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3.0 out of 5 stars
Underrated Cromwell and Carlisle Wasted in Half-hearted Comedy Noir, January 23, 2006
BABY FACE MORGAN was a "poverty row" movie made in 1942 by the "B" movie studio PRC. It stars two players who became very well known in the 1930's to the moviegoing public, Richard Cromwell and Mary Carlisle, but never caught on well enough to become major stars. Here they are almost at the very end of their careers working in this cheapie. They were both barely 30!! It's a shame they didn't become bigger because Mary was one of the loveliest actresses of the era and Richard Cromwell besides being quite a dashing-looking man with an appealing gentleness was a very capable dramatic actor with major roles in classics like EMMA and LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER. A third fading star of the 1930's also has another major role, Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" fame, playing the brains running the mob. Armstrong gives the best performance but Cromwell does good work, too. The beautiful Mary Carlisle doesn't have that much to do despite her top billing.
Cromwell stars as a small town soda jerk who is sent for to run his late father's business, completely unaware that his father was a mobster. Armstrong was his dad's right hand man and upon seeing the kid, he realizes the best thing to do is set the kid up in an office in a bogus insurance business while he, Armstrong, continues to run the show. This is one odd little film because it starts off as a gangster melodrama and before you know it, it's turned into a comedy and then it's back to being a gangster picture again. And yes, the comedy is intentional (the movie has naughtier than major studio jokes with one mobster having a pet rabbit, then more rabbits in every scene he's in, Morgan's cousin laughs at a lightly risque comic in a magazine). The print quality of the DVD is not particularly good but it's fairly acceptable. The movie moves fairly fast and is over before you know but then it only runs 60 minutes like a lot of poverty row B movies.
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