User Reviews

As school winds down Anne Gladden (Heather Angel), a single teacher, decides to throw caution to the wind, gets herself all dolled up and heads out to the park. There she is accosted by a rude gentleman and in order to get away takes his car and drives off. She is unaware that the car is stolen and that there is a dead body in the back seat under an overcoat. The coat belongs to the boss of the gangsters and he's not happy that the evidence that could put him away for a long time is now out and about on a joy ride. Soon Anne is not only being chased by the cops and the gangsters but she's managed to pick up a nice man as well.

Suspenseful and silly this is a very enjoyable romp as the ever lovely Heather Angel tries very hard to get out of trouble and hang on to her man. Clearly a program picture this fun film manages to be considerably more especially when Constance Collier as Mrs Brenckenridge shows up and runs rough shod over everyone and everything. The woman is a pip.

I really liked this a great deal. This is one to keep an eye out for since its an hour of your time well spent.

Heather Angel was an exquisite actress who just seemed to slip through the cracks. By the time of "Half a Sinner" she was quite at home playing young heroines in light hearted mysteries. But her career had started out differently - she was the wistful and lovely girl Leslie Howard loved when he went back in time in "Berkeley Square" (1933). Over the next couple of years she played a mousey murderess in "Springtome for Henry" (1934) and a "sorrowing sister" in "The Informer" (1935) and then nothing more of note. She did become "the girl" in the Bulldog Drummond series and she was remembered (by me) as being quite feisty and intelligent - unusual for those types of roles!!

A prim school teacher has a secret desire to kick up her heels and leave her small town behind her. She does the next best thing - buys some silk stockings, a new hat and goes on a spree for the day. She gets some unwanted attention from a hood, "Handsome", and in her haste to escape, pushes him over and steals his car. Unbeknownst to her, there is a body in the back. She picks up a hitch-hiker, whose car has broken down, and a romance begins. Larry (John "Dusty" King) soon discovers the body but when a policeman starts chasing them, Anne is more concerned about the car being stolen - she doesn't know about the body!!

Heather Angel is great as Anne - she really gets into the spirit of the film. Another great player is Constance Collier as the dowager whose chauffeur takes the wrong car. She really livens up the last part of the movie. Henry Braddon plays "Handsome". The original story is by Dalton Trumbo.

Recommended.

Part film noir, part mystery, part thriller, part adventure and all comic romance, Half a Sinner is a 1940 charmer which is worth seeing.

Fred Jackson (screenwriter) and Al Christie (Director/Producer) teamed up in 1940 to bring a clever Dalton Trumbo story about a schoolteacher on the run to the screen. Both Jackson and Christie had been successfully making films since 1912 - including a great deal of B and B+ comedies such as 1937's Wells Fargo. Christie's experience shows in this well-directed and well-shot melange of genres, but unfortunately, Jackson appears to have had some difficulty working with Trumbo's material. At home in comedy, Jackson appears to have grafted most of the film's humorous elements onto characters Larry Cameron (John King) and Mrs Breckeridge (Constance Collier). Collier (Rope, The Perils of Penelope) is as superb as usual, but King is monotonous and awkward.

The plot, and Angel's charismatic performance and likable character are what make this film fun and worth a look.

Miss Gladden is a mid-twenties school teacher who fears becoming an old maid. Her solution to this is to go seek adventure in the local park. Doesn't sound promising, but her good looks attract the unwanted attention of a thug. Panicking, Miss Gladden (Angel) drives off in the thug's sedan - which, of course, had been previously stolen and has a body rolled up in a rug in the backseat. Miss Gladden is oblivious about all of this. Pursued doggedly by a motorcycle cop and some fairly inept gangsters, Miss Gladden eventually picks up a man (King) in the street who claims car trouble. Car trouble indeed. Noticing the body, Larry Cameron remarks that he is also in the game. What game? Well, that becomes the mystery which makes the movie worth watching so you won't get it out of me. Many viewers will figure it out about halfway through, and most will continue watching anyway just to see how the truth is eventually revealed.

Halfway a Sinner is a fun little romp. Suspension of disbelief is most definitely required - but it is facilitated by Heather Angel's superb performance, strong Trumbo storyline, and the good humor (not laugh-out- loud comedy) of the film.

