Ride a Crooked Mile [Escape from Yesterday] *** (1938, Akim Tamiroff, Leif Erickson, Frances Farmer, Lynne Overman) – Classic Movie Review 11,711

‘BRUTE FORCE AGAINST TRUE LOVE! Which wins? You’ll find the amazing answer in this new kind of picture thriller!’

Director Alfred E Green’s interestingly odd and quite involving1938 American crime drama film Ride a Crooked Mile [Escape from Yesterday] stars Akim Tamiroff, Leif Erickson and Frances Farmer, along with Lynne Overman, John Miljan and J M Kerrigan.

When his criminal father Mike Balin (Akim Tamiroff) is caught and incarcerated in the Leavenworth high-security jail, his long-lost son Montgomery ‘Johnny’ Simpkins (Leif Erickson), now a state trooper, makes the difficult decision to help him. The moral dilemma of aiding a known villain is dealt with efficiently by original story and screenplay writers Ferdinand Reyher and Jack Moffitt in this interestingly dark Paramount Pictures melodrama, with three strong, flavourful star performances.

Farmer, whose life became the stuff of Hollywood legend and was the subject of the 1982 film Frances starring Jessica Lange, appears here as the romantic interest, Russian emigrée saloon singer and café hostess Trina, in one of her few major roles, with father and son both interested in her. This produces some frisson, and Farmer and Erickson even get to sing a duet in Russian together in the café sequence. In real life, Farmer and Erickson were married at the time, from 1936 till their divorce in 1942.

The film was released on December 9, 1938, by Paramount Pictures.

The cast are Akim Tamiroff as Mike Balan, Leif Erickson as ‘Johnny’ Simpkins, Frances Farmer as Trina, Lynne Overman as Oklahoma, John Miljan as Lt. Col. Stuart, J M Kerrigan as Sgt. Flynn, Vladimir Sokoloff as Glinka, Genia Nikolaieva as Marie Simpkins, Wade Crosby as George Rotz, Robert Gleckler as Warden, Nestor Paiva as Leroyd, Archie Twitchell as Byrd, Steve Pendleton as Bilks, and Fred Kohler Jr. as Cpl. Bresline.

Frances Farmer (September 19, 1913 – August 1, 1970) appeared in more than a dozen features, though she gained notoriety for her involuntary commitment to psychiatric hospitals and mental health struggles.

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,711

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