Tonight's Movie: My True Story (1951) at the Noir City Film Festival

The second "new-to-me" film at this year's Noir City Hollywood Festival was MY TRUE STORY (1951).

While I wasn't taken with the other film I hadn't seen before, DETOUR (1945), MY TRUE STORY proved to be my kind of 67-minute "B" movie.

Notably -- and unexpectedly -- this Columbia Pictures film was directed by actor Mickey Rooney.

MY TRUE STORY was written by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes from a magazine story by Margit Mantical.

The always-interesting Helen Walker plays Ann Martin, who's paroled from prison and will ostensibly be starting a new life working in a candy store owned by an old friend of her mother's.

Ann has never heard of the man and is disappointed when she arrives at her new job only to discover she's been set up by hoodlums from her past to help them rob an elderly lady, Mme. Rousseau (Elisabeth Risdon). The bad guys are after a very unusual item, the secret ingredient for an expensive perfume.

Ann seemingly has no choice and goes along with the plot, while simultaneously she comes to love the kindly Mme. Rousseau, not to mention the genial town pharmacist (Willard Parker). What will she do? It all builds to an exciting and satisfying ending.

Walker, an actress with several noir credits in her limited filmography, does an excellent job with her character; she successfully straddles the line between someone who's genuinely reformed and anxious to live a new life with the "tough cookie" underneath the shiny new persona.

It's almost a shock how easily she adapts to dealing with a gang of violent crooks (including a young Aldo Ray, billed as Aldo DaRe), but it also makes sense as that's the way she's apparently lived much of her life. Simultaneously Walker's Ann conveys just how much she likes the new people in her life and genuinely doesn't want to hurt them; rather, she wants to be one of them.

The lovely and talented Walker's film career, as many know, was tragically short, largely resulting from the fallout of a 1946 car accident in which one of her passengers was killed. For more information on her life and career I recommend the chapter in Laura Wagner's excellent book HOLLYWOOD'S HARD-LUCK LADIES, which I reviewed here a couple years ago.

Walker also has a chapter in the just-published, newly updated version of Eddie Muller's DARK CITY DAMES, which I anticipate reviewing in the near future. Muller is spot-on describing Walker's performance in MY TRUE STORY as "compelling and nuanced."

MY TRUE STORY is certainly no classic, but it is quite entertaining, without a dull moment. It does pretty much what it was supposed to do, provide an hour's entertainment to fill out a theater bill when paired with a more prestigious movie.

The movie was filmed in black and white by Henry Freulich. The supporting cast includes Emory Parnell, Ivan Triesault, Wilton Graff, Ben Welden, Ann Tyrrell, Mary Newton, and actor-director Fred F. Sears.

The movie was screened at the festival in a beautiful 35mm print. I'm unaware of it being available in an authorized edition. I would certainly love to see it released on DVD or Blu-ray one day, perhaps paired with other "B" movies.

In the meantime, it can be found "out there on the internet" in prints of dubious quality.

Previous reviews of Helen Walker films: LUCKY JORDAN (1942) (also here), MURDER, HE SAYS (1945), CLUNY BROWN (1946), NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947), CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948), MY DEAR SECRETARY (1948), IMPACT (1948), THE BIG COMBO (1955).

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