That opening scene with the impish little boy writing punishment sentences on the blackboard is a charming hoot. The whole time he's muttering he will NOT be a good boy despite what he's writing. Monitoring him, teacher Anne (Angel) looks dowdy, I guess like a school teacher's supposed to look. She's been leading a respectable but repressed life, content it appears with the romantic margins. Then, one day, she drops her homely eye-lasses and goes shopping-- new dresses, stylish hats, flattering cosmetics-- and the make-over is complete. The conversion from gray moth to striking butterfly is also complete. But does she know what comes with the good looks that catch a man's eye. From now on it's a pack of trouble.

Lively little madcap from Universal, thanks to the two leads, Angel and King. Their chemistry works as they try to outwit gang of crooks whose corpse-bearing car they've unfortunately stolen. Now both the crooks and cops are after them. Maybe Anne was better off making little boys write on blackboards. But then this is Hollywood and we know how such antics end, especially for such an attractive twosome. All in all, it's a fun way to spend an hour, maybe not Hepburn and Grant, but with their own B-movie brand of charm.

Comedy noir would seem to be a contradiction in terms, but there are in fact movies in this vein that deserve serious attention, particularly The Ladykillers (1951). A much lesser entry, however, is Universal's 1940 release, Half a Sinner, in which a none-too-flatteringly photographed and costumed Heather Angel is pursued not only by comic cops and comic crooks but by smiling bland man, John King. The second last of over 400 films (many of them shorts) directed by comedy giant, Al Christie, this Trouble with Harry/Midnight Manhunt effort is somewhat repetitious but pleasant enough to talk during and even come late for. The players do what they can with their something-borrowed (cf. the overcoat device in Manhattan Melodrama), something-thin material, but only Clem Bevans, Tom Dugan, William B. Davidson and ever-reliable Constance Collier really shine.

A bored school teacher gets mixed up with the mob. She's decided to get out and see life, so she buys fancy clothes and drives off in a car the killers were using to dispose of a body. She meets a handsome stranger along the way, and they decide to return the car. After lunch, of course. All pretty unlikely, but if we just go along, it'll be an adventure. It's pretty silly. A 59 minute shortie B film from universal. From a story by dalton trumbo, whose life was turned upside down by the huac in the 1940s. Directed by al christie. This appears to be the last full length film he directed! The very last short christie directed was an odd little eleven minute bit with bob hope and friends called "bob's busy day". Apparently that was part of a larger film but has been sliced and diced into a tiny little short.

I'm sure this little comic piece was never meant to be taken seriously. It involves a snowball effect caused by a young schoolteacher out on a lark. She ends up with a car carrying a body and evidence against a crime boss. It's a series of escapes and puzzled cops, running back and forth, chasing the young woman and her wealthy handsome new acquaintance. The police are good hearted buffoons. The crooks are silly and pretty ineffectual. There are some narrow escapes, but no one ever seems to get all that flustered over the events. Reality takes a holiday in this one and that's OK. It's just so darned tongue in cheek and over the top that we never really feel much for the plight of the characters.

What a delightfully, harmless, innocent, fun movie discovery! Every once in a while, we give up trying to find some new movie we haven't seen that will grab us and hold us until the end. Usually, we come up terribly empty. And then...

You find THIS movie. It is no blockbuster. But why must every movie be one? I came upon this movie tonight on YouTube and was so pleasantly surprised at the whole thing.

The stars are hardly on the tips of our tongues except the wildly amusing and very posh CONSTANCE COLLIER. I don't know what it is about this actress, she delights me at every turn. There are others like the perennial old man, character actor, Clem Bevans! It's amazing how a man at only 63 could play the same part in movies for so many years...but there were such talented men, many years ago.

I recommend this movie if you are looking for a fun, Saturday afternoon movie to enjoy. You won't need to scratch your head at this comedy-murder-mystery, just delight in the entirely implausible plot and you will be handsomely rewarded with an hour of fun!

Spring fever hits school teacher Heather Angel hard. She buys a nice frock and silk stockings walks to the park. She's enjoying herself until gangster Henry Brandon tries to pick her up. She sees his gun, panics, knocks him down, and steals his car. She doesn't notice the stiff in the back, but Brandon's boss wants the body dumped and his overcoat returned, so off they go. The appearance of John 'Dusty' King in the car puts them off. Hardly surprising given that he confesses to Miss Angel that he's a hardened criminal.

