Steineded How sad is this?

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Spikeopath Hell's Half Acre is directed by John H. Auer and written by Steve Fisher. It stars Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor, Nancy Gates and Leonard Strong. Music is by R. Dale Butts and cinematography by John L. Russell.Filmed and set in Hawaii, one could be forgiven for thinking this couldn't possibly work as a piece of film noir. In fact, the opening credit sequences lends one to think this could well be a frothy Elvis Presley type of movie - but it most assuredly isn't.Cash or Cave in?Story has Corey up to his neck in femme fatales, shifty criminal acquaintances and coppers. Which is not bad for a guy who was apparently killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor! The Hell's Half Acre of the tile is what is termed in the film as a shabby tenement district, this is the seedy underbelly of what we know as the paradise island. The location makes for some excellent atmospheric noir touches, with the production line abodes and the ream of wooden stairs and banisters making for a moody backdrop. At night the shadows come in to play, hanging nicely off of the alleyways and tawdry bars.Dirty Rat!Though a little too contrived for its own good, the many characterisations on show make the annoying itches easily scratched. From two-timing dames and thugs in need of anger management - to alcoholic slobs and batty taxi drivers, this has a roll call of colourful people drifting in and out of Hell's Half Acre. There's even some censor baiting going on, though the whiff of violent misogyny could have been less pungent.Some serious noir credentials are found with the makers, Auer (City That Never Sleeps), Fisher (I Wake Up Screaming), Corey (The Big Knife), Keyes (The Prowler), Windsor (The Narrow Margin), Gates (Suddenly), Lanchester (The Big Clock) and Russell (Moonrise), and that's only really scratching the surface. With its distinctive setting and well controlled unfurling of noir conventions, this is well worth a look by the noir faithful. 7/10

mark.waltz There's something to be said for putting Wendell Corey in Hawaiian shirts; It makes him seem alive rather than the boring suits he wore in films such as "The File on Thelma Jordan" and "Harriet Craig". Here, he's a victim of blackmail whose girlfriend kills the blackmailer and ends up being killed herself with Corey blamed for the first murder. When his ex-wife Evelyn Keyes learns about this, she heads to Hawaii just three days after getting re-married to help him and tell him about his son which he seems never to have known about. Along with a rather chatty taxi driver (Elsa Lancaster, cast in a thankless role even in spite of being given third billing above the titles), Keyes ends up in Hell's Half Acre, a hiding spot for criminals and even works as a taxi dancer briefly to make contacts. Corey's business partner (Philip Ahn) is obviously involved in something shady, while Keyes must deal with a ton of creepy characters, including Jesse White who drunkenly attempts to rape her.This is a film that is sometimes a bit hard to take, too sleazy to be believable yet not sleazy enough to not be. The characters are mostly one-note, and the original murder (done by Nancy Bates, quickly dispatched soon afterwards) is never set up to give us a potent reason behind the blackmail. Marie Windsor, as White's floozy wife, at times looks exactly like Bates did before getting bumped, so that's another detail that can't help but go unnoticed. Charlie Chan's "number one son", Keye Luke, is the only element of nobility in the film as the police detective determined to help Corey prove his innocence if only he'll stay put. Ahn's seemingly classy villain is given an obvious evil temper, yet somehow, the motivations, even if sinister, are never convincing. As far as film noirs go, this is one of the weaker ones, and you may long for a classic episode of "Hawaii Five-O" after this to get the bad taste out of your head.The finale is so unconvincing that I spent a few minutes shaking my head with its unbelievability and supposedly honorable ridiculousness. Even though Corey has sprung to life a bit in this and Keyes is a lovely heroine, the enormous number of improbabilities here make this one for definite warning.

MartinHafer I guy was supposedly killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, his wife of only a week insists that he might still be alive and cannot get on with her life (a pretty dumb cliché). So, she goes to the island to investigate and finds that the man who MIGHT be her husband is in police custody--held on a murder rap. Can this all get sorted out by the end and niceness once again be restored to pretty Oahu? I noticed that some of the other reviews saw some plot holes in this one. I would agree--several times the plot SHOULD have been worked out better in order to make logical sense. However, despite these shortcomings, the film is pretty good--a nice example of a B noir film with a strange locale. I say strange because it's set in Hawaii--and it gives some lesser actors and Asian-Americans a chance to act. For example, Philip Ahn played mostly one-dimensional Japanese soldiers in WWII-era films. Here, he's a wonderful villain--with some personality. The same goes for Keye Luke. Here he's no longer #1 Son (from the Charlie Chan movies) but plays a cop in his own right. As for the rest, Wendell Corey (a dependable supporting actor) is in lead along with support from the likes of Evelyn Keyes, Marie Windsor and Jesse White. Together, this ensemble case does a very nice job. Not a great film but an enjoyable time-passer.

bmacv Hell's Half Acre (habitués just call it `the Acre') is a rabbit warren of tenements and dens of iniquity in post-war Honolulu – a South-Seas casbah. It's also the title of John H. Auer's movie which has the distinction – between the lapse of the Charlie Chan cycle and the arrival of TV dramas like Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I. – of being the only film noir set in the (then) Hawaiian Territory. A little clumsy and four-square (with little of visual interest), it boasts an offbeat story line and a dandy cast.Stateside, widowed young mother Evelyn Keyes hears a recording by a songwriter from the Islands who, she's told, has been imprisoned for killing a crime lord. Certain phrases in the song remind her of her husband, presumed lost on the Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She breaks off her engagement and flies to Honolulu; her guide to the local culture is cabdriver Elsa Lanchester, a `character.' Police Chief Keye Luke arranges for Keyes to see the mystery man (Wendell Corey), but when the prisoner learns that his current girlfriend (Nancy Gates) has been murdered, he escapes custody. Keyes penetrates deeper into the Acre to find him, while his underworld associates, their greed and curiosity piqued, try to find her....All too briefly, Hell's Half Acre features Marie Windsor, as the wife of fish-and-poi slinger Jesse White (she's two-timing him with sinister Philip Ahn). The crummy rooms Windsor and White occupy in the Acre are one of three main locales, the others being Corey's Waikiki beach house and The Polynesian Paradise, the nightclub he owns (technical advisor to the film was Don The Beachcomber). There's an elevated quotient of violence, particularly violence to women, and the somewhat murky story isn't sweetened up (though touristy material sometimes intrudes). Auer never got a crack at first-rate material to direct (maybe he never showed he could do it), but Hell's Half Acre holds its own against his better-known The City That Never Sleeps. Like so many of the better noirs, its surprises emerge from out of the past.