Judging by Go for Broke‘s posters and related promotional material, you’d think that this Robert Pirosh picture is yet another post-WWII jingoistic war film. We see strapping blonde Van Johnson hoisting a rifle and chasing the Italian ladies.
The title, too, evokes visions of Battleground (1949)–also starring Van Johnson and directed by Robert Pirosh–and the wartime Gung Ho (1943).
No doubt the style of promotion was intended to make the film palatable to the general public in 1951-1952.
Those were sly disguises for this sharp film.
Instead, Van Johnson takes a distant back seat to the real stars: the 442nd, composed of second-generation Americans born of Japanese parents–Nisei.
Johnson seethes with a quiet sourness when he realizes that he’s in charge of all of these so-called Buta-head (or Buddhahead) Nisei from Hawaii and Kotonks from the mainland U.S.
In fact, one layer of the movie is the internal tension between the Buta-heads and the Kotonks.
Warner Anderson’s Col. Pence issues a corrective toward the beginning of the film when Van Johnson’s character requests a transfer to another unit.
First, he says, they’re not “Japs” but “Japanese-Americans” or Nisei. Second, they’re all volunteers. And third, the White officers are actually referred to as haoles, a Hawaiian term for non-Hawaiians.
The story is told with finesse and restraint. Johnson’s character is no pig-headed bigot; he’s just quietly aggrieved and confused.
By the end of the movie, Van Johnson’s view of the men of the 442nd changes, but it’s a very slow realization.
There are no long Capra-esque monologues about the indignities faced by the 442nd. Nor is this the shove-it-down-your-throat social commentary that modern viewers are so accustomed to.
Characters say how they feel, but it’s within the dialogue and it feels natural. In fact, most of the soldiers–with the exception of Don Haggerty as Sgt. Culley–aren’t really put out by the 442nd soldiers at all.
Go for Broke is now in the public domain, so it’s available on YouTube and on Amazon Prime for free.
4 Aces, located in Palmdale, California, is every Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford and B-Minus-film noir from 1949 to 1960 wrapped up into one, big, delightful fake.
The Diner
This is where you take the woman hitchhiking in heels with a suitcase and a shady story about her father, in Chicago, kicking her out of the house, when you know it’s really something about a boyfriend or husband. The boyfriend or husband robbed a bank in Indiana, and the woman has the dough in that Samsonite.
You listen to her story all evening—before you do what you’re about to do with her during the rest of the night. The next morning, she’s dead.
4 Aces Motel
Jan-Peter Flack created a movie ranch that specializes in just one look, one slice of Americana that still seems to be hanging on. It’s Atomic Age America but with the door open and the sand beginning to sift inside and the decay starting to happen.
Even though it looks like a refurbished motel and diner, 4 Aces was apparently built in 1997, from scratch, and was first used for the Lenny Kravitz video for “American Woman.”
In some kind of dream classic film world, you would watch a movie with Broderick Crawford, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Kiley, Neville Brand, with a brief walk-on from Charles Bronson. It’s no dream, it’s reality, but you have to claw back to 1951 for that one–well before most of those names had achieved star status.
Crawford is as solid as ever, and it’s fascinating to see Neville Brand’s face smooth and young. The script is spot-on and clever. There are plenty of twists all the way to the end; it’s not as predictable as you might think at first.
Matt Crowley, as Smoothie, exudes a kind of Kevin Spacey menace, and all I could think about was that Spacey would fit that part well in a remake, and it’s a rich part.
Note
Lynn Baggett plays floozy Peggy Clancy so well, perhaps because in real life she had her own set of problems. In one of the most unfortunate acts of her life, she ran over and killed 9 year-old Joel Watnick at the corner of Orlando Avenue and Waring in Los Angeles, on July 7, 1954. She had borrowed a station wagon from actor George Tobias, best known to modern audiences as Abner Kravitz in Bewitched.
If she had stopped, it may have been one thing. But Baggett sped away. To compound her evasion, she took part of the car to Arnold’s Body Shop at 8746 Baird Avenue, Northridge (now AutoWorx) to repair the damage and the chassis to 13627 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks to straighten it out. She spent 55 days in jail.
The Year 2000–as it was called before 2000–is looking awfully distant with each passing year. Will it ever happen? And what I mean by this is the chasm between what was promised and what we’ve got: the old “Where’s my jetpack?” meme. Or, “I wanted cars in tubes but all I’ve got is Twitter.”
Yes, cars that travel in tubes. This one comes from the engineers at Honeywell, in the 1950s a cutting-edge company sprouting all sorts of innovations. This photo, from Popular Mechanics, December 1957, comes with no context other than the caption, “Honeywell engineer predicts that by A.D. 2000 cars will zip through network of crashproof pneumatic tunnels.”
This English Tudor house, located at 201 Clent Road, Great Neck, New York, may not look like much of a love nest. But in 1948, its chief female resident, Mrs. Dorothea Matthews turned this house into something approaching the Playboy Mansion, East. It wasn’t until Mrs. Matthews’ divorce proceedings from her husband Mark Matthews in 1948 that we began to see that wanton sexual escapades did not begin in the groovy Sixties. According to court documents, Mrs. Matthews racked up a large number of sexual partners.
As a slim, shapely 28 year-old woman with plenty of time on her hands, Dorothea had many sexual options beyond her husband Mark, and she took advantage of so many of them. Mrs. Matthews was a very forthright individual; or, to put it in the words of the New York Daily News , she was “socially minded.” Mrs. Matthews managed to bed down a good number of men and women in Great Neck, Upstate New York, trains in transit to Florida, Manhattan, and probably lots of other places.
