CLUB PARADISE (1945)

From afar, we see a courtyard where a man on the ground floor sees a woman on the second floor. He goes upstairs and enters her room. Shots are fired, and the movie becomes a long flashback. We meet Julie (Doris Merrick), a factory worker who lives with her unpleasant family: the usual mom and dad who just don't understand, her alcoholic brother Fred who is clearly on his way into the gutter, and his pregnant wife Katie. Julie's parents don’t approve of her beau, a sweet-natured trumpet player named Ray (Eddie Quillan) who is about to start his own band. Julie, Ray, and Julie's friend Helen (who also has a thing for Ray) go out to the Black Cat and Julie makes eye contact with Danny (Robert Lowery), handsome but a little shady looking. The next night, Julie hooks up with Danny who takes her to the slightly classier Paradise Club where they meet two women who have past histories with Danny: Mae, a singer, and Irene, the manager. Julie starts putting Ray off, though the two get caught at an illegal gambling house. At night court, with the choice of 30 bucks or 30 days, Ray has to go to jail. Julie's dad pays her fine but orders her out of the house. Plot points start piling up: Julie moves in with Mae, thanks to Irene's guidance, and gets a job as a dancer as the Paradise Club; Danny leaves town for a spell; Ray, out of jail, lands a gig and wants Julie to be his singer; she turns him down and waits for Danny; when Danny comes back, he owes a gangster money he doesn't have. We can tell that the future looks bad for Julie and Danny, but we have to wait until the very end to discover who shoots whom.

This B-noir looks about as cheap as they come but it's watchable. The script feels like a Reader's Digest condensation of a longer work, with some plot lines (Julie's drunkard brother, Mae's later illness) going nowhere which makes the picture feel overstuffed with incident. Robert Lowery was starting to lose his looks; he's a little puffy and tired, which fits the character but not the lust that Julie feels immediately upon seeing him. I was unfamiliar with Doris Merrick but she does a nice job as a character who manages to stay unrealistically optimistic about her situation. The two other standouts in the cast are Constance Worth as the likable Irene and Maurice Murphy who makes the most of his short scenes of drunkenness as Fred. I liked the fact that, despite the chiched possibilities, jealousy doesn't rear its ugly head; Ray accepts the loss of Julie, and all three of Danny's women form a friendly bond. The ending is oddly abrupt and not terribly satisfying, but I guess it fits with the movie's noir atmosphere. The movie’s original title, Sensation Hunters, doesn’t fit the proceedings at all--if you come to this movie looking for partying and decadence and sex, you’ll be disappointed. Pictured are Merrick and Lowery. [YouTube]