After quitting the NYPD, Ruditsky traveled to the movie colony and hired himself out as a private detective. One of his assignments was to tail Marilyn Monroe for Joe DiMaggio. As another baseball aside, while the scandalous quickie Mexican marriage of Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher to actress Laraine Day is often cited as the cause for his year long 1947 suspension, as ordered by the Commissioner of Baseball Albert "Happy" Chandler, Durocher's association in crooked gambling scandals with his boon companion George Raft was another definite factor. "Leo the Lip" roomed with his pal Raft whenever he was in Los Angeles. Presumably Durocher and Raft were hustling chumps in rigged games involving marked cards and loaded dice. Ford deserves an "A" for effort, but I will give the nod to Chaney for the most satisfying murder of Field. The poison administered by Rains to Field must be discounted as this murder occurred off screen.
on 9/6/2026, 7:54 am
"To Have and To Have Not" opened the Chicago festival on Saturday and Lauren Bacall's seductive debut performance opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart secured the honors as the best feature of the day. An audience member wolf whistled when Bacall made her initial appearance. Enough said. The film was an excellent ensemble piece from Warner Brothers. The film drew a large crowd.
"Nocturne" is an R-K-O film that eluded me for many years. Despite its obvious potential the characteristically flat performance of George Raft in the lead role as a suspended police detective weakened the impact of the 1946 movie. "Whistle Stop" probably represents the worst lead role of Raft's mediocre acting career, but "Nocturne" may run a close second. In the right hands, the movie could have been so much better.
The audience could not be blamed for cheering when an unctuous and womanizing movie composer (Edward Ashley) gets shot in the opening reel of "Nocturne." I thought that producer Joan Harrison's production would have benefited immensely if an actor such as Hurd Hatfield was cast in this role. "Nocturne" had a strange screen credit: Barney Ruditsky, a former Prohibition Era New York City police detective, was credited as a technical advisor on the movie. The NBC television series "The Lawless Years" which rivaled "The Untouchables" was based upon Ruditsky's police career.
"The Black Angel" is a well regarded adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich novel. Dan Duryea paired with June Vincent to investigate the murder of his ex-wife, the blackmailer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling). They posed as a musical team to secure employment in a nightclub owned by Peter Lorre. While packing in the patrons, Vincent sought crucial evidence to clear her philandering husband of Marlowe's murder before his date in the gas chamber. The discovery of a missing ruby brooch and an escape from a psychiatric hospital (Duryea's alcoholic pianist suffered from Korsakoff's Syndrome) revealed the truth at the last possible minute.
"Blues in the Night" is one of the most peculiar films that I have ever watched.
An incredible number of cinematic talents were wasted in this jazz themed film which simply defies description. Hal Wallis produced, Robert Rossen and Elia Kazan scripted the mess, Anatole Litvak directed, and Don Siegel handled the stylish and bizarre montage sequences. It reminded me of the nightmarish "5,000 Fingers of Dr. T."
It is almost impossible to summarize the plot of "Blues in the Night." Here goes: An aspiring jazz combo forms in a jail cell and, after making bail, the penniless troupe hops a series of freight trains on a journey from St. Louis to New Orleans to Pittsburgh to New Jersey. Once in the Garden State, the musicians entertain in a roadhouse operated by an escaped convict. The blues band's floor show is merely a front for the lucrative gambling activities on the second floor of the building.
"Blues in the Night" is a decidedly strange obscure film that caused me to imagine David Lynch replacing William Beaudine as the director of "Blues Busters," a Monogram Pictures musical production starring the Bowery Boys. The cast of "Blues in the Night" included Billy Halop, one of the Dead End Kids, Lloyd Nolan, Jack Carson, Priscilla Lane, Elia Kazan, and Howard Da Silva among others.
Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Anthony Quinn, and George Raft all wisely rejected the lead role of musician "Jigger Pine" which wound up being played by the unfortunate Richard Whorf. Quinn flat out told studio chief Jack L. Warner that he thought that the script was terrible.
The single most satisfying scene in the hot mess featured a loser (Wallace Ford) killing a manipulative psycho bitch (Betty Field) and himself by driving an automobile off the road during raging thunderstorm. For those scoring at home, Betty Field was offed in movies by Lon Chaney (strangulation) and Claude Rains (poison), and Wally Ford (car crash).
Incredibly, "Blues in the Night" was adapted from a stage play "Hot Nocturne"by Edwin Gilbert. I cannot imagine patrons queuing up for such a live theater performance. When the movie adaptation bombed, Warner Brothers blamed the film's poor box office receipts on the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Attendance at the Music Box Theater festival continued to be quite strong with another three more sell out crowds. The last Saturday screening, the risible "Blues in the Night," was the poorest draw. Shades of 1941?
Dan
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