $5,000.00 in bookie money that the manager of the Nubian Club ripped him out off while he was in prison. The second murder case involves Dennis solving the mystery of why a professional wrestler-Willie Klingle-was not only allowed to wrestle despite having a serious heart condition but then purposely murdered in the ring by his opponent the guerrilla-like Ape Danowski. It later comes out that Willie was assured by the wrestling promoter Nick Garrison that the "Fix" was in and that Ape was going to throw the match.In both cases, or episodes, Dennis is constantly harassed and badgered by SF police inspector Lt. Bruger who's more interested in pinning the murders on Dennis, without any proof whats so ever, instead of finding the actually perpetrators!The film is very hard to follow since you have no idea that your watching two, not one, movies at the same time until its just about over. Dennis is so cool at his job as a private detective that he comes across as if he's totally detached from reality. Only once did Dennis, in all the tight spots he found himself in the movie, show any real fear or emotion. That's when Ape Danowski grabbed Dennis in a python-like headlock almost squeezing the life out of him.Dennis' good friend and leg-man or the guy who dug, or drank up, all the information for him Prof. Shicker ,who's always chasing out the bars in the neighborhood, was the obviously comedy relief in the movie. Alaways on target with his tips Prof. Shicker's ability to stay lucid, in spite of him always being drunk, and on top of things made him a valuable asset in Dennis' unique and unorthodox crime solving methods.

In the early days of television (circa late-40s to early 50s)the makers of many of the cheapjack, poverty-row syndicated series---Guy Madison's Wild Bill Hickock, Reed Hadley's Racket Squad, others) would take two or three of the 30-minute television episodes, stitch them together and peddle them to the small-town and/or b-feature theatre-exhibitors as a "NEW" feature-length film. The film-exhibitors knew better, but most of these films were booked into towns and areas of the country where television coverage was, at best, spotty and often non-existent. Basically, a large percentage of the audience that saw these "films" in a theatre didn't own a television set or live in an area that had a television station. Plus, there was the large-and-profitable overseas market to be tapped.Exhibitor-producer-distributor-showman Robert L. Lippert took this concept in another direction; his plan was to make three feature films, each of which had two separate 30-minute plots with continuing characters, book them into theatres and, after, they had exhausted the B-feature theatrical-circuit, cut them in half and sell the six 30-minute segments to television. Either as a series or a stand-alone 30-minute gap-filler.Thusly was born "Pier 23", "Roaring City" and "Danger Zone." Three films in six segments featuring a San Francisco, hard-boiled private-eye named Dennis O'Brien. Made for theatres with intent-to-sell-to television. William Berke---has anyone actually ever seen a billing credit for him as William A. Berke...don't bother, the answer is no---directed and produced all three films with screen plays credited to Julian Harmon and Victor West on all. And each carried a "based on a story by Herbert H. Margolis and Louis Morheim" credit. And where did these "based-ons" come from? Well, each and everyone of them had been "heard" before when they were used on a syndicated radio-series called "Pat Novak, For Hire." Mr. Novak was a hard-case, San Francisco private-eye who averaged getting knocked-out twice in every 30-minute radio episode. Dennis O'Brien maintains that average when he gets his about four times in each of these three films.