711 Ocean Drive (1950)

Sorry, this movie sucks

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a good crime thriller, with something of a noir atmosphere. The contemporary artwork (reproduced on the cover of the DVD) bears the motto, shown also in the credits: 'Filmed under police protection'. Great PR! Probably untrue, but it sounds impressive. (I suppose if the producer hired an off-duty policeman to stand guard for an hour, the film was made 'under police protection'.) The film stars Edmond O'Brien, who was in impressive form here as a bad guy, though it would not be until Ida Lupino chose him for the lead three years later in her remarkable film THE BIGAMIST (1953, see my review) that it would become clear to all what a truly fine and versatile actor he really was. In this film he is a telephone communications expert who gets hired to create a wire network for race track bookies, but he takes it over and develops a serious case of ego inflation and goes mad with power and greed. He gets into conflict with 'the Mob' from back East, as they say, and has to make a deal to accept them as partners because otherwise they will kill him. Aren't gangsters nice people? One does get a bit tired of them. The boring title of this film was not exactly calculated to drag people into the box office, as postal addresses lack sex appeal, did no one tell them that?

Contemporary dramas suffer from a problem...when viewed by later audiences, they require a historical prospective.I saw this film for the first time last night, and it had me rivited to the screen. Not because it is brilliant. Because it is interesting on it's own merits and, more importantly, wildly interesting on the level of the connections with real-life and films before and after it. This is going to be a bit long, but I am in the process going to nominate this film for Lost Classic status. It was one of those wonderful (thank you TCM) discoveries that makes you say "Why have I never heard of this???". "711 Ocean Drive" falls into the gray area of Film Noir/Policer/Mob Movie. As a Policer, it's a total failure. As Film Noir, definitely. As a Mob Movie, incredibly forward for it's time. Director Joe Newman did not have a stellar or particularly prolific career. Likely his best known films would be "This Island Earth" and "The Big Circus". The same can be said for the Writers, English and Swann. The film is immensely helped by Cinematographer Franz (Frank) Planer, who had what can only be called an illustrious career, including 5 Oscar nominations. Only a year before, he filmed the Noir classic "Criss-Cross. The aggressive camera work here could make one wonder who really directed this.There are large portions of this film which owe to earlier pictures, but so do just about all movies. "High Sierra" has been mentioned, though I don't really see it here. "White Heat", only a year before and also with Edmond O'Brien? Yes, but I think they are both similar of the style Hollywood was reaching at the time. "711" actually feels more contemporary of the period. "Heat", while by far the better picture, seems almost a bit dated along side. The Warner's big budget didn't make it as atmospheric as "711", which captures 1950 Los Angeles and Vegas in a time capsule. The extensive location exteriors account for that; "White Heat" is relatively studio (or Prison) bound until the last minutes. And it's true noir; There are no good guys except the cops.Other commentors have not seized on the things that make this most interesting, in that if you were around at the time (or seeing it today as a fan of mob movies), you would recognize some startling characters portrayed at a time which was arguably the high point of the power of American organized crime. When the ultimate lawman, John Edgar Hoover himself, swore before the country that "No national criminal conspiracy exists", which of course was the farthest thing from the truth, it was a pretty sweet time to be the Mafia.Faithful Otto Kruger, doing what he does best in playing a genteel killer, is a thinly fictionalized Meyer Lansky. Don Porter, unusually good here as a suave sociopath, is a barely disguised Ben "Bugsy" Seigal. The assassination of Porter's character is a wonderfully accurate account of how killers, hiding in the bushes of Seigal's Beverly Hills home one night in 1947, pumped several rounds from an M-1 Carbine into the back of his head. They even get the gun right!. These things get better…Sammy White, who plays Chippie, looks for all the world like a young(er) Lee Strasburg, who played the Meyer Lansky character in "Godfather II". Bert Freed, in a character clearly based on mobster Moe Dalitz , sports gigantic, obtrusive eyeglasses which you kind of expect to have something to do with the plot, much to your disappointment. But when you take into account that the Moe Greene character in "The Godfather" is based upon Ben Siegal and Moe Dalitz (who have ever since vied for the title "The man who built Las Vegas") AND that one of those bullets famously shot out Ben Siegal's right eye out…maybe .that's why Moe got it in the eye? And the Glasses were a convenient place to put the blood squib….Robert Osterloh, who was so very good in "Criss-Cross" (and sadly uncredited, considering the size if his part) is wasted here playing a killer named Gizzi who doesn't get to do much besides wear loud suits, snicker incessantly and get killed. Nonetheless, he's always watchable. Howard St. John is the real casting dud here, woefully wrong as the cop, but he's barely in the picture anyway. Joanne Dru is lovely and adequate as the dypsomaniacal and amoral wife of Porter. It's really not her fault, the script and the director don't give her much to do except provide a love triangle.Edmund O'Brien is, I admit, a favorite actor of mine. Here he is in his element, providing the supercharged high-energy performance he was best at…and in this one, it's like he's been wired into the power grid. He seems to be constantly in motion, and that's what keeps this movie moving with him. The only actor at the time who would have been better in this would have been Burt Lancaster. But O'Brien carries it off nicely, given what he has to work with.There is one gigantic plot hole: There is no way on earth the syndicate would not suspect that O'Brien was responsible for Porters murder. He is having a very open affair with the guys wife, and just happens to be there to provide a silly excuse to get himself and Dru out of the line of fire at just the right moment? Men like Lansky were not stupid. However, a little suspended disbelief takes care of such holes.So I hereby nominate this film for Forgotten Classic status...TCM has a print which they showed recently, so keep an eye out for it. To my knowledge it's not on VHS or DVD., which is a shame.

A better than routine, if not exceptional, noir crime drama, with O'Brien excellent in the lead, and good casting throughout. Opening and closing textural comments convey the sense that this is more of a sensational expose of syndicate control of horse-race betting (a major West coast institution if there ever was one), produced "under threat". That remains to be seen. What is undeniable is that a well-paced tale of one man's ambition is engagingly portrayed. Of particular interest are the wonderful filming locations in the L.A. area -- rich streetscapes--full of marvelous period detail, "Modern" architecture as seen in circular drive-ins, open plan houses, groovy bars ands nightclubs, and some flavor of Palm Springs weekending. With the evolution of O'Brien's character from a telephone repairman into a major crime so well reflected in the improvements in his dress, along with the sartorial variety among the leads, one gets a nice sense of personal style in this period. Worth a look.

Along with DOA, The Killers, White Heat, Shield for Murder, the Hitchhiker, this entry attests to the style of O'Brien, who may be the worlds best sweater. This film is quick, has good dialogue, and location shooting. The best moments are really not the climactic finale, but rather those where O'Brien banters with Otto Kruger (who is perfect) and Don Porter. I agree however that the preachy ending might best be ignored.