SOUTHSIDE 1-1000 (director/writer: Boris Ingster; screenwriter: Leo Townsend/from an unpublished story by Milton M. Raison and Bert C. Brown; cinematographer: Russell Harlan; cast: Don DeFore (John Riggs/Nick Starns), Andrea King (Nora Craig), Bret Hamilton (Car Attendant), George Tobias (Reggie), Barry Kelley (Evans), Morris Ankrum (Eugene Deane), Robert Osterloh (Albert), Charles Cane (Harris), Kippee Valez (Singer), William Forrest (Warden), Douglas Spencer (Chaplain), John Harmon (Willy, Pickpocket), 1950)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This seemingly laconic B&W pseudodocumentary-styled noir film, with a patriotic message supporting the U.S. war effort in Korea and offering a scathing commentary on counterfeiters, comparing them to saboteurs, as the film states the most powerful weapon in America's arsenal against Communism- is money, turns out to be basically a promotional movie for the work that the Treasury Department agents do.
Southside is directed and written by Boris Ingster, who directed the first American noir film, "Stranger on the Third Floor" (40). In this film, he never brings about any tension or real shock to the story, as he did in his first noir work. He simply goes about stating his case against a master counterfeiter, Eugene Deane (Morris Ankrum), who is serving a life sentence in San Quentin, and tells how he was able while in prison to engrave some plates of money currency and smuggle them out of prison by fooling the prison chaplain (Spencer) and hiding it in the liner of his bag.
The movie reminds me of the 1950s TV series, Dragnet. It is played in the same sobering tone, with no room for comedy or any quirkiness to the vanilla story unfolding. In the end, it is a certainty that everything will be wrapped up in a tidy manner.
Deane has gotten religion while in jail and is considered to be a model prisoner, perhaps making peace with his maker because he is very ill and about to die soon. So it seems strange that he would be interested in still pursuing his criminal activities, especially since money can't be of use to him anymore. In his cell, he is always seen with his Bible, and he is quite fond of showing off his knowledge of the scriptures, even correcting the padre on one of his sermons about money being the root of evil, as he tells the padre, St. Paul in his epistle said, it is the love of money that is the root of evil, not money itself.
A bunco cop working the beat in an unnamed baseball park, which looked to me like Yankee Stadium (but the story takes place in Los Angeles-which goes to show you how widespread the counterfeit money operation is), spots a pickpocket (Harmon), and when arrested the cops realize that this is "queer money." The secret service is informed about this and they put a tail on the man who was pickpocketed, the traveling salesman, Mr.Evans (Barry Kelley). He leads them to a smoke shop where he exchanges good money for counterfeit ones, and the secret service arrest the smoke shop owners and Evans. Federal agent John Riggs (Don DeFore) now tails Evans when he is out on bond, who is facing a 10-year sentence if convicted. But when a trap is set for Evans to meet his contact man, a wily criminal, Reggie (Tobias), the criminals lose the cop's tail and the cop's pigeon is thrown out of a window, and there goes the best lead that they had.
But Riggs goes undercover, using the name Nick Starns as he checks into a hotel that he knows Evans frequents. He poses as an underworld figure and a bank robber, and catches the attention of the hotel manager, Nora Craig (Andrea King). They get to know each other and soon become romantically and professionally linked together, though she suspects that he might be a cop and has him watched by Reggie.
To make a short story shorter, she's the daughter of Deane and the big boss of the syndicate. When Deane escapes from prison to see her, after he dies, she looks through his belongings and recognizes a sketch her father made of Riggs, depicting him as a T-agent. Since her boys are in the middle of a counterfeit deal with Starns, she goes to warn them that he's a copper.
The climax shows Nora to be a real bitch, as she doesn't hesitate for a second to give Reggie an order to kill Riggs. He was outwitted by the ever-careful Reggie, who foiled any attempt at being followed to the gang's building where the deal was to go down, but Riggs was smart enough to have a $10 bill with an emergency message and the number SO 1-1000 of the local secret service agency on it, which was used to pay for the beer he ordered in a grocery store, and he was lucky enough to have the immigrant grocer's wife who looked at the bill, call the agency.
The agents arrive in time to rescue Riggs from being burned to death and arrest all the criminals, but for Nora, who runs into the downtown area and across a trestle and slips to her death onto the railroad tracks below. Her embrace of hatred for him on the trestle is contrasted to their loving embrace in her apartment. This final scene was filmed aboard Los Angeles' "Angel's Flight," a cable-car service dangling 40 feet above the ground.
The film was based on a true story, and seems as if it were a documentary.
REVIEWED ON 12/6/99 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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