Also known as: Blood Money (working title)
Release Date: July 1st, 1950
Directed by: Jospeh M. Newman
Written by: Richard English, Francis Swann
Music by: Sol Kaplan
Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger
Frank Seltzer Productions, Essaness Pictures, 102 Minutes
Review:
“Time wounds all heels.” – Mal Granger
711 Ocean Drive was showcased on TCM’s Noir Alley a few years ago but it happened to air on a weekend that I was traveling, so I missed it. It’s since been in my Prime Video queue for a really long time but I finally got around to checking it out.
The film stars Edmond O’Brien, who is always dynamite in these sort of pictures. He’s no different here, as he commands the screen every time he walks into frame.
However, Otto Kruger also has an incredibly powerful presence here but when didn’t he?
Both of these guys are the things that make this picture work as well as it does and frankly, they kept me captivated and at full attention even if I thought that the script was kind of weak.
I like the premise about a telephone repair man finding a way to intercept horse racing results. However, even for the time, the premise and how it’s done in the film seems pretty far-fetched. If horse racing results are delayed from the east coast to the west coast, couldn’t mobsters just get other mobsters on the phone from across the country and get them to read them off the results as they happen, live? Landline telephones pretty much worked like they do now. So while I liked the idea behind the premise, it doesn’t feel wholly fleshed out in any sort of logical way. And if it was this way back then, I need to build a time machine to show these halfwits how it’s done.
Anyway, I’m being nitpicky.
That setup is there just to get the story moving, right?
Facetiousness aside, looking past that issue, I do mostly like the movie once it gets rolling. It’s well acted, as I’ve stated but it has a hardness to it. Hell, we see a greedy, double crossing shitbird get murdered by a car crushing him into a pier railing! That’s some hardcore stuff for 1950!
In the end, this movie is more good than bad, I guess. It just ultimately left me underwhelmed and baffled.
Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: other noir films like The Miami Story, Johnny Allegro, The Killer That Stalked New York and Escape In the Fog.
Talking Pulp 