Her Kind of Man (1946) User Reviews

formula gangster film

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 30 September 2010]

A good cast does its best with "Her Kind of Man," a 1946 Warner Brothers film directed by Frederick DeCordova. The film stars Zachary Scott, Janis Paige, Dane Clark, and Faye Emerson.

Scott plays Steve Maddox, a gambler who eventually opens his own nightclub with a gambling establishment in the back. His sister Ruby (Emerson) is married to another club owner, Joe (George Tobias). Steve is in love with the beautiful Georgia (Paige), a singer. Dane Clark plays a reporter who is in love with her, too, and would love to get her out of Steve's clutches.

Pretty much by the book. The big interest for me was seeing the young Paige. Growing up, she was always the glamorous older woman. My father always loved her. She was a gorgeous young woman, too. Though a good singer, her voice was that of a belter, so she's dubbed here for a more lyrical sound. I was disappointed the whole song "Body and Soul" wasn't performed. It's one of my favorites.

Okay.

Entertaining but mediocre

[mls4182 · 5/10 · 15 June 2021]

Typical gangster drama involving a love triangle. All four leads do their best with a tired premise and deserved better. It is mostly an excuse to see lovely Janis Paige in glamorous gowns.

The back projection depicting Miami Beach was the worst EVER! LOL.

Routine Warner Bros. gangster melodrama with good cast...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 27 September 2010]

ZACHARY SCOTT is a nightclub owner, using his club as a front for a gambling joint. He has a singer girlfriend (JANIS PAIGE) who doesn't seem to care how involved he is with gangsters, no matter how selfish his motives are. As his loyal girlfriend, Janis Paige gives a completely lackluster and low-key performance, instead of the usual vivacious one she was capable of.

When the police raid his gambling joint, he accidentally shoots his sister (FAYE EMERSON) during the raid while taking a shot at her husband (GEORGE TOBIAS) who was trying to be a peacemaker. Scott has to go into hiding once he escapes the clutches of the police and even then his girlfriend stands by her man. In true form, he gets his comeuppance before the final shootout. DANE CLARK is a reporter with an ambiguous friendship with the heel.

Typical Warner Bros. melodrama lacks the punch it needs to make it more than average as entertainment.

Never rises above its routine script despite some terse dialog amid dangerous situations.

her kind of man

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 22 October 2022]

Based on the adjectives used by my IMDB colleagues below to describe this 1946 gangster film..."routine", "mediocre", "formula", "typical"...I'd say they had it pegged pretty accurately. I would only add the caveat that, for me, no film in which Zachary Scott is the star, giving his usual inimitable take on amoral, self pitying, alternately charming and sleazy bon vivants ,can be entirely shrugged off. So let me add my own adjective, one I've just coined, to delineate this film,"teeter-totter-ish". Whenever Scott's in the picture it rises a bit above the schlock line and when he's not, especially when the proceedings are weighed down by the poor man's Richard Conte, Dane Clark, and the voluptuous but talentless, as both actor and singer, Janis Page, it falls. Give it a C plus.

PS...Paradoxically, I'm happy to note that Ms. Page is (hopefully) still going strong at 100.

PSS...Sickest and therefore most interesting relationship in the film is that between Scott and his adoring, Widmark-esque, punk gunsel, Candy, played to perfection by future Los Angeles hamburger entrepreneur, Harry Lewis. Yet another reason in my opinion why this film cannot be completely thrown into the generic dumpster.

A very good movie whose only serious deficit is its female lead's odd actions.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 18 September 2022]

"Her Kind of Man" is a second-tier A-picture. In other words, it's a feature film...but it stars a cast of folks who were Warner Brothers' lesser stars. Now this does NOT mean it's a bad or second-rate film....as I certainly enjoyed it.

Two men are in love with a professional singer, Georgia (Janis Paige). One is a slick gambler who is GENERALLY an honest guy (Zachary Scott). The other is a very decent reporter who is easy to like (Dane Clark). Inexplicably, she chooses the gambler and marries him, though considering how many enemies he's made, you know their marriage won't be a rousing success!

This is a nice noirish film. I enjoyed the very downbeat plot and the various sleazy characters. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that I found it very hard to believe the lady would choose the gambler and do all in with him...it just seemed a bit confusing. But, in real life, I guess things like this do happen from time to time. Well worth seeing.

Typical gangster melodrama with rare chance to see Janis Paige in the lead.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 7 October 2010]

From the time she made her first appearance on screen, Janis Paige's vitality and lovable personality made her a scene-stealer. Whether it was as Dane Clark's sweetheart in "Hollywood Canteen" (re-teamed in this film) or as the outrageous Aunt Viv on "Eight is Enough" 30 something years later, Paige grew from a bubbly young starlet into an Auntie Mame type that never turned her into a camp shadow of her former years. Even into the mid 1990's (as the matriarch on daytime's "Santa Barbara"), she could steal scenes from even the best of talents. In this mid 40's crime drama from Warner Brothers (with a little bit of Film Noir thrown in), Paige has one of her few leading roles as a nightclub singer torn between two men. She is slinky enough to be a bit dangerous, but never a femme fatale a la Lizabeth Scott or Jane Greer. She also gets to sing a few songs, but other than the first bar of her first song, it appears (like fellow "Mame" Angela Lansbury, then at MGM) that she was dubbed.

Here, Paige is involved with two men: Columnist Dane Clark and gangster Zachary Scott. The film has a weak script with some ridiculously stupid actions by the gangster who seems bright on the surface but really isn't. There are some nice little plot twists towards the end, and the finale scene is so well written it actually seems out of step with the rest of the script. During that sequence, there are some great camera shots that are truly metaphoric towards the action going on. Faye Emerson, a leading lady of "B" Warners films in the early part of the 40's, is wasted in a thankless role.

gangsta

[ksf-2 · 8/10 · 28 September 2022]

It's a gangster flick, interrupted now and then by musical numbas. Dane clark, janis paige, zach scott. A love triangle, towards the end of the film code. Right at the open, we hear the name steve maddux, and a reporter is ... reporting something big has happened, but we're not sure just what. Let's flash back to see how we got here. Georgia is singing in a show in chicago on new year's eve, but gets an offer to come to new york. But steve gets caught up in a murder. And the reporter gets caught up in georgia. Now it's a tangled mess. And the cops are closing in. Where does georgia fit in with all this? Keep an eye out for joe marino.... george tobias was also abner kravitz in bewitched! Scott was always great at playing the underhanded sleaze... as he did in mildred pierce. Sadly, he died young at 51 of a brain tumor. A pretty huge list of extras in the nightclubs and pool halls. Imdb shows us that filming took place august and september of 1945, so naturally, there's a patriotic wartime theme at the start.... right at the end of world war two. Directed by freddy decordova, the second film he directed. But he's better known as johnny carson's producer for years. Playing on the turner classics. The end scene is pretty silly, but over-all, the film is fun to watch!