st-shot Steve Cochran gets into Lawrence Tierney land as a dirty cop in Private Hell 36. It is a precipitous fall that takes him from courageous hero to corrupt villain as he commits a myriad of crimes and capital sins in under 90 minutes.Plagued by lack of cash flow detectives Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Farnham (Howard Duff) go dirty by skimming off the top some stolen cash recovered from a dead robber. Farnham has his doubts but instigator Bruner is all in and once the die is cast there is no turning back. Farnham the family man continues to doubt while Bruner, bewitched by cynical cabaret singer, Lili Marlowe dreams of la dolce vita. A skeptical captain (Dean Jagger) remains suspicious.Shot with the customary economical and crafts manlike style of Don Siegel it lags at moments (race track scenes in particular) but still moves with his customary briskness in advancing the story like his The Line-Up with a brutal well edited opening. All three of his leads are deeply flawed and far from sympathetic but interesting to follow, especially Cochran who dominates the picture with disturbing conviction. Lupino (who also co- writes the script) has the right look and sound of a lounge lizard climber while Duff who goes into guilt early and remains there plays it macho smarmy.The story remains thin with some superfluous filler along the way but with Siegel touching things up "Hell" makes the best of the little it has.

jadedalex "Private Hell 36" is by no means a great film noir classic, but for what the film promises, it offers up a tasty amoral tale about a crooked cop obsessed with a woman who requires expensive things. It's good to see Steve Cochran in a meaty, villainous role as the rogue cop. (He'll always be the ill-fated 'Big Ed' in Cagney's classic 'White Heat' to me.)What I notice about Ida Lupino is that, some thirteen years after her fine performance in 'High Sierra', she still looks very hot. She's the 'bad girl' here that is really not a 'bad girl' at all. Her crime seems to be that she's an independent, sexy chick! Which may HAVE been a crime back then. I'm certainly glad director Don ('Invasion of the Body Snatchers') Siegel's camera fell in love with Ms. Lupino's legs.It all comes to a tragic end because this IS film noir. However, you can't help but notice a fine little twist at the end.I thought Howard Duff was rather stiff as the 'good' cop. Dean Jagger was unexpectedly good as Duff's and Cochran's suspicious superior. This movie didn't venture much, but I was happy with the territory I was shown. A small, neat film. Ms. Lupino co-wrote it.Sharp viewers will note the appearance of actors King Donovan and Richard Deacon, who would also appear in 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', Siegel's classic sci-fi film.

bkoganbing Private Hell 36 is a tale of two Los Angeles PD cops who get an assignment to track down money from a big bank robbery which is being laundered at the pari-mutual window at Hollywood Park. Howard Duff is a responsible family man with wife Dorothy Malone and an infant daughter. He's got the financial responsibilities that any middle class individual from the Eisenhower 50s has.His partner is Steve Cochran a brooding loner who feels he's not gotten his just due from the job. Their boss is Captain Dean Jagger who gives them that assignment.That assignment also comes with trailing singer Ida Lupino who is the only one who can finger the right bettor. She does and when they give chase the perpetrator dies and they're left with a whole lot of money and maybe, just maybe they ought to keep it themselves.I'm not sure how any of us would have handled the issue. The police however have some strict guidelines because they get tempted in these situations a lot more often than you or I would be. Cochran goes over the edge and he's taking Duff with him. Some of these situations were handled a dozen years later in the Glenn Ford film The Money Trap where he and Ricardo Montalban found themselves tempted the same way. If you're familiar with that film you know how it comes out and probably a bit better for one of the detectives than in The Money Trap.Don Siegel got good performances out of his ensemble cast. See this one back to back with The Money Trap if possible.

Martin Bradley This taut, low-key and highly effective B-movie film noir was an early example of a style that director Don Siegel came to perfect in his later films. Although dealing with robbery and murder it's at its most effective in the small scenes of domesticity between the central characters, a crooked cop, his partner and the women they are both involved with and there are good performances from Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Dorothy Malone in these roles. (Lupino co-wrote the movie with producer Collier Young). Excitement is generated from not knowing exactly which way the characters might go and from the degree of complexity that both the players and writers invest them with. The denouement is a bit of let-down, however, with things tidied up too quickly and too neatly. Still, it's a commendable effort.