Decoy (1946)

hyped garbage

Crappy film

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I have to say that Decoy was one interesting cinematic experience. The story had a lot of holes in it and the plan that was made by the bad guys had a lot of faults in it.But what makes this film get as high a rating from me as I give it is the presence of Jean Gillie who made only one more film after this one before dying at 33. Just like another British beauty Kay Kendall.Gillie is one devil woman and she's got one devilish plan to $400,000.00 of stolen loot that Robert Armstrong has hidden away. She's been Armstrong's moll for years, but he's going to the gas chamber. Never mind Gillie's found a way to beat the gas chamber. But it involves getting a doctor and another hoodlum to pull it off.The key is Dr. Herbert Rudley who supervises the executions. There's a chemical if administered within a short time that can counteract the effects of cyanide. Gillie puts on quite a campaign to vamp Rudley and soon he's just putty. Her other hoodlum boyfriend Edward Norris is amused at Rudley, but he's also thinking with his crotch.Even Sheldon Leonard playing a cop instead of gangster for once is also not immune to Gillie when she turns it on. If some company could have bottled what Gillie had and sold it to the government it would be quite a formidable weapon.The script isn't all that great, but Gillie and the cast of sex struck males really put this Monagram classic over.

"Decoy" features the most heartless woman in film noir history. Jean Gillie is a horrible person--the best femme fatale you can find. The film begins with her dying--and she tells the police what led her to this fate. What follows is a story of one betrayal after another after another, as Gillie's loyalty, it seems, is to her self alone.Her story begins with Gillie's boyfriend (Robert Armstrong) on death row. The problem isn't that she cares about him, but he knows where a huge pile of loot is hidden--and she is determined to somehow save him because he won't just tell her where it is. The plan is medically impossible, but she finds a very gullible doctor (Herbert Rudley) and gets him to agree to give him an injection of some weird drug that will supposedly revive him. Naturally, along the way, Gillie kills off everyone--even her revived boyfriend. But, sadly for her, he plans don't work out--but I don't want to say more as it would spoil the film.The film has some exceptional moments--most of which are Gillie's. For instance, the scene where she shoots the doctor as she laughs is reminiscent of Richard Widmark in "Kiss of Death". There also is the that that after one of men is killed, she makes out over the lifeless corpse below her! What a horrid person! The only negatives are the silliness of the revival of the executed man AND the complete lack of blood when the doctor is not only shot but drags himself to a final confrontation. I know in the 1940s they tended to avoid using blood--but NONE! Also, this is not a problem with the film per se, but it was odd and tough to see Sheldon Leonard playing a cop--and a non-crooked one to boot! He was almost the quintessential mobster and accepting him as a detective was tough. Still, it's well worth seeing and exciting for any fan of the genre.

Really enjoyed this dark-horse noir picture from Monogram. Had never heard of Jean Gillie before and the website says she died 3 years later after making just one more picture. She was perfect as the gun moll from hell in "Decoy", and raises a crummy gangster picture into the 'must-see'category.The main premise of the story defies belief, but as with countless others that have some intrinsic value you just have to go with it - and it's only 75 minutes long. I thought the overall production values were quite good for a Monogram cheapie. Sheldon Leonard as the Police Sgt. was over-the-top but Robt. Armstrong was better than usual.And I wanted to start a new paragraph to tell you that Marjorie Woodworth, of whom I had never heard, wins the Hand-Painted Mustache Cup as the Most Beautiful Actress Who Can't Act A Lick - she was the receptionist/nurse for the criminal doctor, played by Herbert Rudley. Breathtaking to look at and a breathtakingly bad actress."Decoy" is not really a good movie but it has a cachet about it that you will like. It is well worth your time if you can find it.

Decoy has a ridiculous plot. It's about a plot to get a prison doctor to revive a gangster after his death sentence is carried out in the gas chamber so that the gangster's moll can find out the location of money from a heist gone awry. This is pretty far-fetched and I'm not sure I buy it. But the magic of the movie is that I don't buy it now, but when I was watching this petite little B flick, I was thoroughly entertained. It covers the corners of a film noir with all the caricatures and all the frowning settings.This overall ironic noir, now that it's over, feels like a bit of a throwaway. It doesn't do much in the way of originality or freshness. It recycles the same notes to the same tunes we've already heard thousands of times. It just plays them with a different instrument. If this were not very much my type of movie, what with the gangsters, femmes fatale, double-crosses, heist loot, and those sorts, I would hardly have cared about much during. However, since it is, I was entertained for its thankful 76-minute duration.Everything is passable. I think Robert Armstrong has the right look for a gangster street wise enough to take the secret of his loot to his grave. Jean Gillie is a decent gun moll, especially considering that one would hardly guess that she is English. All her sideline squeezes are tough-looking, swarthy men in black suits who look like they were the bullies in junior high, and Herbert Rudley, the everyman prison doctor stuck in the middle, though he is thankfully a no-name, was tolerable as the protagonist.