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We are now in the Department of Utter Confusion, Dead-End Division
Van Heflin's first starring role and the feature debut of director Fred Zinnemann, MGM's Kid Glove Killer (1942) is not a lost classic of crime cinema, but it is a fun little procedural of a B-picture with some sharp dialogue and more forensic detail than I've seen in this era until John Sturges' Mystery Street (1950); its technical tickyboxes include ballistic fingerprinting, fiber analysis, spectrography, endlessly labeled slides, and the first-rate chemistry in-joke of mocking up a reaction with dry ice so that the flask looks like it's got something really fancy going on inside it. The film's heroes are a pair of underpaid scientists working for the crime lab of the Chicago-ish city of Chatsburg, which has lately suffered the shocking double loss of both its crusading DA and its sincerely incorruptible mayor, neither of natural causes unless ropes, ponds, and car bombs can be filed under acts of God; despite the necessarily painstaking nature of their work, Heflin's Gordon McKay and Marsha Hunt's Jane Mitchell find themselves expected to deliver miracles on command, conjuring a killer's name out of the stray threads and burnt matches and dog hairs that might as well be so many oracle bones as far as the impatient police, press, and public are concerned. No one outright suggests railroading the small business owner seen loitering around the mayor's house the night before the explosion—furious that the new DA's vaunted crackdown on crime didn't extend to the hoods shaking him and his wife down for protection—but there's a lot of official pressure to connect the dots to Eddie Quillan's hot-headed innocent. In the meantime a sort of love triangle is progressing between the two scientists and one ambitious lawyer, although the viewer can't invest too much in the romantic suspense since our privileged information includes the identity of the murderer. I confess I'm not sure where the kid gloves came into it.
It is rare for me not to like Heflin in a film, even when he's playing kind of a dick, and he makes an engaging proto-nerd here, a slouchy, grouchy smart-ass in a lab coat who has managed to figure out that he's in love with his educated, attractive coworker but not yet that flirting by insult only works for Oscar Levant. (His eventual apology is legitimately adorable.) Hunt as Mitchell is nicely, unequivocally competent and has little time for her colleague's negging even as it's clear from space that she'd reciprocate his interest if he were only a little less schoolyard about it, but her character feels like a conservative compromise when she insists repeatedly—despite sufficient aptitude for chemistry that she has a master's degree in it—that forensics is "no career for a woman." I do appreciate that heteronormativity is defused at least once by McKay conceding wryly that it's "not much of a career for a man, either. No prestige, no glamour, no money. People holler at you when there are no miracles." I suppose it is also sociologically interesting that the script's anxiety about science and gender runs both ways—unless it's to prove that spending nine-tenths of your life behind a microscope doesn't make you less of a man, I have no idea why McKay is apparently incapable of confronting a suspect without a fight scene. He is otherwise not very macho, which I am fine with. He can't throw a dart straight to save his life. If the human heart were located in the right elbow, though, that firing-range target would have totally had it.
The extremely spoilery original trailer suggests that Kid Glove Killer was intended as the start of a series and I'm almost surprised it didn't happen—if Thin Man stand-ins Joel and Garda Sloane could get a trilogy, I don't see why we couldn't have enjoyed more McKay and Mitchell. As it is, the one film is all we've got. It runs 72 minutes and they are worth it all for the scene in which Heflin performs a precise, self-annotated mime of catching, cleaning, preparing, and then jettisoning a trout, all with the serious concentration of the slightly sloshed. He handles plain air so confidently, you can see the glint of the butter knife he's cleaning on the tablecloth and want to hand him one of those modern-day rubber grips for the ketchup bottle with the sticky cap. I have no idea if it was part of the original script or improvised on set or what on earth, but now I want to know where I can find more Van Heflin doing mime. He and Zinnemann would later reteam to superb and less comic effect in Act of Violence (1948). I appear to have seen Hunt as the Broadway-bent eldest of Frank Borzage's Seven Sweethearts (1942), but I don't hold it against her. Ava Gardner cameos as a cute married carhop. I hope to God mineral oil salad dressing is as much a thing of the past as the constant chain-smoking in chemically sensitive laboratory conditions. [edit: WHAT THE HELL IT'S NOT.] This investigation brought to you by my scientific backers at Patreon.
It is rare for me not to like Heflin in a film, even when he's playing kind of a dick, and he makes an engaging proto-nerd here, a slouchy, grouchy smart-ass in a lab coat who has managed to figure out that he's in love with his educated, attractive coworker but not yet that flirting by insult only works for Oscar Levant. (His eventual apology is legitimately adorable.) Hunt as Mitchell is nicely, unequivocally competent and has little time for her colleague's negging even as it's clear from space that she'd reciprocate his interest if he were only a little less schoolyard about it, but her character feels like a conservative compromise when she insists repeatedly—despite sufficient aptitude for chemistry that she has a master's degree in it—that forensics is "no career for a woman." I do appreciate that heteronormativity is defused at least once by McKay conceding wryly that it's "not much of a career for a man, either. No prestige, no glamour, no money. People holler at you when there are no miracles." I suppose it is also sociologically interesting that the script's anxiety about science and gender runs both ways—unless it's to prove that spending nine-tenths of your life behind a microscope doesn't make you less of a man, I have no idea why McKay is apparently incapable of confronting a suspect without a fight scene. He is otherwise not very macho, which I am fine with. He can't throw a dart straight to save his life. If the human heart were located in the right elbow, though, that firing-range target would have totally had it.
