The Wrong Road

ALPHA VIDEO offers bargain priced, often hard-to-find vintage movies that are ideal for those willing to skip DVD extras. Their transfers show no evidence of restoration, so quality varies from one title to the next, with "fair to good" being the average.THE WRONG ROAD (1937) is a REPUBLIC crime programmer with a pre-Noir storyline.Here, a young couple, two kids from well-off homes, grow weary of earning small paychecks so they embezzle $100K from the bank where Jimmy (Cromwell) works. They intentionally turn themselves in after stashing the loot in an antique music box and posting it to Ruth's (Mack) Uncle Louie, a man who owns a curio shop.Both are sentenced to "up to 10 years" but are released after only 2, thanks to Mike Roberts (Atwill), a private investigator employed by the bank who's trying to recover the stolen cash from them. Ruth and Jimmy give Roberts the slip and beat it to Uncle Louie's, but discover the old man died a just couple of months before they got out of jail; the contents of his shop have been given to an auction house. Events surrounding the pursuit of that music box, plus their being dogged by both the P.I. and Blackie Clayton (McMahon), a prison mate of Jimmy who demands a 1/3rd cut, are elements later found in films noir.Jimmy and Ruth are outbid at auction for the music box in a suspenseful and well presented scene. Their arrival at the rural boarding home of the box's new owner, Martha Foster (Main), plus her coincidentally being married to the town's sheriff (Powell) and the older couple's knowledge (thanks to P.I. Roberts) of why Ruth and Jimmy have come knocking, challenge credibility (to say the least). The simultaneous reappearance of a threatening Blackie pushes this tale into the realm of comedy. A final unresolved outcome leaves one person dead, and what should be a tragedy ends as a smiley-faced "tahtah!" for everyone but us slightly astonished viewers.THE PLAYERS--JAMES CROMWELL (Jimmy) is at his campiest in the 1890's farce,  THE VILLAIN STILL PURSUED HER  (1940), as a naivé college boy who's led to the bottle (and ruin) by the title character.HELEN MACK (Ruth) is best remembered for her on-screen crying jags and for co-starring in  THE SON OF KONG  (1933).LIONEL ATWILL (Roberts) was a horror picture specialist. His resumé includes  DOCTOR X  (1932) and two Frankenstein sequels.MARJORIE MAIN (Mrs. Foster) starred in ten Ma & Pa Kettle comedies, beginning with  THE EGG AND I  (1947).RUSS POWELL (Sheriff Foster) worked in over 200 movies, mostly as an anonymous bit player.HORACE MCMANN (Blackie) was, prior to acting, a news reporter and law school student.

Adapté d'une pièce de théatre de Bernadine Angus, ce film en noir et blanc en VOST réalisé par Terry Morse en 1945 est conçu sur un quasi huis clos. Un industriel escroqué par ses anciens partenaires, Leo Grainger (George Zucco) après sa sortie de 5 ans d'emprisonnement, les invite chez lui dans une ile souvent entourée de brouillard. En fait son but est simple : se venger en leur faisant croire qu'il détient un magot caché chez lui. Peu à peu les masques tombent et une lutte entre les anciens "amis" est lancée... L'utilisation de faible luminosité nocturne contribue à créer une atmosphère de soupçons propice aux règlements de comptes. Il est à noter que Zucco comme Lionel Atwill (qui joue Alec) sont des vedettes des films d'horreur : leur affrontement est un des meilleurs moments du film, tout comme le piège dans lesquels ils vont presque tous tomber. En bonus, Stephane Bougoin présente le film et JP Bouyxou présente les deux acteurs principaux.

Good picture quality. The subtitles are correctly translated to french language. The only problem is that the subtitles cannot be removed. They are embeded in the image.