It's directed by Al Christie, who'd been in the motion picture racket since 1909. He mostly produced and directed for his own company with brother Charles, particularly short comedies. The coming of sound had made those less profitable, so he did this one for Universal, using some of their contract stars, and some people he'd known for a long time. The script is good enough, but the leads seem to be speaking their lines too fast for any impact, and some of the characters (like Clem Bevans) look interesting, and then disappear. Most of the real fun is delivered in the second half by Constance Collier, as a snooty busybody who takes a shine to the youngsters. The result is an okay little film that takes only an hour.

Prim and proper schoolteacher Anne Gladden (Heather Angel) is a paragon of virtue and discipline. One day, Anne realizes that she's 25 years old and fears she'll die a dull "old maid".

So, ditching her spectacles, Anne buys some flashy new clothes and sets out on an adventure. Within seconds, she gets mixed up with gangsters, auto theft, murder, and a police manhunt!

In the middle of all this, romance blooms between Anne and a man in need of a ride. It's too bad that Anne and her new boyfriend have no idea what they've been carrying around in the car's back seat!

The chase is on!

HALF A SINNER is a fast-moving, zany comedy full of wacky situations, kooky characters, and Snappy dialogue.

Highly entertaining...

Middling B comedy about a schoolteacher (Heather Angel) who undergoes a makeover which leads to wacky adventures involving gangsters, a corpse in a stolen car, and a man (John 'Dusty' King) she picks up off the side of the road. Never as funny as it desperately wants to be. In fact, it has some boring stretches. Angel and King bring little to the table, leaving the supporting players like Tom Dugan, William B. Davidson, and Constance Collier to pick up the slack. They do an admirable job of that, which helps make this at least watchable. Not a great film by any stretch but worth a look if you're in the mood for a quickie comedy with a few (but only a few) laughs.

Like all good teachers, Heather Angel (Anne) prefers the naughty children to the well-behaved children. She returns home from school one day and decides to take the naughty direction in life for herself. She gets a new wardrobe, lets the pet budgie fly out of the window and goes out "on the pull". Emma Dunn, her grandma, is shocked! We then watch a pretty peculiar day unfold, as she breaks the law several times and demonstrates a knack for lying and keeping calm in the face of danger. Can she find love…….and what will happen to the budgie……?

I have to agree with other reviewers who felt let down by the implausibility of the whole story. It's easy to watch but makes no sense, especially the main story that involves a car with a dead body. Just abandon the thing! As things go, the film ends up as a car chase. The cast are all fine with Miss Angel and idle rich Constance Collier (Mrs Breckenridge) as the standout characters. There are some comedy characters on show – the police and the hoodlums – but these comedy characters don't, thankfully, get in the way. In fact, some of the dialogue is quite funny as are a couple of situations, which, for me, is a far preferable form of humour. The film resolves itself in a ridiculous manner……you think "that was fun/stupid" and then you go and do something else.

This woman is so dingy in this film she irked me from the get-go. First of all the unwanted suitor just met her in the park where she was sitting - he wasn't a stalker, he was a man that just met her and trying to come on to her. Secondly, she steals a car to get away from said suitor and she's to dingy to realize that stealing a car makes her a thief and the cops will go after the stolen car. Third, she picks up a man she doesn't know long her way to really nowhere while getting away from the suitor. This man sees the dead body in the back of the car and we are now in for some lame comedy as the police are hot of the trail of the real criminals and a stolen car.

I found this one a bore fest - trying to hard to be funny with a boring story to follow. I did not find anyone "cute" in this film just ewe.

I got this film in the Dark Crimes 50-Film Pack and this is NOT a dark crime. It's a (so-called) comedy crime film - nothing that dark about it except riding around in a stolen car with a dead body. It's not film noir or anything close to that.

2/10

I think this plot could be successfully remade today even with today's societal differences. Anyway, I'm not sure if it was intentional but the actors' way of delivering the dialogue is flat and artificial even for the era it was produced in. Otherwise, it's just bad acting but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt.