This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

An Alan Ladd vehicle, APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER ostensibly soups up its noir-ish template with the involvement of a virtuous nun, Sister Augustine (a guileless Phyllis Calvert), who becomes the sole witness of a foul play and whose own life is threatened henceforth. But, that précis could be misleading, what in fact is set in motion is a rote cops-and-robbers procedural, lead by the hard- boiled postal inspector Al Goddard (Ladd), infiltrating himself into a criminal clique conniving to operate a stick-up of one million dollars in transportation by the Postal Service. Yes, the film is an explicit encomium of USA's Postal Service, and at first glance, this infotainment seems to spirit us way to a new territory, the lives of postal inspectors, the covert law enforcers whom the mass knows little of, but what ensues proves that the filmmakers have no intention to burrow deeper into that front, here we are in the well-trodden path, an all-too-smart Al, outwits the crooks in a slipshod heist, saddled with an even less plausible last-minute whim of press-ganging Sister Augustine into the fold to imperil our hero. Contrary to its sub-standard action goings-on, what director Lewis Allen manages to hammer out is those alluring shots of nightly scenery, creating a taut and sinister vibe which chimes in with Film Noir's tenor. Also, at least this time, we are tantalized by a sinewy, half-naked male bod in a handball game than the usual distaff equivalent, ruling out a wimple-clad Sister Augustine, even the moll Dodie (Sterling, always a magnificent scene-stealer), intuitively knows not to meddle with lawbreakers' business and timely finds herself a fallback position.Roundly eclipsed by its more influential and well-crafted peers, like John Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950) or Kubrick's THE KILLING (1956), APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER at least offers a stage for a short-statured Ladd to emulate a straight-up, gallant daredevil of a hero with pizazz and conviction, especially when he is able to outmaneuver the murderous thug Joe Regas (Jack Webb, casting every glint with menace and intensity) every time. referential points: Lewis Allen's THE UNINVITED (1944, 6.9/10); John Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950, 7.9/10); Kubrick's THE KILLING (1956, 8.2/10).

Alan Ladd is a hard-boiled Postal Inspector sent to Gary, Indiana, voted the world's most beautiful vacation spot, to solve the mystery surrounding the murder of another postal inspector. The body's disposal by Friday and Gannon, I mean Jack Webb and Henry (Harry) Morgan, was observed by a nun, Phyllis Calvert. She's the only person who can identify one of the disposers and her life is in danger. Ladd fakes corruption and manages to join the gang responsible for the murder as they plan yet another million-dollar heist of the US Post Office.It's one of those edgy stories in which Ladd's real identity and motives might be discovered at any time by the gang. And it DOES have its tense moments when some fast and covert move by Ladd saves his skin.The endoskeleton is familiar enough from war-time spy movies, and as far as post-war gangster films are concerned it was probably done better in "Street With No Name." There's no nuance here. The bad guys are all bad. The good guys are good. Only Jan Sterling, as the moll of gang leader Paul Stewart, segues from bad to good and back without trouble. Not that she's on either side. She just doesn't care which.The opening credits imitate the post-war docudramas. A shot of the Post Office Building in Washington, majestic music, a stentorian narrator gives us some statistics and then tells us this is "the biggest business in the world." Somebody must have told the writers that FBI stories were exhausted so let's do a post office one. It's not a bad flick in any way, not an insult to the taste buds, but it's rather routine, with a couple of exceptions.One exception is the provision of panoramic shots of Gary's beautiful steel mills at a time when they were actually producing steel -- those I beams, those pillars, those cat walks, those smoke stacks, those coal cars loaded with ore, a glimpse of a fiery river of molten steel in the back projection.Another exception is the writing. While hustling out this pot boiler, the writers have managed to come up with a couple of memorable lines and one or two recherché scenes. Ladd is a pretty cold fish, rude, abrasive. A pal tells him he doesn't know what a "love affair" is. Ladd snaps back, "Sure I do. A love affair is what goes on between a man and a .45 that doesn't jam." (Okay, it's not, "What is money? Just a piece of paper crawling with germs," but it's clever.) And it has resonance too. It's not just thrown in for effect. Because in a later scene, Ladd is trying to give the nun a .45 pistol and it jams during the demonstration. She turns the present down. "Don't forget, I have a guardian angel," she says. "So do I," and Ladd pats his pistol. "Only mine doesn't jam," she observes.One more example. Ladd is stuck, bored to death, in Jan Sterling's apartment while trying to get some dish out of her. She insists on playing a record of what passes for a sultry blues number. "So that's 'Slow Bus to Memphis'", says Ladd as she weaves sinuously in front of him and he get up to dance. "Yes, can I give you a lift?" Ladd replies, "You already have," and waltzes her slowly toward the bed that's figured so prominently in the background. Fade.Ladd was always closer to delivering a performance when he had few lines, as in "Shane." Here, he tries to act but his voice acquires a sing song quality as he throws the stress here and there, almost at random, throughout the sentence. At least he looks the part. Henry (Harry) Morgan -- or Harry (Henry) Morgan or whatever it is -- stutters and is a little slow on the uptake. Jack Webb is thin and alert, a kind of human ferret, and his thoughts seem to dart ahead of the situation he finds himself. Paul Stewart is always amiable, cynical, resigned. The climax had me lost, what with the speeding cars, the kidnapped nun, the final shoot out, but it's full of action.

I am sick and tired of every kind of crime movie shot in the 30's, 40's, and 50's that is filmed in black and white being labeled a 'film noir'. This Alan Ladd vehicle is a typical example, one scene shot in a dark alley in the rain and it's a film noir. I don't think so.It is, in fact a run of the mill heist movie with nothing to recommend it other than watching Alan Ladd (if you are a fan).The plot is straight forward with no particular twists or turns to create any interest for the viewer. The fact that it involves postal inspectors instead of one of the usual law enforcement agencies adds no interest, in fact it comes across as an advertisement for the US Postal Service Jack Webb's performance was the only thing of any value in the movie.

Alan Ladd has an "Appointment with Danger" in this 1951 film also starring Phyllis Calvert, Jack Webb, Jan Sterling and Paul Stewart. Ladd is a postal inspector who goes undercover to stop a robbery after his partner is murdered and a nun (Calvert) can identify the man leaving the murder scene. It's up to Ladd and the police to see that she's protected while catching the robbers in the act.This is a routine drama, with the handsome Ladd playing a cynical inspector with his usual straightforward delivery. But he seems to walk through this role laconically. The minute I saw Jack Webb and his "Dragnet" partner Henry Morgan together in their pre-TV series days, I wasn't looking for a scintillating script, figuring that one of Webb's cronies had something to do with it. He did. Webb played the criminal in this the way he played Joe Friday, showing us that in Webb's hands anyway, there's no difference what side of the law you're on. Henry Morgan, however, made a sleazy criminal.The best performance comes from Phyllis Calvert, who is just right as the nun and contributes some spark to this film. Jan Sterling contributes some more spark, but her role is a throwaway."Dragnet" never did a thing for me, and once I see Webb (the exception being "Sunset Boulevard") I can't summon up much enthusiasm. If you're a "Dragnet" and/or Webb fan, you'll enjoy this a bit more than I did.