Yet her taste in sexual partners was not indiscriminate. A doctor, art historian, student, actor, secretary, and her husband, who was a Ping-Pong champion and owned a messenger service, filled her sexual roster, and those are only the ones we know about. And of course, a murderer would be one of her conquests. But let’s start with her husband.
The Ping-Pong Champion and Husband: Mark Matthews
Born Marcus Schussheim, Mark Matthews married Dorothea on September 16, 1936 in Yonkers. Mark Matthews owned a couple of Grand Central Station area messenger services and made quite a bit of money from them. Obviously, this would prove to be a turbulent marriage. Mark was apparently more tolerant of Dorothea’s sexual hungers than most husbands would be.
Mark Matthews was also a world-class ping pong champion. According to a press clipping about Mark and his ping pong prowess, he liked to sleep nude and tended to drink lemonade before going to sleep and after. At age two, according to Mark, he fell three stories out of a window and directly into a garbage can. A scar over his left eye remained with him.
Mark clearly viewed Dorothea through his penis; he did not make her his wife for practical purposes. According to a 1950 newspaper account, “Dorothea…couldn’t cook or keep house, and she wasn’t interested in learning.”
The Hatseller: Doris Lee
Doris Lee had a hat business in Great Neck. New York. Because Doris had a brick-and-mortar location, she received some of the love letters that men sent to Dorothea Matthews. At least on one occasion, Dorothea and Mark had a foursome with Doris Lee and actor John Meredith.
The Actor: John Meredith
Other than this photo from IMDB (John Meredith identified as the actor in the middle), I haven’t found out anything about him.
The Doctor: Fernand Vistreich
Dr. Fernand Vistreich, 1948
Dr. Vistreich was a Great Neck doctor who consulted with Mrs. Matthews in bed. According to Mrs. Matthews’ cook Claude Stewart, one morning he served coffee to Dr. Vistreich and Mrs. Matthews in bed. “That’s absurd!” retorted Dr. Vistreich in courter, “I’ll bring charges against anyone who says that! I have a family!” He pointed at Mrs. Matthews, called her a baboon, a reference which the judge ordered struck from court records.
Dr. Visteich’s wife of the time put up a good show, above, accompanying him to court. But the affair and perhaps other events incinerated the marriage. In 1964 Dr. Vistreich married schoolteacher Roslyn Vistreich (d. 1999).
The One-Night-Stand Physician: Doctor Spear
In 1941, while on a train to Florida, Mrs. Matthews met a stranger, Dr. Spear, for a one night stand. She insisted that they only got together to see Seminole Indians for a day tour.
The Art Historian: Winston Weisman
Then there was the free-spirited Winston Weisman (February 2, 1909 – October 9, 1997), who first hit the minor headlines in 1937 when the freighter he was travelling in, West Mahwah, hit a sandbar 35 miles south of San Francisco, near Pesadero. Weisman and his companion 23 year-old Karola Preer were the only two passengers on this freighter, along with 45 crewmen. When Weisman next hit the headlines, it was as Mrs. Matthews’ sexual partner.
The Murderer: Herbert Gehr
Gehr was an amiable enough guy, so it’s only for dramatic purposes that he’s called the killer. Yet the fact does remain: he did kill. Gehr killed his wife, Andrea Goldschmidt Gehr, point-blank. Gehr and his wife, after 8 years of marriage, had come to hate each other intensely. A friend of the couple relates that they become physically ill when they were in each other’s presence. Herbert Gehr would take care of that problem before long, though.
Herbert Gehr’s Brewster New York Cottage
It happened in Brewster, New York, a small village 30 miles north of White Plains. Herbert was shacked up with Dorothea Matthews in a cottage in or around Brewster, when Andrea showed up at 2:30 am, four detectives in tow. Herbert had apparently been expecting trouble, because he had booby-trapped the yard. The traps didn’t do their job, because the party was able to reach the house, Germanic bulldog Andrea leading the way. Gehr shot through the screen door with a .22, killing his wife.
Andrea Goldschmidt Gehr
Cast of Characters
Dorothea Matthews: Great Neck, NY housewife and mother
Mark Matthews (Marcus Schussheim): First husband of Dorothea Matthews and Ping Pong champion
Joseph Matthews: Brother of Mark
Winston Weisman: Art historian and one of Dorothea’s affairs
Herbert Gehr: One of Dorothea’s affairs
Andrea Goldschmidt Gehr: Herbert Gehr’s first wife, killed by Herbert
Kiki Richter: Herbert Gehr’s second wife
Dr. Fernand Vistreich: Great Neck, NY doctor and one of Dorothea’s affairs
James Lonergan: Student and one of Dorothea’s affairs in 1941
John Meredith: Described as an MGM actor, still photographer, and one of Dorothea’s affairs
Doris Lee: Milliner in Great Neck, friend of Dorothea
Timeline
1920: Dorothea Matthews born (possibly November 4?)
September 16, 1936: Mark Matthews and Dorothea Matthews wed in Yonkers
July 10, 1950: Herbert Gehr shooting
November 13, 1950: Dorothea Matthews obtains divorce in Huntsville, Alabama
January 16, 1951: Putnam County (NY) jury finds Herbert Gehr not guilty of shooting wife.
December 28, 1952: Herbert Gehr and Kiki Richter marry
