711 OCEAN DRIVE (1950) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Joseph M. Newman
Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger,
Don Porter, Dorothy Patrick, Robert Osterloh,
Barry Kelley, Howard St. John, Sammy White
Edmond O'Brien plays a phone-company technician who breaks into the bookmaking racket and ends up running the whole California operation. When the big boys back East decide they want a cut of the action, he thinks he can take them on, too, but he forgets he's in a film noir and his luck has to run out, which it does. The climax was shot on location at Boulder Dam, but the movie's kind of slow getting there, and feels longer than its one hour and 42 minutes.
