Man Bait (1952)

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

Man Bait (aka The Last Page)(Terence Fisher, 1952) Even British noirs are a bit more refined than those in the States, as lurid as they try to make them in their marketing strategies. Take Man Bait, which—as one might suspect—is not the first or last time that title has been used in the history of cinema. It holds the distinction of being the first film of the Hammer Studio to be directed by the director who would become most associated with it, and who would direct the best films of the studios' output, Terence Fisher.

Now, we've all got to start somewhere, and Fisher does a fairly decent job of keeping the movie cruising along and maintaining a slightly tawdry air. The script is by the fellow who wrote the stage play "Dial 'M' for Murder" and one can see little similarities in style: wronged people, compromised positions, the doting yet stalwart "third wheel", conflicting truths and the telling little detail that gives all away despite having no significance whatsoever. It's just the genders are reversed, and for that reason, the stakes seem a lot less crucial.

Pity poor store manager John Harman (George Brent) of Pearson's Rare Books on Oxford Street. He works relentlessly, with little time off, and he has an invalid wife with a heart condition. The man is a saint. Why, the worst thing the man does in a day is to reprimand blond, dishy clerk Ruby Bruce (Diana Dors) for clocking in late. She says it won't happen again, but it will, and there will be consequences. 

Those consequences involve her lack of judgment and an incident that occurs later in the shop when she spots a sharp, Jeff Hart (Peter Reynolds) trying to shop-lift a rare and expensive book. Now, Hart is a grifter and a cad at selling a line. He makes Ruby promise not to report the incident...and promises to meet him at a club later, after work. The girl has issues. But, she still is available for working after-hours with the manager.

Harman and Ruby work late, with her in her off-the-shoulder party frock. He reminds her not to be late in the morning, and the two seem to have put the day's earlier animosity behind them. How the kiss happens, neither one of them can remember, but it results in a rip in her blouse. Harman becomes apologetic, and promises to give her the funds for a new one, and Ruby goes off on her date.

Hart awaits her at the club, ready to be on the make, and sets the mood by letting her know that she's late, and the story comes out. And he puts it in Ruby's head that she can get much more out of her boss than just the cost of a blouse, if she plays her cards right. And he'll tell her just how to play it.

Harman is planning a trip with his wife, their first vacation in years, and assistant Stella Tracy (Marguerite Chapman) is only too happy for him. She has turned down better paying jobs in the past, but feels obligated to Harman as, even though he is completely unaware of it, she admires him and secretly loves him. She doesn't know what happened between him and Ruby, but she notices that the girl is spending more and more time in the office.

That's because she's blackmailing Harman, and, with Hart's coaching, she is demanding more and more from Harman, even going so far as to threaten to write a letter to his wife, telling her about the incident. He can do nothing but comply, but he is outraged by it, and he can't fire the girl or everything will come out. He's trapped.

Well, it wouldn't get any good unless things got extremely out-of-hand, and they do, it short order, with Harman ultimately becoming a fugitive from justice, and a rather ingenious way to be shown for book-sellers to hide a body. One does not find this very enjoyable, though, as the supposed innocent party is not all that innocent, even if he is not ultimately guilty of what transpires.

Star George Brent was a serious actor—he had done eight films with Bette Davis and you have to be on your "A" game with her. But, here, he gets a "D" or "D-". Maybe he didn't like the material, maybe he was playing beneath his gifts, but those gifts are on short display, as he plays his put-upon exec like he'd just read his lines and didn't think about what they meant. It's a flat emotionless performance that has all the sincerity of reading a phone-book. And when he does have to emote, he goes "0" to "60" in half-a-tick, and then forgets that he just yelled. He makes Man Bait no fun at all.

The rest of the cast isn't much better—Reynolds is too fey to be slick and Chapman goes for the Joan Crawford section of the theater. Surprisingly, the best thing about Man Bait is the bait itself. Diana Dors is still very early in her career at this point, but, at least there's subtlety in what she does, and any conflicting emotions about her character's actions just keeps you guessing. She's terrific in this and you miss her when she goes away 3/4 of the way through the film. Dors was always touted as being "Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe." But, that hardly seems fair. The camera certainly loved Monroe more, but Dors was consistently a better actress.