One of my all time favorites.

Let's be realistic.

A different way of telling a story

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"Private Hell 36" is by no means a great film noir classic, but for what the film promises, it offers up a tasty amoral tale about a crooked cop obsessed with a woman who requires expensive things. It's good to see Steve Cochran in a meaty, villainous role as the rogue cop. (He'll always be the ill-fated 'Big Ed' in Cagney's classic 'White Heat' to me.)What I notice about Ida Lupino is that, some thirteen years after her fine performance in 'High Sierra', she still looks very hot. She's the 'bad girl' here that is really not a 'bad girl' at all. Her crime seems to be that she's an independent, sexy chick! Which may HAVE been a crime back then. I'm certainly glad director Don ('Invasion of the Body Snatchers') Siegel's camera fell in love with Ms. Lupino's legs.It all comes to a tragic end because this IS film noir. However, you can't help but notice a fine little twist at the end.I thought Howard Duff was rather stiff as the 'good' cop. Dean Jagger was unexpectedly good as Duff's and Cochran's suspicious superior. This movie didn't venture much, but I was happy with the territory I was shown. A small, neat film. Ms. Lupino co-wrote it.Sharp viewers will note the appearance of actors King Donovan and Richard Deacon, who would also appear in 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', Siegel's classic sci-fi film.

***SPOILERS*** One of director Don Siegel of "Dirty Harry" fame earliest work involves a robbery in NYC of $300,000.00 that ended showing up, the stolen cash that is, in LA some 3,000 miles away. With LAPD detectives Carl Bruner, Steve Cochran, and Jack Farnham, Howard Duff, on the case they track down a 50 dollar bill from the robbery to a night club that it's top performer singer Lili Marlow, Ida Lupino, got as a tip from one of the customers there.It soon becomes obvious that the person who gave Lili the fifty was involved in the robbery and both Det. Bruner & Farnham together with Lili who can identify him stake out the Hollywood Race Track where he's known to spend his spare time and money, the stolen money, at.Track down the person they do when he makes a run for it in his car and ends up driving off the road killing himself.It's when the stolen money is found hidden in a safe box in the fugitive from justice, George Docksharden, car that Det. Bruner gets the idea of taking a large amount of it,$80,000.00, for himself and his partner, in order to keep him quite, Det. Farnham. Who's going to miss it anyway since no one has any idea of how much Docksharden spent anyway.Hiding the cash in a trailer park at lot #36 it seems that no one will find out what the two did even though honest cop and family man Jack Farnham has second thought about all this.***SPOILERS*** As things soon turn out the dead Dockshader had a partner in the $300,000.00 robbery who now want's his cut of the money. And he knows who has it Detectives Bruner & Farnham. And is also more then willing to expose their crime to their boss in the LAPD Capt. Michaels, Dean Jagger, if he doesn't get it! Unexpected final that will blow you away in how the two got caught in the act of returning the $80,000.00 that they stole to the man who they planned to double-cross who was blackmailing them. Like the saying goes "Crime doesn't Pay" it's only those who commit it that do.

This film is interesting because it stars the real life husband and wife duo of Howard Duff and Ida Lupino (who also co-wrote the film). However, they do not play husband and wife in the film, as Duff's movie wife was played by Dorothy Malone. Even more interesting is that Duff's child in the film is actually played by his own daughter, Bridget. It was directed by Don Siegel--a guy known for making strong lower-budget thrillers during this era.Duff and Steve Cochran are both detectives, partners and friends. However, all this is tested when they are investigating a case and find a suitcase full of money. It's a lot of money and Cochran takes much of it for himself--figuring no one would miss it. Duff is appalled...but says nothing. It seems that he just hopes that his friend will see the light and do the right thing. However, the longer he waits the more trouble he, too, will be in for not reporting this. See how all this is resolved in this very nice detective film.My favorite aspect of the film was Cochran's character. Duff kept waiting for him to do the right thing...but Cochran had no mental compass and simply had no problem doing the selfish thing! None of this heart 'o gold or seeing the light at the end for this guy--a major plus for the film. Good acting, a good script and nice action make this one a nice example of film noir.By the way, the dead guy in elevator looked a lot like Nikita Khrushchev the way they had him made up! It was, in fact, Chester Conklin--an old movie veteran who gained some fame as one of Mack Sennett's 'Keystone Kops'.

"Private Hell 36" is a no-frills crime thriller written by Ida Lupino and producer Collier Young which was made by their independent company "The Filmmakers". The story about temptation and police corruption is well paced and provides evidence of Don Siegel's considerable directorial skills at an early stage in his career. A particularly impressive example of this is the sequence early on in the movie in which an off duty cop interrupts a drugstore robbery and gets involved in a shoot out. The depiction of what follows is stylish and tense and provides the story with an extremely gripping introduction.When the LAPD links a $50.00 bill recovered in the attempted drugstore burglary to a major robbery carried out in New York a year earlier, further enquiries lead to a singer at a local night club. Police detectives Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Jack Farnham (Howard Duff) interview the singer, Lilli Marlowe (Ida Lupino) but she's unable to provide them with a precise description of the customer who gave her the money as a tip. Soon, more of the marked bills come to light at the Hollywood Park Racetrack and this leads Captain Michaels (Dean Jagger) to assign Bruner and Farnham to accompany Lilli to the track to see if she can identify the wanted man. A number of days pass without the man being seen and during this time, Cal and Lilli become close. She's very materialistic and despite her attraction to Cal isn't convinced that a long term future with a police detective would enable her to achieve her financial aspirations.One day Lilli sees the man they're searching for leaving the track by car and Cal and Jack follow him. After a high speed chase, the car they'd been following leaves the road and crashes and the driver is killed. The two detectives recover a metal box full of money from the vehicle and Cal, without hesitation, starts to put bundles of bills into his pockets. Jack is very nervous about being a party to what has happened but Cal subsequently takes him to a trailer park where the money is hidden (in trailer number 36) and Jack agrees to go along with the scheme, although he remains very anxious and is consumed with guilt.Captain Michaels tells the two detectives that only $200,000 of the $300,000 stolen in New York had actually been recovered from the crashed car and deduces that the dead man must've had a partner. Shortly after this, a man claiming to be the partner telephones Cal to demand his money back. Jack doesn't want to proceed with paying the partner and suggests they hand the money in to the police and confess what they've done. Cal pays lip service to agreeing and they both go to get the money from trailer 36, where some unexpected developments bring the story to its all action climax."Private Hell 36" is one of those movies that certainly punches above its weight. Despite an obviously low budget and a very straight forward, pulp fiction type story, "The Filmmakers" produced an end product which turned out to be far greater than the sum of its parts. This is down to the director's skills and also some fine performances from a talented cast. Steve Cochran and Howard Duff are particularly good as the two men who both recognise the dangers of their jobs and who, for different reasons, are desperate to be better rewarded. When they discover the metal box full of money, both men are strongly tempted to steal its contents but their reactions are ultimately quite different to each other. Cochran is confident and focused as his character readily seizes the opportunity to realise his ambitions and seems totally unconcerned by any thoughts about guilt, duty or the legality of what he's doing. Duff on the other hand looks convincingly anxious and full of guilt. Dean Jagger also provides a well measured interpretation of his character's rather benign and avuncular manner which doesn't make it obvious just how well he's attuned to everything that's going on.