The most interesting thing about One Foot in Hell for me, as an Alan Ladd enamoree, is that it involves the exact reverse of his usual character arcs. In so many of his films, Ladd played a "wrong guy" who gradually changed until he was a "right guy." He played many, many characters like that, including his burst into stardom in This Gun for Hire (1942).
It's Alan Ladd's type. He's brilliant at it. I've never seen anyone else so good at convincing me he's hard-hearted and bitter and mean, and then that he's learning to listen to his conscience because he's met up with some nice or decent people, and that he finally becomes a good man as a result. I don't get tired of watching Ladd in that arc, which is good since I've seen him play variations on that arc in sixteen different films. (Yes, I counted.)
Well, One Foot in Hell is the reverse. It begins when Mitch Barrett (Alan Ladd) arrives in a small western town with his wife, who's in the throes of a difficult childbirth. Everyone in town is asleep. The hotel clerk is grumpy about being awakened and asked to do his job of checking the couple in and giving them a key to a hotel room. The doctor (Larry Gates) is not quite so grumpy about being awakened to attend a woman in labor, at least. But the store clerk who doubles as a sort of pharmacist is very upset about having to get up in the middle of the night to fill a prescription with medicine the doctor says will save Mitch's wife and unborn baby. Mitch left his wallet at the hotel, and the clerk refuses to let Mitch have the medicine on credit. Mitch is desperate to get the medicine to his wife, whom he loves dearly, so he pulls a gun on the clerk and takes the medicine at gunpoint, promising to pay him in the morning.
The clerk wakes up the sheriff (Karl Swenson), yammering about Mitch robbing the store at gunpoint. The sheriff nabs Mitch on his way to take the medicine to his wife and the doctor. While Mitch explains to the sheriff why this is urgent, precious minutes tick away. When he finally gets to the hotel with the medicine, escorted by the clerk and the sheriff, his wife and baby have both died. The townsfolk file out, leaving Mitch alone with his dead wife.
I've rarely been so affected by Ladd getting emotional. He's frozen and numb for a few moments, trying to grasp what has happened. Then he lashes out violently, smashing the bottle of medicine and choking out a few words in anguish before dropping to his knees by her side and sobbing. I'm not sure I've ever seen Ladd cry onscreen in anything else, come to think of it. I can't recall any instances, anyway. I've certainly never seen him play a character who sobs like this, which makes this scene even more moving for me.
Like I said, the reverse of his usual arc: we have Alan Ladd's character starting out as a good and nice guy, but he runs into some uncaring and mean people, and he becomes a bad man as a result. The rest of the movie is about him pretending to forgive the townsfolk, taking a job there as deputy, and putting together a team of baddies to steal the town's money and murder the men he holds responsible for his wife and baby's deaths.
That's pretty much the whole movie, just Alan Ladd sliding farther and farther into darkness and villainy. Which he does very effectively, I might add. It's one of his best later performances, probably because it's a very different role from his usual, and so meaty. I do not like this movie, but I very much appreciate his performance. He believably slides from smiling, decent, and kind to flint-eyed, conniving, and vicious.
Is this movie family friendly? Basically, I guess -- there's no cussing or outright smut, and the violence is old-movie-style and not gory. The woman experiencing anguish in childbirth and then dying may disturb some viewers, especially younger ones. A later character is obviously a prostitute, but her profession isn't mentioned, only implied. A man marries her and then refuses to share her bed, and she kisses another man later. Like I said, not a pleasant movie, but also not a yucky one.
You can buy One Foot in Hell on DVD and stream it on Amazon, and probably find it streaming elsewhere too..
This review has been my contribution to the Aaron Spellingverse Blogathon hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews. Aaron Spelling co-wrote this screenplay with Sydney Boehm.
Thanks for adding Aaron's talents as a screenwriter and giving us a rounded view of this man's sterling career. I had no idea that he'd worked on Westerns so this was a great find. Thanks for joining the blogathon with this fabulous post.
ReplyDeleteGill, thanks for hosting the blogathon and giving me a reason to rewatch this!
DeleteI completely understand being turned off by the "reverse arc" of Ladd's character, but your wonderful description of his powerful acting in this is intriguing, and I will be looking it up.
ReplyDeleteBrian, yes, I'd say this is worth seeing if you're into revisionist westerns or like psychological studies, or if you just would like to see Alan Ladd playing very definitely against his usual type. It's not fun, but it's worth watching.
DeleteI read with considerable surprise your description of Alan Ladd getting emotional onscreen to the point of sobbing - wow. And that after most critics had been sneering for years that he was either "sleepwalking" through his movies or trying his one and a half facial expressions (extremely unfair baloney, of course). You write you're not sure you've ever seen Ladd cry onscreen in anything else – – certainly not sobbing, I agree. The only - very brief - emotional moment I can remember is towards the end of "O.S.S.", when spy Alan and lady spy Geraldine Fitzgerald think they finally can leave France and be happy ever after, HOWEVER... no spoilers here, but things go horribly wrong and a despondent Alan returns to an empty cabin and buries his head in the cardigan his sweetheart has left behind. (In your O.S.S. review you even have a screencap of that scene).
ReplyDeleteAndrea, well, I've never put much stock in what movie critics say, anyway ;-)
DeleteYou're right, he definitely has tears in his eyes in O.S.S.. And at the end of the first act in Captain Carey, USA, too. Now that I've had more time to think about it, I can remember them, lol! He almost gets tears in his eyes when his character is looking at his dead son's picture in The Blue Dahlia too.
Like you I love Ladd but here’s one I haven’t seen yet. He was great at playing sad men dealing with loss but still, this sounds different than his usual, and another side of Spelling, very interesting!
ReplyDeleteKristina, this is very different from his usual -- the first time I watched it, it made me really mad because I was expecting that he had some kind of secret plan where he was going to, I don't know, expose some kind of corruption in the town and turn out to secretly be a good guy. But, nope, not how it goes.
DeleteOoh, this movie sounds… chaotic—but sometimes those are the best kind! Thanks for your review.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thought I’d let you know—I’ve nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger Award! You can check out my post for the questions here: https://inklingcorner.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-sunshine-blogger-award.html
Cheerio!