MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

blanche-2 Franchot Tone stars with then-wife Jean Wallace in "Jigsaw" from 1949. It's a B movie with lots of cameos from stars, I guess who were friends of the director, Fletcher Markle, or friends with someone: John Garfield, Henry Fonda, Marlene Dietrich, Marsha Hunt, Burgess Meredith, Everett Sloan, and Brenda Frazier, in roles like a bartender, a waiter, a nightclub singer, etc.This is a real mess of a movie despite the cast. The DA (Walter Vaughn) thinks the death of a print shop owner was suicide, but the ADA (Tone) believes it was murder, connected to an extremist group, "The Crusaders." I think they were supposed to be Communists.Then a journalist who has attacked the group is killed, and Malloy becomes certain The Crusaders are behind it. Investigating, he meets a strange political boss and an attractive singer (Wallace). Either they can help him or are part of a cover up.I really couldn't figure out if this group was really subversive or just a money-making scam; the script kind of waffled between the two. The only reason to see this is for the cameos and the cast, although in my opinion, Jean Wallace couldn't act her way out of a phone booth.At the time of this film she was recently divorced from Tone and would later marry Cornell Wilde. Tone would go on to become involved with starlet Barbara Payton, whose boyfriend Tom Neal would put him in the hospital. In a way, these people's real-life stories are more interesting than this movie.

GManfred This picture tries hard to recommend itself and tries hard to be a good Noir. It really does. And I tried hard to like it and recommend it and give it a good rating. Honest. But it won't let you. The plot is too muddled and the Director is not good enough to put it over.Granted, he had some good actors in Franchot Tone and Myron McCormick. He also had a love interest who was a knockout in Jean Wallace, but she was a chore as an actress - in a climactic scene she flops badly - but what a knockout, to borrow a '40's phrase.Well, that's about it. Confusing plot and a tepid, preachy story. I stuck with it because it was pouring outside. I gave it a rating of 5, but I gave Jean Wallace a 10...aesthetically speaking.

Michael_Elliott JIGSAW (1949) ** 1/2 (out of four) After his reporter friend is murdered, a D.A. goes off looking for the killers. Once again, the 1940's delivered all sorts of gems within the noir genre. This film here has quite a good reputation but I personally found it to be quite slow and boring in spots. The performances are all good but the director isn't able to get much out of the story and in the end nothing makes too much sense. Seeing stars like John Garfield and Henry Fonda is always great but their cameos add very little to the film.Available on DVD through various PD companies.

bkoganbing Jigsaw was an independently produced film based out of New York City that would have us believe there was an American Fascist movement operating out of New York. A kind of Ku Klux Klan for the northeast.With New York City's polyglot population it does not exactly lend itself to being a good base for such organizations either now or back in 1949. The American public knew it and for that reason it did not buy what Jigsaw was trying to sell.One of the gimmicks was to have a few big names in some small one or two line roles. Henry Fonda, on Broadway at the time with Mister Roberts is a nightclub waiter, Marlene Dietrich was an entertainer, and John Garfield as a local tough. Sort of like The List of Adrian Messenger later on, but without the makeup.Jigsaw needed all the help it could get. The plot is muddled beyond belief and the premise is preposterous to begin with. Franchot Tone and the rest of the talented cast are sadly wasted here.