Man Who Walked Alone The (1945)

This minor B comedy drama earned an Academy Award nomination for its Score by Karl Hajos (Summer Storm (1944)). It was directed and written (with Robert Lee Johnson) by Christy Cabanne and stars Dave O’Brien and Kay Aldridge a rarity because some of its supporting cast members (Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams Dick Elliott and Tom Kennedy for example) may be better known to movie mavens today than its lead actors.

O’Brien plays Marion Scott and Aldridge plays Wilhelmina ‘Willie’ Hammond. Neither knows much about the other they meet while he’s hitchhiking into town and each has something that they’d rather keep to themselves. These secrets get them both in trouble but also provide them with a sort of dangerous attraction to one another which moves the travelogue-like story fairly rapidly through its 70 minutes. Marion who’s actually a decorated war hero veteran that’s been medically discharged is thought to be an Army deserter by Willie who’s keeping the fact that she’s the small town’s richest debutante from him. It turns out that she’s also engaged to a local political candidate (Smith Ballew) which proves to be a (predictably temporary) complicating circumstance when these two travelers fall in love.

Walter Catlett plays the Hammond family butler and Williams plays the candidate’s campaign manager. Isabel Randolph plays Willie’s mother and Nancy June Robinson the younger sister while Ruth Lee is Aunt Harriet. Elliott plays the mayor and Kennedy plays a police officer naturally.

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