The plot description on TCM got me to record this a few days ago, and I watched it tonight. It stars Farley Granger as a young part-time postman in New York City, with a wife (Cathy O'Donnell) about to give birth to their first child. They live with the parents of one of them-don't know which, and are quite poor, needless to say.
Joe appears to regularly go inside offices to deliver their mail, and one day he happens inside a lawyer's office, just as a shady guy inside drops two $100 bills on the floor. He crudely insists Joe NOT touch the money that he was about to pick up for the man. The man quickly puts the money in a folder and tosses it in a filing cabinet drawer.
Now we have already seen another man pay $30,000 blackmail to some other woman, who was recently fished out of the river. The story lines aren't really explained, but they do connect.
The next day Joe is delivering the mail when he finds that lawyer's office door open, with a note saying the lawyer will be back in 15 minutes. Joe decides to open that filing cabinet-which is locked-and steal that $200. It'll let Ellen get a private room at the hospital instead of a ward. If it was to let her have some help delivering the kid vs. Doing it alone at home, I could better understand. Hospital wards were common in those days and there was no shame in being in one-my father was in one once time for a couple of days. Losing your self respect by stealing just for that? Strike one against Joe.
Joe actually uses a fire ax to break open the cabinet, then he just pulls out the folder he believes is the right one and stuffs it in his mailbag and flees. He chooses to open it on some nearby rooftop and finds $30,000 in bank bundles-all $100 bills. He stuffs the rest of the papers on the rooftop out of sight and heads home.
Nervous as can be, he proceeds to lie to his wife about getting a job out of town, and he is leaving that night-promising to be back before the baby is due. He doesn't really leave town, just takes a cheap hotel room AFTER doing the second stupidest thing he does in the entire movie: He wraps up all but about $200, which he gave to his wife before he left her alone, and gives it to his favorite bartender to hold for a few days, telling him it's a $4 present for his wife. Consider this strike two on Joe.
Now I can understand he could worry about someone in that apartment finding it, but there are bus and train terminals in the big city with lockers where you can pay a quarter-maybe less-and keep objects in there for more than a few days, all you have to do is not lose the key.
There are lots of other safer ways to keep anything of value than just giving it to a bartender, who as portrayed here, was not a friend of Joe's, just someone who served him a beer on occasion.
Some days later, Joe decides to return the money. I'm fine with that. Now he should have realized-he reads all the papers-that there's something fishy because there were no stories about a theft of $30,000. Who gets that much stolen in 1950 and doesn't report it to the cops? Obviously, someone who got it illegally.
I could understand him deciding to keep it, or mail it back. It would be easy to send it back anonymously and nobody would ever know he took it. Even if he doesn't suspect the lawyer is dishonest, he still might insist on going to the cops if he finds out who took the money. But Joe does the stupidest thing in the world next-he shows up at the lawyer's office, pretending to be there on behalf of a friend, and tells him the friend took $30,000 from him. When the lawyer balks and asks questions, Joe tells him his real name and address. The lawyer insists he wasn't robbed at all. The lawyer lets him go, telling a friend who came in as Joe left that for all he knows the police sent the man there. He knows where to find him and will, once he checks out who he really is.
Joe goes to the bar to retrieve his package and finds out his bartender has sold out and retired. After some trouble, they do locate the package Joe left and he takes it and leaves. But the bad guys are on to him and they grab him off the street and are not too happy when Joe hands them the package and they find nothing more than an article of women's clothing-just what Joe told the bartender was in the package.
This leads us into a typical amateur detective-type story where Joe goes all around, tracking down the bartender, then via a photo a woman who could be involved, he gets caught by the bad guys a couple of times, and we wind up with a long chase scene through the early Sunday morning streets of New York, mostly photographed from, I think, a helicopter.
There is one other stupid scene. The cops are talking to Joe's wife, who insists he is not guilty of murder or anything really. She doesn't know where he is. The phone rings and the cops assume it is Joe. They tell her that it'll be best if Joe turns himself in, but when they give her the phone to pick up, she immediately screams into it for Joe to run because the cops are after you, tracing this call. I guess Ellen is a perfect mate for Joe-between the two of them, they have about half a working brain.
Even if you truly trust the bartender, that $3.98 package he said it was worth could easily have been tossed out when he sold out. That's what makes it so dumb to leave it with him. Obviously, if the bartender cannot be trusted, I mean, if Joe didn't really know the guy, it was double dumb to trust him.
But going to the place where he stole it to return the money was about the stupidest thing imaginable. It would be so easy to mail it back with no return address and his conscious would be clear and nobody would ever suspect him. I spent almost the rest of the movie just waiting for it to end. There was never a reason to like Joe, and I didn't really care for his wife. Most of the subsequent chasing around town dodging the bad guys and the cops just seemed too formulaic and not really interesting. I give this one a 4 and hope I don't sucker into watching it again in 4-5 years when I have, hopefully, forgotten I already wasted my time on it once.
