Johnny Stool Pigeon *** (1949, Howard Duff, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Gar Moore, Tony Curtis, John McIntire, Barry Kelley, Leif Erickson) – Classic Movie Review 11,407

Director William Castle’s 1949 American black and white film noir crime thriller Johnny Stool Pigeon stars Howard Duff, Shelley Winters and Dan Duryea, along with Gar Moore, Tony Curtis, John McIntire, Barry Kelley and Leif Erickson.

US federal narcotics agent George Morton (Duff) gets Alcatraz prisoner Johnny Evans, the stool pigeon (Duryea) sprung from jail to help him lead police to the former members of his heroin drug smuggling gang in exchange for early parole. Morton and Evans go from San Francisco to Vancouver and then on to a Tucson dude ranch run by mob bosses.

The reliable star pair, plus Winters as a moll called Terry Stewart and young Anthony Curtis as a hood called Joey Hyatt, help the busy, fast-moving, entertaining, if familiar yarn along nicely.

Curtis recalled: ‘It was a dope-smuggling thing. I was a deaf-mute killer. All I really remember is a shot where I had to lie in a coffin. They were bringing drugs across the border in a coffin, and, when they opened it up, they found me in.’

Also in the cast are Wally Maher, Charles Drake, Gregg Barton, Duke York, Paul Shade, Hugh Reilly, Kenneth Patterson, Robert A O’Neil, Edwin Max, Grace Lenard, Robert Kimball, Colin Kenny, Nacho Galindo, Robert Foulk, Al Ferguson, Harry A Evans, Leslie Denison, and Patricia Alpin.

It is written by Robert L Richards, based on a story by Henry Jordan.

Originally called Contraband and Partners in Crime, it is Castle’s first movie at Universal Pictures, but he dismissed it as ‘a pedestrian thriller whose only claim to fame was featuring Tony Curtis and Shelley Winters’.

It runs 75 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,407

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