The Good Humor Man (1950)
Jack Carson, Lola Albright, George Reeves, Jean Wallace, Peter Miles, Frank Ferguson, David Sharpe, Chick Collins, Eddie Parker, Pat Flaherty, Richard Egan
Based on The Saturday Evening Post short story "Appointment with Fear" (28 September 1946)
BW-80 mins.

"He makes more passes than Notre Dame."
———-
"You don’t want any tutti-frutti in your eardrums, do you?"
———-
"This guy must be a combination of Don Juan and Casanova! Who is he?"

The guy in question is … Jack Carson? Yup. Carson was always good, either in serious or comedic roles.

Jim Beaver, on the Internet Movie Database, offers this summary:

Biff Jones [Carson] is a driver/salesman for the Good Humor ice-cream company. He hopes to marry his girl Margie [Albright], who works as a secretary for Stuart Nagel [Reeves], an insurance investigator. Margie won’t marry Biff, though, because she is the sole support of her kid brother, Johnny [Miles]. Biff gets involved with Bonnie [Wallace], a young woman he tries to rescue from gangsters. But Biff’s attempts to help her only get him accused of murder. When the police refuse to believe his story, it’s up to Biff and Johnny to prove Biff’s innocence and solve the crime.

There is a locked-room murder subplot that even has Biff thinking he’s actually killed someone, but the best parts of the film involve frantic chases between Biff, Margie, Johnny and his pals (Captain Marvel Club members), and a criminal gang. Along the way, Jack gets to do some of the best doubletakes and mugging ever committed to celluloid.

The Good Humor Man is fast-paced, harmless fun.

Levram Niatpac!

(For a dissenting opinion, there is Bosley Crowther’s dour and condescending contemporary review in the New York Times—you know, Bosley never could seem to lighten up.)

—Mike Gray