Out In The Film Noir Night –Jeff (Oops, Lloyd) Bridges Hideout

DVD Review

Hideout, starring Lloyd Bridges, 1949

Hey, what if you were an old Chi town reprobate career criminal (okay, I will stop being nice right off with this crowd, this dangerous deadly crowd, an old reprobate gangster, reprobate hoodlum) who just easy pickings wormed his way into the Hope diamond, or something like that, in any case a big score, and you had to skip town to lay low for a while, set up new dodge complete with your bad company confederates, and work on that simple little problem of cutting up that big old gem and turning it into cash, into your retirement nest egg.

And what if you decided to take that lam turn in a sleepy old town, a college town, where an old geezer, an old geezer with dough (not the diamond dough but make a front dough), would not stick out and where he might be able to bring a certain tone to that scene. And what if that sleepy college town was in Iowa, Podunk Iowa, Hilltop (although I would have preferred Ames if I was lamming it but to each his own)with those endless wheat, or whatever grain, fields and those hearty stand-up prairie dwellers as company who will believe you are who you say you are until proven otherwise.

And what if part of your entourage (okay, I slipped, gang) was a dishy dame who caught the eye of the local city attorney who moreover had ambitions to be mayor of that fair burg. And what if that dishy dame was able to lead that city attorney, Jeff, oops again, Lloyd Bridges, by the nose for a while until he got wise to the scene after that old ne’er- do-well hoodlum got “religion,” and decided he is going to take the whole proceedings for himself and started bumping off his confederates starting, starting wrongly if you ask me, with the guy who cut the diamonds up.

And what if, in cinema’s infinite wisdom, that frail who had that city attorney by the nose got “religion” herself and went rooty-toot-toot on that old reprobate’s ill-winded plans when that old reprobate decided to call her number. Well, why then you would have this film and a very early look at the Lloyd Bridges (there I got it) and progeny Hollywood dynasty…