Double Exposure (1944)

Touches You

Too much of everything

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A Major Disappointment

William Pine and William Thomas -- Paramount's B producers who took sturdy projects and turned out decent movies on modest budgets, earning them the appellation of "The Dollar bills" -- have a fine one-hour flick in this movie. Nancy Kelly gets a photography gig at a New York magazine, with wolfish Chester Morris as her boss; she totes along would-be fiancé Philip Terry, claiming he is her brother, to stand off Morris. She's smart, hard-working and they gradually fall in love, with many a quip, when a murdered woman pops up -- and it looks exactly like the picture of Miss Kelly that she posed for the magazine; her alibi is Mr. Terry, but he's been shipped out on a convoy to Russia and lost at sea.Richard Gaines is along as the health-nut publisher, and there are a lot of good gags for the first three-quarters of the picture, until the murder mystery takes over. Dewey Robinson as a cab driver also has a few good lines.

This really is the story of a prank blowing up in the prankster's face, in this case, a press photographer (Nancy Kelly) who seems to be obsessed with the marital issues of a much married man (Charles Arnt) and his most recent wife (Jane Farrar), a hot-tempered harpy with whom he has many public battles over his flirtations with other younger women. Having just been hired by the amorous Chester Morris, Kelly gets jailed on a murder rap, and the only testimony that could save her comes from her fiancée (Phillip Terry) whom Morris initially thought to be her brother and has sent him off on a mission where he is believed to be killed.This is one of those newspaper comedies where you can just hear the writer laughing to himself as he puts the script down on paper. It is intelligently written and amusing, but the aspect of the plot just gets a bit out of control and ultimately unbelievable with the plot going through so many twists and turns that it makes a pretzel look like a strand of spaghetti before it has been boiled. While this will never be the classic of "The Front Page", its sexually reversed remake "His Girl Friday" or the brilliant "Five Star Final" standards, it is a pleasant look at how the deadly sin of jealousy can create a lot of havoc for everybody involved.

By the humble standards of the Two Dollar Bills (i.e. producers Bill Pine and Bill Thomas), this is a really entertaining little offering in which an able cast led by Chester Morris (the magazine editor), Nancy Kelly (the freelance photographer), Richard Gaines (the exercise-conscious publisher), Philip Terry (the freelance's boyfriend) and Charles Arnt (a millionaire of the marrying kind) mix comedy, romance and a murder mystery with most entertaining results. The bright screenplay by Winston Miller and Maxwell Shane only takes one wrong turn that is a bit hard to swallow. Fortunately, it occurs near the end of the movie. If it disturbs them at all, most viewers will regard it as nothing more than a momentary lapse. The direction by William Berke consistently rates far above his usual pedestrian standard. The pace and timing of his players – particularly in the comedy scenes with Richard Gaines – are especially effective. Some viewers may feel that the murder mystery plot has been short-changed in the interests of comedy and romance, but I felt that aside from the overly dramatic plot twist I mentioned earlier, the movie offered consistently bright entertainment. Available on many DVDs. Alpha's print is excellent.

Chester Morris is Larry Burke, fast-talking editor of Flick, the picture magazine "that's always there when it happens." Short on energetic staff photographers, he recruits and hires Pat Marvin, a photographer from way out in Iowa, on the strength of a syndicated newspaper photo that appears to capture a crashing plane right as it hits the ground! Larry is somewhat taken aback, when Pat arrives in his office, to discover that Pat is a female—but decides to give her a shot. Has she got glub? –Thus begins a wacky tale in which we encounter a jealous boyfriend posing as a brother; an amorous millionaire who casually ditches old wives and selects new ones; the magazine's health nut owner, who comes into the office every morning handing out carrots and leading calisthenics; and a fairly neat little murder mystery thrown in for good measure. --Oh, and Chester explaining that "glub" is an acronym representing four things you've got to have to get ahead in the business—you must be a Go getter, Lucky, Up and at 'em, and a Bunko artist at heart. G,L,U,B. "No woman could possibly have it," he explains to Pat—who naturally (and to Chester's delight) sets about proving him wrong.Nancy Kelly is Pat, the girl from Iowa looking for a big break. The back-and-forth between her and Morris is excellent—snappy, affectionate, sometimes silly—and their relationship is the center of the picture. Morris is at his frantic best; Kelly is a match for his quickness, while her character's earnestness counters his flipness.Among other bizarre moments, the picture features more than one shot where a character pauses on the way out of a scene and speaks an aside right to the camera—including the loser boyfriend who hilariously turns to the audience to complain about getting kissed on the cheek again.Good dialog keeps things moving; a couple of truly surprising plot twists charm and delight as well.Funniest exchange—magazine owner Richard Gaines explaining to editor Morris how to solve a murder: "First you question the suspects." Morris: "What suspects? Pat's the only one." Owner: "Well, find some!"