DOUBLE CROSS
US, 1941, 61 minutes, Black-and-white.
Kane Richmond, Pauline Moore, Wynne Gibson, John Miljan.
Directed by Albert H. Kelley.
This is one of the more entertaining small-budget supporting features that were prominent in the 1930s – often with John Milton as hero or villain . Here, he is definitely the villain.
The film focuses on the nightclub world and the criminal activities, with the mayor of the city in the pay of the nightclub owner, protecting him. The police have become very suspicious and are trying for opportunities to have raids and arrests. When they do, one of the significant figures in the police force is in the club, infatuated with one of the bosses – with her drawing a gun, his gun, as the police invade, shooting one and the police retaliating, shooting the policeman. As he dies in hospital, he warns his best friend that the club owner is after the police chief, this man’s father. The photography girl at the club is the dying man’s sister and planning to marry his friend.
When the officer warns his father, his father stubbornly declares that he will never resign. In the meantime, the mayor is being forced by the authorities to consider the father for a significant role in the city – which leads to a gun attack on his office. The son has an idea to get to the criminals, going to the woman manager at the club, returning the ring from his friend, persuading her that he is going to resign from the force and go out on his own. She gets the idea that he should not resign but keep in contact with them, supplying them with information. He uses a ruse, parking her car near a hydrant, to regain her confidence when she is given a ticket and he punches out the officer. He is dismissed in disgrace, his father embarrassed and angry.
In the meantime, he ingratiates himself with the club owners, supplying some information, being commissioned to drive a truck full of stolen goods after a plan had gone wrong and there was a suspicion that he was on the side of the police but he is able to persuade the club owners that he is on side.
In the meantime, when the mayor comes to visit the club owner, the photography girl is persuaded to take a photo of the meeting – which leads to the ex-policeman being discovered in the photography shop waiting for the development, the taking of the girl, under guard from a friendly bodyguard at the club was always wanting her to take his picture.
When the word comes to the police, the police chief realises that this is a frame up. In the meantime, the son gets a message to his father, all leading up to a chase, the nightclub owner and his thugs in the back of the van with their guns, but the police outwitting them at outgunning them and their all being killed. The father is proud of his son, the girl is able to marry her fiance – and as they pose for a photo, the bodyguard puts his head in and, at last, get his photo taken!
One of the better examples of this kind of film – building by the early 1940s on the extensive experience of the 1930s.