The extremely spoilery original trailer suggests that Kid Glove Killer was intended as the start of a series and I'm almost surprised it didn't happen—if Thin Man stand-ins Joel and Garda Sloane could get a trilogy, I don't see why we couldn't have enjoyed more McKay and Mitchell. As it is, the one film is all we've got. It runs 72 minutes and they are worth it all for the scene in which Heflin performs a precise, self-annotated mime of catching, cleaning, preparing, and then jettisoning a trout, all with the serious concentration of the slightly sloshed. He handles plain air so confidently, you can see the glint of the butter knife he's cleaning on the tablecloth and want to hand him one of those modern-day rubber grips for the ketchup bottle with the sticky cap. I have no idea if it was part of the original script or improvised on set or what on earth, but now I want to know where I can find more Van Heflin doing mime. He and Zinnemann would later reteam to superb and less comic effect in Act of Violence (1948). I appear to have seen Hunt as the Broadway-bent eldest of Frank Borzage's Seven Sweethearts (1942), but I don't hold it against her. Ava Gardner cameos as a cute married carhop. I hope to God mineral oil salad dressing is as much a thing of the past as the constant chain-smoking in chemically sensitive laboratory conditions. [edit: WHAT THE HELL IT'S NOT.] This investigation brought to you by my scientific backers at Patreon.
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It felt like a series setup from the moment Van Heflin cadges a smoke from Marsha Hunt in the squad car. You could tell they spent a lot of time getting their chemistry right and would have done wonderfully in a few more Chatsburg mysteries.
(And as far as world building goes, Chatsburg? Chatsburg?! Really? Why sure, sure, it's only an hour and a half from Talkietown. Sister city to Conversationville.)
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Chatsburg. Your pets love it--much more than they love Chienville.
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Maybe somewhere in Alsace-Lorraine.
Your pets love it--much more than they love Chienville.
I can get behind this interpretation!
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Yes! It's cute and collaborative and follows naturally from watching him dash imaginary salt over his shoulder. And it's the one time we see all three characters in the triangle just relaxing with one another, without suspicion or insecurity or impatience. There are all sorts of reasons the trip to Pine Rapids would never have worked out, but you're still kind of sorry.
You could tell they spent a lot of time getting their chemistry right and would have done wonderfully in a few more Chatsburg mysteries.
Agreed. Their chemistry is the whole reason that flirt-like-it's-second-grade romance plot works: you believe through everything that they actually like each other. Plus I can't think of any other mystery series featuring a team of married forensic technicians and I would watch the hell out of that even today.
Why sure, sure, it's only an hour and a half from Talkietown. Sister city to Conversationville.
I love you.
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After a warm, heaping bowlful of Looseners Castor Oil Flakes, the all-weather breakfast.
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YOU UNDERSTAND.
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I seriously don't think you can play drinking games with films from the '30's and '40's unless they're cued to something other than the characters' alcohol consumption. You'd die.
I can't say they're the poorer for it, but it'd be a nifty Watsonian out for dumb character decisions, not that Nick and Nora necessarily make many of them.
I would be really entertained by a hard-drinking mystery where periodically the eight martinis caught up with the protagonists. I've only seen that sort of thing used darkly in noir.
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Yikes.
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the first-rate chemistry in-joke of mocking up a reaction with dry ice so that the flask looks like it's got something really fancy going on inside it. --Is this done in-story as a joke?
If the human heart were located in the right elbow, though, that firing-range target would have totally had it. --Why don't villains put their hearts where the protagonists' missiles hit??
Sounds fun!
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I tried to find the clip online, but no luck! It is one of the best pieces of mime I have randomly come across in a movie. I had no idea that was one of Heflin's skills. He's Edward Petherbridge good.
--Is this done in-story as a joke?
It's done as a distraction—McKay needs something that looks impressive, so he just dumps some dry ice in a flask and the person he's trying to mislead nods sagely and assumes this is just what forensics looks like. It's great.
--Why don't villains put their hearts where the protagonists' missiles hit??
I did enjoy that the climax (even if it involves another fight scene) does not involve McKay suddenly learning to throw darts with accuracy so much as a villain's elbow being in the wrong place at the right time.
Sounds fun!
It was! I'm glad both Heflin and Zinnemann went on to better things—and I was sorry to read that Hunt was blacklisted for protesting HUAC and not naming names; it makes me want to find and watch more of her movies, just to show McCarthyism it didn't win—but definitely a worthwhile find on its own terms.
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I'm not going to blame you! Everything about this concept is damned!
I'm guessing it was one of the horrors of the Depression/WWII rationing—cheaper than dressing made with eggs and real fats or oils1—but that's no excuse for a recipe still existing on the internet like a reasonable thing for humans to eat. Carrot cake, just don't put walnuts in it. All those desserts that are basically "bake fruit until it caramelizes and hope for the best," I'm actually very fond of them. Chicory successfully tastes too much like coffee for me to drink it, but I'm glad it works for people who want a coffee substitute. Petroleum distillates? AVERT.
1. McKay jokes about it being slimming, which feels like deniable bathroom humor.