If The Frame Fits-John Payne’s 99 River Street

 

 

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

99 River Street, starring John Payne, 1953 

Some guys are ripe to be framed, framed and sealed with a big bow on it. Take Ernie, Ernie Driscoll, but really Ernie everyman, in the film under review, 99 River Street, yeah everyman with a dream about getting out from under some from hungry childhood and onto easy street, yeah, easy street and little dreams. Ernie, not much going for him in, too tied in corner boy society where street smarts outflanks book smarts, so kind of street smart but not knowing how to work all the angles smart like his brother Jim, figured he could make his way in the world through his fists, by being a pug, you know a prizefighter, a guy who pummels another guy senseless until he cries “uncle” for dough and the brass ring. Ernie (played by John Payne last seen in the movie review section here bleeding like a sieve from a few off-hand slugs aimed at him by old school criminal boss, Solly Caspar, when Johnnie tried to muscle, brain muscle, his way into the rackets in the film Slightly Scarlet) had it going for a while, could take a beating and stay standing up and that counted for something in that profession until he took one too many punches to the eye and even the boxing commission which usually let crippled up grandpas go ten if the price was right put the “no-go” sign on him. Too bad a bunch of stand up fights and nothing but cheap street to show for it. Guys, guys in the know, thought he could have been a contender, could have gone all the way when he first came up, all hungry and full of nervous energy. All for naught.

So like a lot of ex-pugs who went back to cheap street, who wound up as bartenders or bouncers, working like pack mules in waterfront warehouses, stuff like that, Ernie thereafter became a hack, a cabdriver moving people from here to there in the big city, New Jack City, for small tips and lots of sneers that he was taking them the long way around. Ernie still dreamed, maybe small dreamed, that dreamed that maybe he could get enough dough to own a gas station, be his own boss, and end that pitiful squiring the Mayfair swells around. A big downfall from the days when guys would stand him drinks, high-shelf whiskey too not that cheap stuff he hustled from winos when he was a kid, pat him on the back all buddy-like, and blow the inevitable arena cigar smoke at him but still a dream.

Oh yeah, a big downfall too from the days when he had dough, plenty of dough, plenty of walking around dough, what did that girl Irene call it, oh yeah, walking daddy dough, he a good-looking guy, the girls moved in on him, on his sweaty body with lust in their hearts and dollar signs in their eyes. One got the prize, Pauline, and that is where the frame started to get wrapped right around Ernie’s stand-up guy head. See Pauline was made for fair weather, for furs and jewelry, not for hack wife or fumy gas station dreams and so as Ernie slid down in the world she proved to be little Ms. Round-Heels, for a while.                       

Pauline had taken a lover, the next best thing that came around the flower shop where she was forced to work since hacking a cab was from nowhere, a low-ball gangster, Vic, who said pretty things and talked big dough. Talked about a big score and how they would blow the stink of the town off them, get some air, sit on easy street. The caper he had planned, a good plan too with not too many moving parts to gum things up, was to grab a ton of diamonds from a guy who Pauline would set up once he got a look at her and she put his come hither look on him since the guy was nothing but a skirt-chaser. Vic would pull the hammer down in some out of the way spot and then would move to fence the goods and get his cash, get the pay-out, 50 Gs, just like finding money on the ground. Except that Vic wasn’t too careful about how he bopped the mark and he wound up dead, very dead. And the fence, no fool, called the whole deal off leaving Vic and Pauline in the lurch. That fence by the way, a guy named Christopher who ran a pet shop as a front, told Vic that he did not go for any capers that involved women. So bright boy Vic seeing that he was in a tough spot, needing to get out of town fast before the heat closed in, figured that deal could go through if the woman factor that bothered old Christopher was eliminated. So our boy Vic snuffed Pauline. And get this, this is beautiful when you think about it, puts the very dead Pauline in the back of Ernie’s hack after luring him to a sleepy out of the way bar.          

Guys like Vic, small-time hoods quick with the sap or gun but with peanut-sized brains, figured out that Ernie, who was after all estranged from Pauline once he got hip to what she was doing to Vic while he was out hustle small change, could take the fall. He was built for the frame and it seemed that every step that Ernie had taken up to his discovery of her body in his cab, and almost every step after, had his name for the big step-off at Sing-Sing written on it. But Ernie really was a stand-up guy, a guy who was maybe a little hot-headed, a little too quick with the fists for an ex-pug, but basically a good guy and so he was determined to un-frame the frame even if it meant he had to go 99 River Street, go to New Jersey for crying out loud, to get some justice. And sure enough he caught up to Vic and broke the frame, made old Vic cry “Uncle” before he was done with him.

Yeah, so in the end stand-up guy Ernie Driscoll, Ernie everyman got his little dream, got the gas station with a little help from a dame, an actress, Linda, he knew from the drugstore where he got his coffee and crullers while on duty who helped bail him out of a couple of tight spots along the way, including luring Vic out into the open, while he was being framed. Wound up marrying her and the white picket fence dream. That was just icing on the cake. But it sure was a close thing right to the end.