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Wednesday December 18, 2024
Movie Review: Double Dynamite (1951)
WARNING: SPOILERS
For something called “Double Dynamite,” a comedy with a poster of Jane Russell wearing an off-the-shoulder number seated next to Groucho Marx living up to his “King Leer” sobriquet, this is one buttoned-up movie. Russell certainly remains buttoned up—not a trace of decolletage—and there’s nothing sexy or smoldering about her character. Mildred “Mibs” Goodhue is an innocent. She’s Lois Lane in the 1950s—smart, dynamic and pretty, but she’d rather just get married. (And man what a Lois Lane Russell could’ve been.) It’s a movie about taking chances and the movie doesn’t.
Neither did its studio, RKO, headed by Howard Hughes, who never met a movie he couldn’t tinker with. This was particularly true of Ms. Russell’s movies:
- The Outlaw: filmed 1940-41, premiered 1943, distributed 1946
- Double Dynamite: filmed 1948, premiered December 1951
- Macao: filmed 1950, premiered 1952
History has given Hughes credit for keeping “The Outlaw” out of distribution to build interest, but wasn’t the delay due to Production Code problems over Jane Russell’s general unbuttonedness? So aren’t we once again, as with Elon today, giving the rich guy the benefit of the doubt because he’s the rich guy? When he’s actually kind of an idiot? Foster Hirsch, for one, in his book Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties, describes Hughes as the worst executive in studio-era Hollywood: “a colossally erratic as well as inept CEO.”
This movie is Exhibit A. If Hughes had released it when it was finished, in 1948, it would’ve starred the most popular singer/romantic lead of the day, Frank Sinatra, but by ’51 Sinatra’s star had fallen and with it his billing: Hughes dropped him from first- to third-billed. And in ’48, it would’ve played in theaters with an average weekly attendance of 60 million; instead, thanks to television and suburbanization, that number was down to about 35 million by 1951. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” Groucho’s character says during the film. Hughes didn’t listen.
I'm curious if some of the delay went beyond Hughes' usual dithering. The man hated Sinatra and apparently wanted to hurt his career. Thus third billing. Thus no Frank on the poster. Thus this opening title credit:
Wait, was that the point of the title change? The movie was originally called “It’s Only Money,” a song Groucho and Sinatra sing about 30 minutes in. But did they go with “Double Dynamite” not only to remind everyone of Russell’s assets (as if we needed reminding) but to shunt Frank further aside? These two are dynamite, RKO is saying, not Ol' Whatshisface from the war years.
Machinations
Even if Hughes had been quicker on the draw, and less vindictive, I doubt the movie would’ve killed at the box office. Too meh.
Sinatra plays Johnny Dalton, bank clerk, who can’t get a raise or a break. Mibs wants to get married but he calculates their combined annual income is $4,212.25 ($50-$55k today), and that ain’t cutting it. We get some not-bad lines:
Johnny: How would we live?
Mibs: I’m sure something would come along.
Johnny: Yeah, and we'd have to feed that, too.
This leads to a greatly ironic Sinatra moment: Returning from lunch, Johnny sees two mobsters beating up a guy in an alleyway, so he takes on the mob. The victim, gambler/bookie “Hot Horse” Harris (Nestor Paiva), is so grateful he gives Johnny $1,000. When Johnny objects, the guy bets it on the horses for him. Twice. Now Johnny has $60k. Now he and Mibs can marry!
Except: At that exact same moment, there’s a meeting at the bank: Someone has embezzled $75k. If Johnny’s sudden boon becomes known, he’ll be Suspect No. 1.
Cue machinations to keep everything on the down low. He’s already told his friend Emile J. Keck (Groucho), a waiter at the local restaurant, and he’s already bought a few items, including a mink coat for Mibs, which the two men steal and send back. That pisses off Mibs, allowing the bank president’s son and wolf-in-the-making, R.B. “Bob” Pulsifer Jr. (Don McGuire), to make his play. I never quite got ol’ R.B. Jr., to be honest. He’s straightforward about his intentions and gentlemanly at times; yet he’s the one who turns in Johnny. It’s a Jack Carson role McGuire doesn’t quite land.
All the machinations turn out to be unnecessary. Johnny spends the movie looking for “Hot Horse” to clear his name; except he’s already done it—from prison. Johnny’s in the clear. At the 11th hour, it’s Mibs who gets arrested, since the discrepancy was at her window. Except the discrepancy was just a glitch in her adding machine. It’s the crime that wasn’t.
You bet your life
I’m curious if Hughes’ tinkering with the film included the APB scene, where a police dispatcher, in that familiar drone, not only reads off a description of Mibs (“…extremely well distributed”) but Johnny:
Caucasian. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Five feet ten. Wears elevator shoes. Anemic looking. When last seen, was wearing ill-fitted suit. Well-padded at shoulders. Resembles Frank Sinatra.
On one level it’s a fun break-the-fourth-wall gag, but it also feels a little too revealing for Hollywood. It’s Hughes telling the world what a short, skinny nothing the guy is.
“Double D” is the last film directed by Irving Cummings, who acted in early silents, shifted to directing in the 1920s, then made a name for himself directing Shirley Temple movies in the ’30s and Bob Hope comedies in the ’40s. Don McGuire, ol’ R.B. Jr., soon left acting for one of the most eclectic screenwriting careers imaginable. A former journalist and PR man, he pushed out a few quick screenplays, did some forgettable Sinatra movies (“Meet Danny Wilson,” “Johnny Concho”), adapted the acclaimed “Bad Day at Black Rock” in 1955, co-wrote Jerry Lewis’ “The Delicate Delinquent” in 1957, then created the Jackie Cooper TV series “Hennesey” in the late ’50s/early ’60s. Twenty years later, he won an Academy for co-writing “Tootsie.”
As for Groucho? In the three years between this film’s production and release, “You Bet Your Life” went from radio to TV, where he would be ensconced until 1961. He lived long enough to see that great Marx Bros. revival in the 1970s but not long enough to see whatever the opposite of a revival is. Shame. I like to live a world where the Marx Bros. matter.