HitEleven
03-29-2010, 12:29 AM
I had the fortune of stumbling upon the 1942 film The Pay Off starting Lee Tracy at the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/details/thepayoff).
The description on the site is confused...this is actually the 1942 film of this name (there was another in '35, apparently).
Anyway, I found the film to be objectively mediocre, but a ton of fun as a vintage B-level noir. Tracy is great as a wisecracking yet noble reporter trying to get to the bottom of a series of strange events. The script takes the conspiracies awash in the corrupt (and unnamed) city that Tracy's character so dearly loves to the absurd. The more I think about the plot, the less sense it makes to me.
Anyway, it seems as if Tracy did some other noir work, and I was wondering if anyone else had seen it, or had seen this film.
The description on the site is confused...this is actually the 1942 film of this name (there was another in '35, apparently).
Anyway, I found the film to be objectively mediocre, but a ton of fun as a vintage B-level noir. Tracy is great as a wisecracking yet noble reporter trying to get to the bottom of a series of strange events. The script takes the conspiracies awash in the corrupt (and unnamed) city that Tracy's character so dearly loves to the absurd. The more I think about the plot, the less sense it makes to me.
Anyway, it seems as if Tracy did some other noir work, and I was wondering if anyone else had seen it, or had seen this film.