Joe appears to regularly go inside offices to deliver their mail, and one day he happens inside a lawyer's office, just as a shady guy inside drops two $100 bills on the floor. He crudely insists Joe NOT touch the money that he was about to pick up for the man. The man quickly puts the money in a folder and tosses it in a filing cabinet drawer.
Now we have already seen another man pay $30,000 blackmail to some other woman, who was recently fished out of the river. The story lines aren't really explained, but they do connect.
The next day Joe is delivering the mail when he finds that lawyer's office door open, with a note saying the lawyer will be back in 15 minutes. Joe decides to open that filing cabinet-which is locked-and steal that $200. It'll let Ellen get a private room at the hospital instead of a ward. If it was to let her have some help delivering the kid vs. Doing it alone at home, I could better understand. Hospital wards were common in those days and there was no shame in being in one-my father was in one once time for a couple of days. Losing your self respect by stealing just for that? Strike one against Joe.
Joe actually uses a fire ax to break open the cabinet, then he just pulls out the folder he believes is the right one and stuffs it in his mailbag and flees. He chooses to open it on some nearby rooftop and finds $30,000 in bank bundles-all $100 bills. He stuffs the rest of the papers on the rooftop out of sight and heads home.
Nervous as can be, he proceeds to lie to his wife about getting a job out of town, and he is leaving that night-promising to be back before the baby is due. He doesn't really leave town, just takes a cheap hotel room AFTER doing the second stupidest thing he does in the entire movie: He wraps up all but about $200, which he gave to his wife before he left her alone, and gives it to his favorite bartender to hold for a few days, telling him it's a $4 present for his wife. Consider this strike two on Joe.
Now I can understand he could worry about someone in that apartment finding it, but there are bus and train terminals in the big city with lockers where you can pay a quarter-maybe less-and keep objects in there for more than a few days, all you have to do is not lose the key.
There are lots of other safer ways to keep anything of value than just giving it to a bartender, who as portrayed here, was not a friend of Joe's, just someone who served him a beer on occasion.
Some days later, Joe decides to return the money. I'm fine with that. Now he should have realized-he reads all the papers-that there's something fishy because there were no stories about a theft of $30,000. Who gets that much stolen in 1950 and doesn't report it to the cops? Obviously, someone who got it illegally.
I could understand him deciding to keep it, or mail it back. It would be easy to send it back anonymously and nobody would ever know he took it. Even if he doesn't suspect the lawyer is dishonest, he still might insist on going to the cops if he finds out who took the money. But Joe does the stupidest thing in the world next-he shows up at the lawyer's office, pretending to be there on behalf of a friend, and tells him the friend took $30,000 from him. When the lawyer balks and asks questions, Joe tells him his real name and address. The lawyer insists he wasn't robbed at all. The lawyer lets him go, telling a friend who came in as Joe left that for all he knows the police sent the man there. He knows where to find him and will, once he checks out who he really is.
Joe goes to the bar to retrieve his package and finds out his bartender has sold out and retired. After some trouble, they do locate the package Joe left and he takes it and leaves. But the bad guys are on to him and they grab him off the street and are not too happy when Joe hands them the package and they find nothing more than an article of women's clothing-just what Joe told the bartender was in the package.
This leads us into a typical amateur detective-type story where Joe goes all around, tracking down the bartender, then via a photo a woman who could be involved, he gets caught by the bad guys a couple of times, and we wind up with a long chase scene through the early Sunday morning streets of New York, mostly photographed from, I think, a helicopter.
There is one other stupid scene. The cops are talking to Joe's wife, who insists he is not guilty of murder or anything really. She doesn't know where he is. The phone rings and the cops assume it is Joe. They tell her that it'll be best if Joe turns himself in, but when they give her the phone to pick up, she immediately screams into it for Joe to run because the cops are after you, tracing this call. I guess Ellen is a perfect mate for Joe-between the two of them, they have about half a working brain.
Even if you truly trust the bartender, that $3.98 package he said it was worth could easily have been tossed out when he sold out. That's what makes it so dumb to leave it with him. Obviously, if the bartender cannot be trusted, I mean, if Joe didn't really know the guy, it was double dumb to trust him.
But going to the place where he stole it to return the money was about the stupidest thing imaginable. It would be so easy to mail it back with no return address and his conscious would be clear and nobody would ever suspect him. I spent almost the rest of the movie just waiting for it to end. There was never a reason to like Joe, and I didn't really care for his wife. Most of the subsequent chasing around town dodging the bad guys and the cops just seemed too formulaic and not really interesting. I give this one a 4 and hope I don't sucker into watching it again in 4-5 years when I have, hopefully, forgotten I already wasted my time on it once.