Review of Straight Is the Way

Burglar George Parsons and his apprentice Matt Moore take a break from New York's heat -- temperature and metaphorical -- in a small town in New Hampshire for a working vacation. The first house they break into is the richest looking in the town, but its two inhabitants, Mabel Bert and her great-niece, Gladys Leslie, are just about broke; the house is under a mortgage to Henry Sedley, and they have sold off almost everything. With nothing to steal, Parsons and Moore take up residence in a closed-off wing, and use it as their base of operations. But the women's ways are kindly; Miss Bert is free with her fruit pies, the best Parsons has tasted since his mother died, and Miss Leslie looks kindly on Moore, whom she believes to be one of the New York detectives brought in to catch the burglars. This pleases the bad men, and when they hear the ladies using a ouija board to ask the long-dead master of the house what he did with all that money when he died, the men conceive a plan.

It's a very pleasant little movie, with a fine role for Van Dyke Brook as the local constable. The pleasant rural location shooting and a script by Francis Marion veer around in unexpected ways. True, there are some oddities in a couple of title cards, and the print was a bit high contrast, but that actually works well for the story; otherwise it was in great shape.

It's one of the many restorations runs by Ed Lorusso, funded by a Kickstarter program. David Drazin contributes one of his best and most varied scores. At present there are no announced plans for a wider release, but we can always hope for one.

Update: It has been released by Grapevine Video.