Nine Lives Are Not Enough ** (1941, Ronald Reagan, Howard da Silva, James Gleason, Edward Brophy, Joan Perry) – Classic Movie Review 12,535

Director A Edward Sutherland’s 1941 Warner Bros comedy drama film Nine Lives Are Not Enough stars Ronald Reagan, Joan Perry, James Gleason, Howard da Silva, Faye Emerson and Edward Brophy.

Reagan plays a reporter, Matt Sawyer, always in trouble with his editor, City Editor J B Murray (da Silva), who attempts to unravel possibly murderous goings-on in a tatty boarding house, where a millionaire is found dead, though the court says that the death is suicide. He teams up with the man’s daughter, Jane Abbott (Perry) to find out the truth.

Nine Lives Are Not Enough is a respectable, pleasantly diverting, if light-weight, short Warner Bros second feature with a light-hearted tone and plot that is a fairly reasonable reworking of ideas in many films that audiences will have probably seen before. The irritating thing is that the main murder plot is undermined by hopelessly unfunny farcical and slapstick comedic elements.

But the even more irritating thing is that Reagan is playing a newspaper reporter. That is entirely farcical and preposterous! Reagan shows again that he was not a good comedic actor, lacking a lightness of touch, or actually any funny bones.

Written by Fred Niblo Jr, based on the 1941 mystery crime thriller novel by Jerome Odlum, the film was released by Warner Bros on September 20, 1941.

American writer Jerome Odlum (August 6, 1905 – March 2, 1954) served a term in prison for forgery, and later became a reporter and then managing editor of The Minneapolis News. Odlum became a screenwriter after he published the novel Each Dawn I Die in 1938 and it was adapted to the James Cagney film Each Dawn I Die in 1939. He provided the ‘idea’ for Warner Bros’ very similar film I Was Framed (1942).

Da Silva became one of hundreds in the entertainment industry blacklisted during the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into supposed Communist influence in the industry. After da Silva’s March 1951 testimony repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, his star role in the completed film Slaughter Trail was re-shot with Brian Donlevy.

Reagan led a new conservative movement, altering the US political dynamic. Conservatism became the dominant ideology for Republicans, displacing the party’s faction of liberals and moderates. On 10 April 1947, the FBI interviewed Reagan who provided them with the names of actors he believed to be Communist sympathisers. During a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, Reagan testified that some guild members were associated with the Communist Party. The 1980s Reagan administration largely ignored the AIDS crisis.

The cast are Ronald Reagan as Matt Sawyer, Joan Perry as Jane Abbott, James Gleason as Sgt Sam Daniels, Howard da Silva as City Editor J B Murray, Faye Emerson as Rose Chadwick, Edward Brophy as Officer Slattery, Peter Whitney as Roy, Charles Drake as ‘Snappy’ Lucas, Vera Lewis as Mrs. Slocum, Ben Welden as Moxie Karper, Howard C. Hickman as Colonel Andrews, Cliff Clark as Lieutenant Buckley, Tom Stevenson as Charles, Paul Phillips as Hot-Foot, Joseph Crehan as Yates, John Maxwell as Gillis, Glen Cavender, Eddy Chandler, Billy Dawson, Creighton Hale, Thurston Hall, John Hamilton, Stuart Holmes, Olaf Hytten, Joan Leslie, Al Lloyd, Theodore Lorch, Jack Mower, Jimmy O’Gatty, Sam Rice, Frank Mayo, Jack Richardson, John Ridgely, Walter Soderling, Leo White, and Jack Wise.

Nine Lives Are Not Enough is directed by A Edward Sutherland, runs 63 minutes, is made by First National, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Fred Niblo Jr, based on the 1941 novel by Jerome Odlum, is shot in black and white by Ted D McCord, is produced by Bryan Foy, is scored by William Lava, and is designed by Stanley Fleischer.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,535

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