Appointment with Danger
                             
Director: Lewis Allen
Year: 1950
Rating: 6.5
We have become so jaded since this film was made 75-years ago. It begins with a narrator extolling the virtues of the US Postal Service for a good minute or two - with short clips of the post office in action with one clip showing the sorters throwing a package into a pile. Oops - hope that wasn't fragile. Today we would laugh at that in a film. With an opening like that, I was anticipating a rote dull story about the Post Office Inspectors. Maybe tracking down a lost package in Dubuque, Iowa. But to my surprise it turns into a rough suspenseful crime film. It stars Alan Ladd playing his typical cynical unfeeling guy sparse with his words. By this time, Ladd could do that in his sleep.



I am always a bit surprised that Ladd was so big in the 1940s into the 50s. He never showed much acting range and he has never struck me as charismatic, but once he hit it big with This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key, he went from one action/adventure film to another - Westerns, period, crime. His personality fits his character well here - an Inspector with no time or desire for relationships or friends. He pisses off everyone he meets. One fellow Inspector says to him, "You don't know what a love affair is". "It's what goes on between a man and a .45 pistol that won't jam". Well, as the Beatles sang, Happiness is a warm Gun. It may have become the motto of the NRA.




Another postal inspector has been strangled to death and his body dumped in an alleyway. As the lights play on their faces, you want to shout out Dragnet. The two killers are played by Jack Webb and Harry Morgan - cold ass killers. A nun (Phyllis Calvert) comes upon them without realizing what they are doing and walks away. Ladd has to track her down to another city and try to figure out why they killed him. The gang headed by the always smooth Paul Stewart is planning a mail robbery. The nun has identified Morgan and so he has to go. Ladd pretends to be corrupt looking for a payoff and slides into the gang - but with Webb wanting to kill him. They play a tough game of handball. Perhaps a coincidence or two too many and Ladd takes ridiculous risks but, at least he doesn't fall in love with the nun - or with the moll played wonderfully well by Jan Sterling with good taste in jazz.  One bit of useless trivia but was actually the reason I chose this. In the film Foul Play, Goldie goes to see an oldie double feature. Though they give it a different title, one of the films was clearly this one. Just in case it shows up on Jeopardy.