Dad's Movies: "Dead Reckoning"

 No, not the Mission: Impossible sequel, but Dead Reckoning (1947), the Bogart film. This movie slots in during the peak time of Film Noir, but doesn't quite fit the Noir mold. This one feels like a mashup of a number of other Bogart detective movies, but adds the angle of a guy returning from WW2; makes sense. 

The story has some silly dialogue (well-delivered by Bogart) and too much flashback/VoiceOver narration for my taste, but gets the job done with a number of plot twists that aren't super obvious. 

Bogart is great, as usual, even when delivering his little monologue about how women should act (yikes). Lisabeth Scott does well, though she doesn't always convince as a conniving femme fatale.

Dad was a big Bogart fan, so I suspect he grabbed this one, while agreeing that this is no Maltese Falcon.

Dad's Movies: "The Moon is Down"

The Moon is Down (1943) is remembered, if at all, for the fact that it's based on a Steinbeck novel and maybe for it having Henry Travers (Clarence in, It's a Wonderful Life) in it. Like a lot of others made that year, this is most certainly a product of its time, but it rises above other similar propaganda movies made during the war in how it humanizes individuals, even some of the Nazis. 

The cast does reasonably well, even if they tend to underplay some of the scenes, with Travers and Peter van Eyck, making the strongest impressions. Oh, and Natalie Wood appears in her first movie as a child. 

The movie spends a little too much time having the characters stand around monologuing, but makes its point. This is another movie that I'm pretty sure Dad saw during the war, perhaps between shifts at the P-51 factory. Another point he probably found amusing was the way that the Germans brought a brass band with them to the occupied village.