by James Wallace Harris, 7/9/26
I went for years not being able to sit through a movie or television show by myself. My mind would just feel restless after ten minutes, and I couldn’t continue. I guess I felt guilty, thinking I should be doing something more productive with my time. But being retired, I have all my time free, so why did it make me feel uneasy about frittering away a bit of it?
Then I discovered my mind would latch onto certain old movies, and I learned to relax and go with the flow. Oddly, these were mostly film noir movies. I’ve never been big on mystery or crime fiction. I just never cared whodunit. Evidently, there are aspects to film noir that calm my restless mind.
Today’s film was Flaxy Martin (1949), starring Virginia Mayo, Zachery Scott, and Dorothy Malone. I was inspired to select this movie because of The Stiletto Gumshoe’s essay, “Meeting Flaxy For The First Time.” I had no memory of seeing Flaxy Martin before, but as I watched, I realized I had.
I instantly picked Flaxy Martin for today’s dose of noir because of this photo. I’m a big fan of Elisha Cook, Jr. He’s most famous for playing the gunsel, Wilmer, in The Maltese Falcon. But Cook shows up in countless old movies and old television shows. He plays a very similar character in both Flaxy Martin and The Maltese Falcon – a bantam rooster with a rod.
I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of Virginia Mayo, but I might need to rethink that. Flaxy is a femme fatale and quite evil, and I love a good evil woman character. My friend Mike and I have been keeping a list of evil women in movies since we saw Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Flaxy is not up to the evil of Ellen Berent Harland, but she’s dangerous enough. I see that Mayo was also in two other 1949 films admire, Colorado Territory and White Heat.
I wish Flaxy Martin had been the main character in Flaxy Martin; unfortunately, she’s not. She’s AWOL for most of the middle of the film. The movie is really about Walter Colby (Zachery Scott), a lawyer for crime boss Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy). Quite a lot happens to Walter in the flick, which is why the story moves so fast.
At the beginning of the film, Walter is in love with Flaxy, not knowing that Flaxy is two-timing him with Hap. Of course, Flaxy plays both ends against the middle, and neither the audience nor Walter nor Hap knows where she stands until the end of the film. For each man, Flaxy acts as a spy on the other, but lets the audience ponder whether she’s a double agent for which one.
Flaxy Martin lacks the style of true noir, so it’s really just a good, fast-action B-movie thriller. There are noirish scenes. The movie would have been hardcore noir if the story had been told entirely from Flaxy’s perspective. We see Flaxy set up Walter, and then for the middle of the film, he goes off and falls for Dorothy Malone. The film moves fast, with several twists, but the subplot with Malone feels tacked on. That middle part does give Elisha Cook, Jr. a lot more to do, and I appreciated that.
It’s just a shame that Flaxy wasn’t the main character. Femme fatales seldom get to be the main character. It would have been great to see Flaxy manipulate all the men all the time, for the entire show.
I don’t think the production code would have allowed this, but I would have loved to see Flaxy manipulate all the men and get away with it.
The weird thing about being retired is having all this time to fill. I’m never bored, but neither am I fulfilled. I’m well occupied by a series of entertaining diversions. Watching a film noir each day is becoming as regular as lunch. I assume I’ll burn out on them one day. I wish I knew why my brain likes them now.
Eddie Muller will convince you to watch Flaxy Martin.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 