Twenty Plus Two (1961)

Interesting late film noir, let down by some plot and casting flaws. David Janssen plays the quasi-detective character Tom Adler with an affected booziness; he's not imposing enough to make this Marlon Brando-mumbling-in-a-slick-suit thing work. I do like that his job is nebulous; he seems to have to explain himself repeatedly. It's as though, in true noir fashion, he's really not sure who or what he is.As others have noted, Dina Merrill looks positively middle-aged when she's supposed to be just twenty in the Tokyo flashback. Thankfully, Agnes Moorehead, William Demarest, and Jacques Aubuchon inject Twenty Plus Two with enough life to sustain interest.I like how the reviewer pierrotlunaire0 pointed out the plot holes. I can sort of see Tom falling for Linda all over again, especially as she keeps throwing herself at him. But it's just too convenient that she's also friends with Nikki, his other lost love. Since we never see the 'grown-up' picture that her mom shows him, we don't know that he then suspects that Nikki is Doris. At least that part of the mystery works well.Then there's Brad Dexter's Leroy, who is the actual murderer, going free and easy because he framed Doris. The cabin-in-the-sticks denouement is stagey; but for all of its exposition, it still doesn't add up. How is it that Dane, of all people, doesn't recognize Doris/Nikki until she tells him who she is? Why did he have to kill his buddy anyway? Doris had fled, knowing she had shot Lane. She's still in hot water, and, given the mores of the times (in 1948, even in 1961), her pregnancy makes it worse for her.Lane would have to fear repercussions from her wealthy family; but she'd probably be so relieved when she discovered that she hadn't killed anyone, that nothing more would happen. On the other hand, given that Dexter's character recreates himself as Lane, and became a celebrity, he should've at least been under suspicion as a rapist, if not a murderer.Well, if we can squint our perception of the plot, there are those larger-than-life performances from the supporting cast to entertain us. The flasback sequence is masterfully set up by its ascending webs of smoke signalling Adler's reverie. Thanks to the black and white filming, we not so far from the smoky, boozy, hat-wearing late 40s noir golden age. The editing is pretty good too; we're not allowed to get too comfortable before sweeping into another scene. The exceptions would be the interlude with Agnes Moorehead, which was so good it even made Jannsen look important, the cool 'interview' Tom has with the down-and-out bum in the bar, and the scene in the cabin, which dragged a bit. I'd have been happier with Doris and Tom's scene under the tree giving us a little more, and then letting the shoot-out happen quickly.The music was irritating at times. Kind of like the nervous demeanor Janssen displays when he's not mumbling. Like others, I wonder what the title refers to. The better noir movies have abrupt, dangerous sounding titles that hint at what we're going to see. Other than a presumption that Doris is about twenty years old when she's in Tokyo, there's no twenty, or two, or twenty-two of anything here. Still, a fun movie, with a good premise and some fine scenes.

This is not the worst film I have seen, but it is among the most incoherent. My two stars are for splendid over-the-top cameos by the great William Demarest and the great Agnes Moorehead and a valiant try by Jacques Aubuchon. What are we supposed to make of an allegedly crack investigator who relies entirely on research by others and wildly improbable coincidences? What are we to make of the Jeanne Crain character whose only role is to look lovely, introduce the "hero" to another woman, reunite passionately with said "hero," and then vanish without trace? What above all are we to make of our hero's deep love for the Dina Merrill character when he fails to recognize her when sitting next to her and talking to her on a long plane flight? The story is ludicrous, the lovely Dina Merrill is seriously miscast, most of the male actors are stiffs, the denouement is absurd, and none of this farrago makes any sense at all.

****SPOILERS**** Privite investigator Tom Adler, David Janssen,who specializes in finding dead person's family members is put to the test here when the secretary to action adventure actor Leroy Dane, Brad Dexter,Julia Joliet played by Gretrude Astor,is found murdered in his office with a scrap book filled with newspapers articles and clippings of Doris Delaney. Doris has gone missing 12 years ago after she found out that she's been put into the family way by a handsome tall & dark stranger who picked her up at the Brown Durby after treating her to a strawberry milkshake. Adler for some reason gets himself involved not in the murdered Julia Joliet's long lost relatives but in the missing and now pronounced dead-by the courts-Doris Delaney. As it soon becomes apparent Adler is or was somehow involved with Doris through his former girlfriend Linda Forster, Jeanne Crain,who he met at a bar a few days later.With all the confusion about this strange as well as mysterious case were then brought back 10 year earlier in 1951 at a ten cents a dance in Tokyo Japan when Alder, just out of the hospital suffering from combat wounds,meets this hot American chick Nicki, Dina Merrill,that he takes for a spin and soon , within 24 hours, falls madly in love with her. What all this has to do with the story is later explained in that Nicki is somehow connected with the missing and presumed dead Doris Delaney!****SPOILERS**** The film tries to tie all its loose ends together in Doris' disappearance and Alder discovering that he in fact had a close relationship with her without even knowing about it! But it's what turned out to be actor Leroy Dane brother Jacques Plechette, Jacques Aubuchon, who fills in all the info blanks or about this very bazaar and off the wall mystery. Far too long complicated and confusing to go into detail the the final outcome in all this has to do with who knocked up Doris back in 1948 when she was a teenager and set all this into motion. With Aubuchon while not too successful in trying to explain to both Alder and the audience what the heck is going on here he ends up shooting the man responsible for all this In self defense of course to finally put an end to all this craziness.

Even in film noir...especially in film noir...the characters and their relationships have to make some sort of twisted sense. So what do you do when your hero, an investigator who searches for missing heirs, meets a beautiful woman and doesn't recall that they were lovers a few years before? Just because she changed her name and her hairdo. You figure it's about as logical as his investigation into the brutal murder of a fan club secretary for which no one seems to have hired him. There are some nice touches in the film -- William Demarest is terrific as a boozy newspaperman, Agenes Moorehead nails a salty old dowager and Jacques Aubachon makes an elegantly talkative con artist. On the other hand, Janet Leigh is mostly window dressing and David Janssen spends too much of the movie muttering moodily.