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As Good As It Gets

Absolutely the worst movie.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like Jessica Fletcher of "Murder She Wrote", the team of Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland seem to find murder wherever they go. In at least three of their films, they've all of a sudden stumbled across a dead body (or a dead body stumbled over them), and like Angela Lansbury, they defy the law to try and solve the murders themselves. Here, the dead body (and another one later on) pop up in the exclusive apartment building they work in, and the two pals come across all sorts of intrigue involving a gambling ring and the seedy characters involved in the search for some missing cash.While the humor quotient of the script isn't as obvious as their other pairings, it isn't because the script is trying to be funny and fails. It simply is that the film is written as more as a mystery with subtle comic undertones, so those expecting a wise-cracking farce with a murder background might be slightly disappointed. However, this also means that there's less obvious racial slurs towards Moreland, and in fact, he is presented as less cowardly than normal, certainly less than other black comic actors of the time. The camaraderie between Moreland and Darro is very apparent, and they seem to be having fun working together. Kay Sutton is a pretty heroine, and an actress named Vickie Lester (no relation to the Janet Gaynor/Judy Garland actress character from "A Star is Born") is an obvious gangster's moll. Harmless fun at just under an hour, it's formula fluff, but just once, I'm hoping for a Darro/Moreland pairing that doesn't involve murder and has something a little more original.

Frankie O'Reilly and Jeff Jefferson work at an apartment building. When one of the tenants is killed by gunmen the pair is asked by Frankie's brother, the detective investigating the case, to keep an eye on a suspect living in the building. The requests brings the pair into danger as they end up taking things too far and find themselves dealing with the gamblers responsible for the murder.This is another in the series of films that paired Frankie Darro and Montan Moreland as best friends. While some of the films were better than others, all of the films were enjoyable to some degree. For me this is one of the middle of the pack group, far from the worst in the series it never quite manages to reach the heights of some of the best (Up in the Air for example). Its a good little film that has a mystery/crime plot clever enough to keep you watching with a genuine interest in seeing how it comes out. I think my lack of affection for the film is simply the anemia of the budget which is revealed via reused rooms and an obvious photograph that serves as the background of a parking garage. The mystery and the repartee are such that you really wish that they had spent a couple of more bucks to make it look real.Definitely worth your time, especially if you make it part of a multiple movie night (dare I say with other Darro/Moreland movies).