User reviews

Several shady characters in pursuit of an elusive but fabulous treasure, à la The Maltese Falcon, is an all but sure-fire formula for success (sure, sometimes it misfires: See The Argyle Secrets). When The Walls Came Tumbling Down is no black bird, but neither is it an unpaired old sock. It's an entertainingly cheesy, semi-hard-boiled mystery with Humphrey Bogart's gumshoe replaced by ace reporter Lee Bowman, who apes the long-in-the-tooth, desperately debonair style of the first filmed Sam Spade, Ricardo Cortez.

He's on the scene along with the cops when his old parish priest appears to have hanged himself in the rectory. The discreet cover story fed to the press is a heart attack, but Bowman knows it's not mortal sin but murder. (There's some anticipation, in this homicide of a holy man, of the much better Red Light of three years later.) But who would want to kill the beloved old rector?

Dressed to the nines, in slithers Marguerite Chapman (who never made it to a really good movie), claiming to be an old chum of the padre from San Francisco, an alibi Bowman quickly pierces by getting her to confabulate about Bellini's Restaurant on 3rd and Broadway in the city by the bay, which of course is nonexistent.

Other unbidden visitors show up, too. George Macready as a phoney missionary, accompanied by his horror of a wife (Katherine Emery) and worse horror of a goon (Noel Cravat), seeks a pair of Bibles the murdered priest had in his possession. Equally eager to lay hands upon the Good Books are J. Edward Bromberg, posing as Chapman's unhinged father, and his legal custodian Edgar Buchanan. All the fuss about the Bibles owes to their concealing clues to the whereabouts of a lost masterpiece, Leonardo Da Vinci's 'The Walls of Jericho'....

There's a lot of not-quite-first-string character talent in the cast, and the story comes courtesy of Jo Eisinger, who penned Gilda and Night and the City, her most unimpeachable credits. But director Lothar Mendes, a German immigrant whose last movie this would be (and he hadn't worked much in the previous few years) doesn't bring any spark or pace to the action.

Coupled with the lackluster Bowman in the sort of part that Bogart and Dick Powell and even Mark Stevens were doing with panache, it doesn't make the movie much of a keeper. (The picaresque incidents grow too far-fetched as well, culminating with an exhumation in a boneyard one dark and stormy night.) Nevertheless, the movie has its own low-grade integrity, with brief flashes emanating from Macready, Chapman, Bromberg and Buchanan. The Walls Came Tumbling Down makes no honor roles, but gets at least a passing grade.

Columnist Lee Bowman goes to visit his friend the priest in his rectory, to discover that the man has apparently hanged himself. It soon develops that he was murdered, and the apparent motive was to recover two bibles leading to a lost Da Vinci painting illustrating Joshua before the walls of Jericho. Other people looking for it include Marguerite Chapman, who is lying about her name and origin; George Macready as a missionary with a gun and a thug to beat information out of people; Edgar Buchanan as a nosy lawyer; and J. Edward Bromberg as a twitchy, psychotic bookseller.

It's very clearly a gloss on THE MALTESE FALCON; Bowman's character is named "Archer", the same as Bogart's murdered partner in the classic film and the book it is based on. The mystery aspects, from a novel by Jo Eisinger are nicely tangled, and while most of the performances are straightforward, the movie moves along at a good clip, and Bromberg is a delight in his eccentric performance.

It's Lothar Mendes' last credit as a director. He was born in Germany in 1894, and moved from acting to directing in 1921. His best remembered movies are 1929's THE FOUR FEATHERS and 1936's THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES. He died in 1974.

This is really all about the last ten minutes as we quite entertainingly finish off this otherwise unremarkable drama. "Gilbert" (Lee Bowman) is a red-top journalist who loves nothing more than a good old dose of salacious rumour-mongering. His life takes a more serious turn when his friend is murdered. The man was a priest, and the mystery deepens when we discover that his two bibles are being sought by the menacing "Stoker" (George Macready). Why? Well one of them contains a code that will lead to the secret hiding place of a priceless Da Vinci painting. The police suspect that maybe "Pat" aka "Laura" (Marguerite Chapman) is somehow involved, so she and our gossip-pedlar join forces hoping to find it (and some romance) first, or at least to stay alive! It's a bit better than your standard afternoon feature this and that's almost entirely down to the sparingly featured Macready and to Edgar Buchanan's contributions as "Bradford" - and I did quite like the carefully choreographed cellar-denouement. Nope, you'll never remember it, and it could probably lose twenty minutes of waffly preamble, but it's not bad.

Real talky.

When a priest is found hanged, his good friend, a journalist (Lee Bowman) knows it isn't suicide and sets out to learn the truth.

It all has to do with two Bibles that the priest had in his possession, and everyone wants them. George McCready plays a missionary in search of them, and you know, because it's George McCready, that he's not a missionary and he's up to no good. A youngish Edgar Buchanan is also after them, as well as an attractive young woman (Marguerite Chapman).

The Bibles give the whereabouts of da Vinci painting to the fall of the walls of Jericho.

For as much talking as went on, I have to say the denouement was actually quite poignant.

This film for some reason is compared by some reviewers to the Maltese Falcon and Lee Bowman to a Cagney or Bogart. Lee Bowman had a very monotonous voice and as far as I'm concerned, not a lot of presence. He was, however, a pleasant actor.

Just an OK noir.

A little trivia: back in the good old days when there were collectors magazines, Marguerite Chapman was selling her own private Memorabilia collection.

Gilbert Archer (Lee Bowman) is a radio host who has just become an amateur investigator. This is because a close friend of his, a priest, was found strung up and hung...and Gil knows there's no way his friend would have killed himself...especially since he is a Catholic priest. At the same time, a doctor who was going to see the priest has had a heart attack...which is way too coincidental.

Eventually the trail leads to some rogues who are looking for two Bibles...and they are willing to kill to get them!! One claims to be a missionary...but he's also a killer as well. So why? Why kill to get Bibles? Why not just go to the store and buy two Bibles?! See the film and see for yourself why.

This is a most unusual mystery B-movie...and that unusualness is more than enough reason to watch. Additionally, Bowman and the rest do a nice job in the film and the movie is cleverly written. Well worth seeing...and proof that a B doesn't stand for BAD!