Seldom have I been rooting for the bad guys as much as I did while watching 1947’s The Shop at Sly Corner. I also cannot recall ever wanting to see one character to kill another as much I did here.
The two I wanted to get away with everything are Oscar Homolka and Manning Whiley. Homolka is an escaped fugitive from another country. Now in his advanced years, he has a fairly prestigious antiques store. He also buys stolen goods provided by Whiley. These two are such gentleman criminals that, when Homolka decides to stop doing business in purloined goods, he pays the other man far more than what the most recent batch of items was worth.
The antiques dealer has done well enough for himself that he can send his daughter (Muriel Pavlow) to professional violin instruction. There’s an odd tangent related to that where Homolka criticizes that instructor for “also teaching [his] daughter to be a woman.” Ew. And then nothing more is ever said about that.
Her fiancée is a naval officer played by Derek Farr. He has returned from his most recent tour of duty with, as Homolka puts it, “Presents you brought for me to buy.” Among these are darts with tips coated with curare. They might as well be coated in foreshadowing. Something that amazes me is those are apparently going to be put on sale with the poison still on them. Seems to me that is a lawsuit just begging to happen.
Another man with designs on Pavlow is Kenneth Griffith, an especially nasty character who works in the shop. He’ll do things like aggressively get a low price for an item an old woman needs to sell, something of her mother’s which she has had her entire life. Griffith overhears a compromising conversation between Homolka and Whiley and uses it to blackmail the former. And, like most blackmailers, he never stops making demands. And so, I was yelling at the screen for the kindly Homolka to dispose of Griffith.
The photography does not call attention to itself, so it is easy to overlook some rather complicated camera moves employed in a couple of moments. The first scene has the camera track through one room and around the corner into the next. The very last thing we see in the film is an astonishing crane shot which pushes in to a bouquet held in Pavlow. This is not unlike a similar, and rightly legendary, moment in Hitchcock’s Notorious the prior year. Such set-ups would have been time-consuming and costly, and so were interesting decisions for a rather modest picture. That these techniques don’t call attention to themselves means they are used appropriately.
The performances are excellent all around. Homolka, in particular, is a joy to watch. I could watch his easy banter with such actors as Whiley even if there wasn’t a plot. Pavlow and Farr deliver solid supporting performances, though I didn’t detect the strong chemistry they had behind the scenes, where they fell in love and soon married for life. Griffith, who I am used to seeing cast as an unassuming everyman, is terrific as the villain. I can even cut him some slack for playing a little too broadly here.
I don’t want to say anything more about The Shop at Sly Corner, as there is much for noir fans to enjoy in this rather unassuming film. Heck, there is much for movie fans, period, to appreciate.
Dir: George King
Starring Oscar Homolka, Kenneth Griffith, Muriel Pavlow
Watched on Powerhouse/Indicator blu-ray