Whistle Stop (1946)

[moira finnie]

According to some sources, producer Mark Hellinger spotted a possible actress for his next feature in the independently produced, low budget noir, Whistle Stop (1946). That next Hellinger feature, an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's story, The Killers (1946), would go on to make MGM contract player Ava Gardner a big star, albeit away from her home studio.

After seeing Whistle Stop recently, this early Gardner movie (also a loan-out from MGM) made me wonder if Hellinger might have simply felt sorry for her in this movie. Ava plays a small town gal who inexplicably returns to Podunkville in the mid-west after lighting out for the big city. We are never told exactly why she's returned to Molly Veech's (Florence Bates) boarding house, where Flo lives with her train watchman husband and "kids", including 51 year old George Raft, (who looks older).

Bates, (who was only 7 years older than her cinematic 'son'), seems to delude herself alot in this movie. Ma Veech seems to think that her Kenny (Raft) will stop being a layabout without a job who laps up booze every night & plays cards once he "finds himself". She suppresses any nagging doubts about her sonny's worth by repeatedly pointing out that times are tough and her baby is scratching out a living as best he can in this burg they call home. Hmm, perhaps this storyline would have seemed more credible if the film had been set in the Depression as had been the steamy novel by Maritta Wolff.

Bates' character also clings to the notion that Mary (Ava), her star boarder, is a "nice girl" whose expensive wardrobe and no visible means of support are signs of frugality. It doesn't seem to strike anyone in the Veech household as odd that Ava lounges around the house in a satin dressing gown, though George Raft doesn't seem to mind. This is especially so during the scene on the porch when Raft cadges a smoke from Ava. The puzzled and intrigued look on his face as he watches her extract a Chesterfield from some secret pocket inside her form fitting housecoat is one of George Raft's more expressive moments. Soon Ava, who had once been Raft's sweetie, is going upwardly mobile by focusing on nightclub owner Tom Conway. He does look more attractive in contrast to the morose Raft and his best buddy, Gitlo, played by veteran scene-stealer Victor McLaglen, a resentful man with a dark past, who is a bartender and favorite dogsbody of Conway.

Jorja Curtright, also appears as a character named "Fran", who, at least in profile, is sort of an Ava Lite. Curtright, (who went on to make a much better career move by marrying Sidney Sheldon), has the thankless task of playing a cocktail waitress who's sweet on Raft. When she's seriously injured we're "treated" to a would-be big scene in the hospital room when Fran curses Raft's dumbstruck character for failing to love her back. This may be the clumsiest scene in the whole movie.

It's not that the movie is bad, exactly. Just quite illogical. Why does anyone do anything in this movie? I still don't know. Raft and McLaglen get involved in a robbery attempt, a murder, and a betrayal, though neither of them really seems to have the energy or much belief in the possibility of their actions changing their enervated lives for the better. On the contrary, they seem to be looking for a way to accelerate the petty pace of their existence toward oblivion via pursuit of sheer stupidity.

The only ones who seem to make an impression as flesh and blood characters are the reliably vivid Bates, (though I suspect that her subversive presence is deliberate, since the strangeness of seeing her in a maternal role mouthing platitudes is possibly intended to be a bit unsettling), and McLaglen, who is fun as an instigator, albeit a very dumb one. If you ever see this movie, watch for the deftly stolen scene when the larcenous McLaglen visits Raft for a "friendly" game of cards at the train station. Raft is silent for almost the entire scene, while McLaglen babbles on and on. It made me wish that ol' Victor had lived long enough to do Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

One over-riding reason to watch this flick: 23 year old Ava Gardner, who is not encased in the MGM treatment with flattering hair, makeup, camera angles or the constant coaching that helped to make her a big deal later in the decade. Here, she's just a beautiful kid with little or no acting technique. She's strangely gawky one minute, and the next quite poised, calculating and simply a knockout.

Russell Metty the usually fine cinematographer, had cheap sets, non-existent production design and little apparent guidance from director Léonide Moguy, who had some trouble establishing any kind of consistent mood in this often awkwardly staged film. Maybe I'm missing the movie's tawdry charm, though I hope that others will please point out what I'm missing.

You had a good eye, though, Mr. Hellinger.

[raftfan]

Moira, despite the presence of Ava Gardner co-starring with a declining George Raft, "Whistle Stop" is a pretty unmemorable picture. Director Philip Yordan recalled that he had a difficult time coaxing performances out of both Raft and Gardner (whose most noteworthy picture previous to this film was "Ghosts on the Loose" with the East Side Kids and Bela Lugosi). Yordan went further, claiming that neither could act and had difficulty speaking their lines. For that reason he said that dialogue was kept at a minimum and largely consisted of monosyllables.

The film received mostly negative reviews, though the Motion Picture Herald reported: "With the dynamics of Gardner and Raft, "Whistle Stop" is certainly not a dull place." The New York Times, on the other hand, called "Whistle Stop" a "plainly remote and artificial concoction", adding that Raft "plays the bum in a bored gangster style." Leonard Maltin's annual Movie Guide merely summed up "Whistle Stop" by referring to it as an "Unusually stupid Raft vehicle . . . "

Of course while the film did nothing for Raft, Ava did go on to bigger and better things.

Interestingly. Ava Gardner was not the first choice for the role of Mary. She was chosen for the part when MGM agreed to loan her to United Artists at a bargain rate. The story also goes that Raft himself was instrumental in promoting Ava for the picture. Ava would later say that she and George went out dancing on a few occasions and that she got the distinct impression that Raft would have liked their relationship to go further. Although Ava very much enjoyed working with George, calling him "So much fun", she had to finally admit to Raft that she looked at him as more of a "father figure", having watched him in movies since she was a young girl. Probably a blow to Georgie's ego, though he did not insist and the two remained friends.