Destination Murder (1950)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

From my favorite movies..

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Couldn't get with it. My aesthetic apparatus fused. Stanley Clements is hired by thugs Albert Dekker and his sub rosa boss, Hurd Hatfield, who is posing as Dekker's night club manager, Stretch. Stretch might or might not be an invert. He keeps saying, "I don't like dames," and he slaps people lightly across the cheeks. Clement's mission: Wearing his messenger uniform, he must take a quick break during a movie intermission and shoot Dekker's business rival, which he does. Then he scoots back to the theater and resumes his date.The police have their eye on him but can do nothing. But the victim's daughter, Joyce Mackenzie, has him under suspicion too and she is in a position to do something about it. She can and does put some moves on Clements, who must be listed among the most stupid murderers on record. He seems to have no idea that the past shapes the present and influences the future. His thought processes are rudimentary. She's a neat dame -- classy, y'know?, and, okay, so he murdered her old man in cold blood. So what? Let bygones be bygones. That's his philosophy.He decides that the hit is worth a bit more than he was paid so he noodges Dekker up for more money -- five grand. This is a big mistake. Dekker smoothly removes and folds his belt in front of the terrified, diminutive Clements, while Hurd Hatfield turns on the player piano and we hear the gloomy melody and dark chords of the Moonlight Sonata.Clements emerges later from the apartment, disheveled, blooded, dizzied. Then we get to know bar girl Myrna Dell, who tells Clements how to do blackmail right. (You write a complete confession and arrange to have it sent to the cops in case anything happens to you.) Myrna Dell is one tough cookie. She has no sense of humor at all. And she seems made of cast iron, with a figure resembling a Franklin stove. She doesn't always give good advice. Two thirds of the way through the movie, the pathetic Stanley Clements disappears, much to the viewer's relief.The climax is unforgettable. As another viewer pointed out, so many improbables are involved that it's a miracle out of scripture. I guess I'll take a stab at describing it.First, the treacherous Hurd Hatfield decides to have Dekker killed off. Here's how he arranges it. He invites Mackenzie, the vengeful daughter of the murdered man, to his apartment. Then, when Dekker arrives, as secretly arranged, he stashes Mackenzie in another room. He then drugs Dekker, sits his wobbly body upright in a chair, fires a pistol into the wall, clasps the pistol in Dekker's obligingly upright hand, cowers behind the desk, cries out for mercy -- and Mackenzie rushes in from the next room, having overheard Dekker's confession, picks up another pistol lying there, and shoots the oblivious Dekker, who is posed as if to plug Hatfield, perhaps in a state of cerea flexibilitas. Hatfield winds up plugged too, but I forget how. I think I was still abstracted by the knots in Dekker's murder or maybe it was a period of microsleep.Well! There are two things that can DEFINITELY be said about this production. Hurd Hatfield certainly had a long career. From 1944 to 1991. And there's another thing. James Flavin plays a cop and he says "sqawd care" (New England, for "squad car". Twice.) Is there anything else to be said about this movie? Let me think.Nope.

Weasley Stanley Clements plays Jackie Wales, a messenger with a gambling addiction. When the film opens he is at the movies witha girl. During intermission he goes out to buy popcorn - but in reality he has been hired as a killer and his target is Mansfield, Laura's father. Laura is played by Joyce Mackenzie, a poor man's Barbara Hale - they look as though they could be sister's with Joyce being the more sophisticated of the two.Laura is convinced that Jackie is the killer and befriends him so she will be able to catch him out. Hurd Hatfield (looking a bit older than his Dorian Gray days) plays Stretch ("I don't like dames"), the shadowy manager of the club that Laura gets a job with. He is also the mastermind of the whole operation. Stretch and the club owner (Albert Decker) are planning to bump Jackie off to stop himfrom "shooting off his mouth".Laura falls in love with Stretch and confides her real identity to him.... little does she know.I found this a very good noir. Starring small timers or actors that had seen better days, it had quite a few twists. To me Hurd Hatfield proved Dorian Gray was a role he was born to play - he was a one dimensional actor with an expressionless face.The film was very good.

"Destination Murder" makes for an enjoyable 70-plus minutes, assuming you're a noir fan and are not bothered by the sort of unlikely plot developments so characteristic of this genre. Notable are the solid performances of Hurd Hatfield (whose name will always be linked with "Dorian Gray") as a sleazy but debonair nightclub manager, the beefy Albert Dekker (whom I will always think of as "Dr. Cyclops"), and Joyce Mackenzie -- a really classy beauty in the sort of wholesome Jane Wyatt mode -- as the plucky heroine who, Nancy Drew-like, disguises herself as a nightclub cigarette girl to help solve the mystery of her father's murder. Also notable is the odd relationship -- odder than we initially assume -- between the Hatfield and Dekker characters. There are several clever plot twists and some interesting little bits of directorial business (e.g., a scene in the ladies' powder room of the nightclub, which offers an unexpected little study in social pecking order when two women ask for a glass of water; and a player piano that's activated when violence is going to take place). What stays with me longest is the memory of Mackenzie's gorgeous eyes and cheekbones.

This is a good crime/suspense drama, of a piece with the other film noir dramas presented by Turner Classic Movies (and therefore well worth the time to watch). There is at least one neat twist in the plot which makes the film better than most of its kind. If you have seen a LOT of postwar crime films (as I have) you may find them predictable...and this adds to your appreciation of clever plot devices.Fans of radio's "Have Gun Will Travel" will enjoy seeing John Dehner in a small but crucial part.