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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

A robust B crime drama.

Rated: B-

Feb 18, 2016

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Audience Member

Strictly B- studio fodder with Gargan his usual lump in the lead.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

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Audience Member

The film Behind Green Lights is a crime, mystery drama. It's an old classic film from the mid 40's. It has a small cast and because of that you are able to get know just about everyone and their stories. Most of the scenes take place in the police station. One night out of nowhere a dead man's body is found in a car right outside of the station. They begin to search to discover who the man is. They find out that it is the body of Walter Bard. Walter had previously been blackmailing different people. When Lieutenant Carson does some investigating of the body he finds a small notebook with the name of Janet Bradley. So one of the first things the Carson decides to do is to interrogate her. That's how he finds out that Walter had been blackmailing her and a friend for $20,000. Leading Carson to question her even more as is it seems very suspicious that she would kill him for that. She claims that she is innocent, but Carson isn't quite convinced just yet, especially because of a local newspaper owner, Max, who wants Carson to arrest her in order to create some problems for Janet's father, who happens to be running for mayor the following Tuesday. Of course Carson decides against that, even though Max tries to bribe him. Carson calls in Dr. Yager to examine the body in order to see if they can find anything that will be able to shed some more light as to what happened. In the meantime, Carson interrogates Walter's wife who is in the process of getting a divorce with him, as he feels that she might have some knowledge as to what may have happened. She goes to the interview with her boyfriend who is also her attorney, Arthur. They both tell him their stories and Carson deems them innocent as well. This leaves Carson in a tight situation as he is running out of potential suspects, but just as soon as it seems all is lost a lead in the form of an older lady comes in. She is a local flower saleswoman who had sold flowers to Walter earlier. She claims he never paid her for the flowers so she decided to go see him to collect her money. As she shows up to Walter's, she sees the doctor break into Walter's apartment looking very suspicious. Carson immediately calls in the doctor in order to question him. The doctor tries to cover up by lying, but Carson knows the truth. The doctor is the murderer. Walter knew about a malpractice suit and the doctor had to kill him before it got to the public. It turns out that when the doctor examined Walter's body he tried to hide because he knew how he had dies by poison. This is the problem with those who think they are above the law and think that they are smarter than everyone else. The doctor was so concerned with what might have been if he got caught, he let that cloud his judgments. He came to think that Walter's life was of lesser value than his problem. Instead of owning up to his mistakes he tried to keep it a secret. And when people do that they end up being worse off, just like the doctor in this movie. He now gets charged with murder instead of just losing his practice and money. It is just like the story of David and Bath-Sheba in the Bible. It started off with what could have been a small innocent glance but ended up him also having someone killed. We have laws to protect others, and a lot of the times when someone commits a "smaller" crime they become so worried about the consequences that they try cover it up usually with something bigger without thinking clearly. It really has a lot to do with where you own character is. If you happen to make a mistake the first thing you have to do it take care of it, you can't let it sit and grow by trying to cover it, that'll only make it worse. That's where the doctor's problems first started. He became so obsessed with hiding his original mistake that he let it come to killing someone, one of the worst crimes. With him being a doctor you would expect more out of him. That leads me to believe that is why Carson was so slow to question him, he was supposedly on his side, a close associate, one of the least suspected to be a murderer. It's really quite interesting to see the process of the doctor's decline, I bet that if someone was to ask the doctor before this all happened if murdering is bad he would say that of course it's bad. So from going from that, to telling himself that its ok to kill in order to make sure Walter didn't spread his secret, is a huge a difference. A sad decline of how he lost his freedom and life.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

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Audience Member

Overall quite entertaining crime/drama with some nuttiness added in small doses. Still the pieces fit well and didn't overstay it's welcome.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

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Audience Member

The cardboard acting lets it down a little, yet this film's pace and well balanced storyline makes it slightly more appealing than most other cheap police dramas that were made at the time.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

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Josías G

Clásica, uno se siente voyerista viendo el pasado y tratando de averiguar que ocurrió con el asesinato.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

04/25/13

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Audience Member

kinda noirish crime drama

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

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Otto Brower

Director

Carole Landis

Janet Bradley

William Gargan

Lt. Sam Carson

Richard Crane

Johnny Williams

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Synopsis

A cub reporter (Richard Crane) hangs around the police station, and an officer (William Gargan) falls for a murder suspect (Carole Landis).

Director: Otto Brower
Production Co: Twentieth Century Fox
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Feb 15, 1946, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 1, 2016
Runtime: 1h 4m

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