Larceny (1948)

Larceny is a 1948 Universal crime picture for which some film noir credentials have been claimed.

Rick Maxon (John Payne) and Silky Randall (Dan Duryea) are a couple of confidence tricksters. High-class confidence tricksters. They’re just pulled off a major yacht club swindle in Florida. There never was a yacht club and there was never going to be one but they’ve collected a quarter of a million (a huge fortune in 1948) in membership fees.

Now it’s time to move to pastures new. Mission City in California sounds ideal. A quiet respectable community full of retired millionaires. This time they’re pitching a phoney war memorial.

The idea is to get the city manager in their pocket, and they plan to do that by getting his daughter Deb Clark (Joan Caulfield) mixed up in something crooked. Then they can blackmail him.

It’s a sweet plan but even before it’s put into operation there are signs of trouble on the horizon. The trouble is going to come from Tory (Shelley Winters). Tory is Silky’s girl but she and Rick have been playing around. And Silky doesn’t like other guys playing around with his girl.

Rick arrives in Mission City and initially things go even better than he’d dared hope. Rick is posing as an old army buddy of Deb’s husband. Her husband Jim was killed during the war and in Mission City he’s revered as a great war hero. The idea is to persuade Deb that what Jim would have wanted was for her to establish a boys’ club. Jim had been actively involved with the local Youth Athletic Association. Rick persuades Deb that a boys’ club on the grand scale, with tennis courts and a swimming pool, will prevent boys from getting involved in crime and immorality. It will be not just a war memorial but a memorial to her late husband.

Deb is a real bleeding heart and she swallows Rick’s idea hook, line and sinker. She starts making plans for a huge fund-raising drive.

But Rick has a problem. Silky had shipped Tory off to Havana to keep her out of trouble but she didn’t go to Havana. Now she’s in Mission City. She wants to continue the affair with Rick. Rick begs her to keep a low profile but Tory is not the kind of gal who knows how to do that.

And Silky doesn’t trust Rick so he’s sent a couple of his goons to keep an eye on him. Sooner or later Rick or Tory will make a false move and then things will get real interesting real fast.

The script throws Rick quite a few nasty curve balls as the story progresses.

Rick is a very smooth operator. It’s a joy to watch him in action. It’s a terrific performance by Payne. Rick is as crooked as they come but he could charm the birds out of the trees. We can’t help thinking he’s despicable but we also can’t help worrying about what’s going to happen to him.

Dan Duryea is perfect as Silky. Silky is a dangerous guy. He can be as smooth as his name suggests but where Tory is concerned he’s a ticking time bomb.

Shelley Winters does the femme fatale routine very effectively indeed. This is one of her very best performances.

The weak link is Joan Caulfield as the Good Girl. Deb is too good to be true. She’s as wholesome as freshly baked bread. And she’s so naïve that we find it difficult not to despise her a bit. She’s too naïve to be sympathetic, and too virtuous to be believable or interesting. Right from the start our sympathies are going to be with the Bad Girl. Joan Caulfield doesn’t quite manage to make us care about Deb.

There’s plenty of full-blown noirness in this tale.

Kino Lorber have presented this movie is a lovely transfer with an audio commentary.

Larceny is not one of the truly great film noir classics but it’s still a fine movie that deserves to get more attention. Highly recommended.