I had high expectations for Dangerous To Know (released 11 March 1938). With a screenplay co-written by Horace McCoy, based on an Edgar Wallace play, and directed by the usually reliable Robert Florey, I anticipated a real treat. Unfortunately, the writers have obviously built up the central role, here played by hammily over-accented Akim Tamiroff. Worse still, Florey has chosen to set this "B" movie up as a TV drama, persistently using a staggering number of close-ups to little effect. A close-up is even squandered on Hedda Hopper, would you believe? This procedure would be more tolerable if Ted Sparkuhl's photography shone with velvety noir lighting. Alas, Sparkuhl supplies little atmosphere and doesn't flatter the players at all. Villainous Akim Tamiroff doesn't look like a ruthless gangster so much as a comically dwarfish little man with an expensive but highly incompetent tailor, while the normally super-exotic Miss Wong appears as neither a sinuous nor beautiful siren, but is presented rather as if she were portraying a bland, moderately articulate, but disinterested dress-shop manageress in a second-class neighborhood. The only player to emerge with any real credit from this premature TV drama is Tamiroff's chief henchman, Anthony Quinn (whose part is fortunately much larger than his bottom-of-the-bill credit might indicate). Quinn at least bristles with a reasonable amount of charisma, but still manages the difficult feat of portraying a savvy lieutenant whom the script requires to be both cunningly useful yet on the dumb side of bright.
Review of Dangerous to Know
