Embraceable You

Eddie (Dane Clark) is a crook...but, oddly, a surprisingly decent one. When the story begins, he's waiting in the car for one of his hood friends. Suddenly, the friend comes running...he just killed someone! Eddie is so scared the car he's driving loses control and he sideswipes a lady. While his friend doesn't care, Eddie cannot live with himself and soon goes to the hospital to check on her. There he sees that Marie (Geraldine Brooks) looks pretty good despite the accident, though the doctor later confides in him that there is a good chance she won't survive for long. It seems she has some sort of Hollywood film injury and might die at a moment's notice. Eddie decides to hock everything he has to make Marie's final days good ones.

The acting is terrific in this film. Dane Clark, though hardly a household name, is simply terrific as Eddie. Also, on hand to give the film some color is the wonderful character actor, Cuddles Sakall. The writing is also generally good, though contrived. The whole mystery illness (they called it an aneurysm but it clearly wasn't) was a silly gimmick in an otherwise excellent film starring some second-tier actors at Warner Brothers. Well worth seeing...just try not to think about the plot too much.