User Reviews

David Janssen was an actor who never seemed to be acting. He had a natural, guy-next-door style that works to make a viewer at ease with his characters. Thanks to Janssen's style, TWENTY PLUS TWO works pretty well. The plot of this near-noir is very convoluted, but the director keeps a steady pace and there is enough incidental interest to avoid confusion or boredom. When a Hollywood secretary is found murdered, Tom Alder (Janssen), a "finder of missing persons", is hired to investigate the murder, but quickly sees a link between the secretary and a the long-missing daughter of a wealthy family. Complications involve some colorful characters: Leroy Dane (Brad Dexter), a big movie star, Mrs Delaney (Agnes Moorehead) the missing girl's mother, Jacques Pleschette (Jacques Aubuchon) a shady figure who tries to hire Tom to find his missing brother. All these actors give top drawer performances, with Moorehead a standout for the way she takes complete control of her single scene with Janssen. Excellent too is Dina Merrill as Nikki (her Tokyo-set flashback with Janssen is quite impressive). Also fine in the cast are Jeanne Crain, Robert Strauss, and William Demarest, doing a convincing turn as a down-and-out drunken newspaper man.

The only real problem with this engaging film is Gerald Fried's score. It's basically good, and suited to the material, but the main theme, scored for big band, is too brassy and intrusive at too many points. Too much spoiler here must be avoided, but suffice it to say this film could almost be called a lesser VERTIGO, minus Hitchcock's touches of genius. It's unclear what the title refers to, but the story is engrossing enough. Watch this one for the main cast members.

Interesting late film noir, let down by some plot and casting flaws. David Janssen plays the quasi-detective character Tom Adler with an affected booziness; he's not imposing enough to make this Marlon Brando-mumbling-in-a-slick-suit thing work. I do like that his job is nebulous; he seems to have to explain himself repeatedly. It's as though, in true noir fashion, he's really not sure who or what he is.

As others have noted, Dina Merrill looks positively middle-aged when she's supposed to be just twenty in the Tokyo flashback. Thankfully, Agnes Moorehead, William Demarest, and Jacques Aubuchon inject Twenty Plus Two with enough life to sustain interest.

I like how the reviewer pierrotlunaire0 pointed out the plot holes. I can sort of see Tom falling for Linda all over again, especially as she keeps throwing herself at him. But it's just too convenient that she's also friends with Nikki, his other lost love. Since we never see the 'grown-up' picture that her mom shows him, we don't know that he then suspects that Nikki is Doris. At least that part of the mystery works well.

Then there's Brad Dexter's Leroy, who is the actual murderer, going free and easy because he framed Doris. The cabin-in-the-sticks denouement is stagey; but for all of its exposition, it still doesn't add up. How is it that Dane, of all people, doesn't recognize Doris/Nikki until she tells him who she is? Why did he have to kill his buddy anyway? Doris had fled, knowing she had shot Lane. She's still in hot water, and, given the mores of the times (in 1948, even in 1961), her pregnancy makes it worse for her.

Lane would have to fear repercussions from her wealthy family; but she'd probably be so relieved when she discovered that she hadn't killed anyone, that nothing more would happen. On the other hand, given that Dexter's character recreates himself as Lane, and became a celebrity, he should've at least been under suspicion as a rapist, if not a murderer.

Well, if we can squint our perception of the plot, there are those larger-than-life performances from the supporting cast to entertain us. The flashback sequence is masterfully set up by its ascending webs of smoke signalling Adler's reverie. Thanks to the black and white filming, we not so far from the smoky, boozy, hat-wearing late 40s noir golden age.

The editing is pretty good too; we're not allowed to get too comfortable before sweeping into another scene. The exceptions would be the interlude with Agnes Moorehead, which was so good it even made Jannsen look important, the cool 'interview' Tom has with the down-and-out bum in the bar, and the scene in the cabin, which dragged a bit. I'd have been happier with Doris and Tom's scene under the tree giving us a little more, and then letting the shoot-out happen quickly.

The music was irritating at times. Kind of like the nervous demeanor Janssen displays when he's not mumbling. Like others, I wonder what the title refers to. The better noir movies have abrupt, dangerous sounding titles that hint at what we're going to see. Other than a presumption that Doris is about twenty years old when she's in Tokyo, there's no twenty, or two, or twenty-two of anything here.

Still, a fun movie, with a good premise and some fine scenes. 7/10.

Watching this movie was an easy way to spend a lazy afternoon, but the moment I thought about the plot, it fell apart.

Spoiler #1: David Janssen meets Dina Merrill, and apart from asking, "Haven't we met before?", accepts her word that they have never met. Until a good half hour deeper into the movie, and he suddenly remembers they had a passionate (albeit brief) affair years ago. Why doesn't he remember her? Well, back then she was a brunette, and now she's a blond. Oookay.

Spoiler #2: The con man character wants to hire David Janssen to find his long lost criminal brother. Dina Merrill was raped by the same criminal brother. Turns out that the criminal brother is now a top movie star. And nobody recognized him? Save your money, con man, and go to the movies once in a while. The criminal brother/now movie star is presented as a huge star, such that when he walks through a hotel lobby, excited teen fans mob him. Oookay.

Spoiler #3: Jeanne Crain is supposed to be the woman who broke David Janssen's heart, the woman who sent him a Dear John letter that sent him into a tailspin. They reconnect at the beginning of this movie, and in spite of the pain she caused him, David Janssen can't resist her. Except, once he finally recognizes Dina Merrill, it is as if Jeanne Crain never existed. Oookay.

Odd little movie, with the music score at times blaring as if it were having convulsions.

Frank Gruber wrote and produced "Twenty Plus Two", which was released in 1961.

Gruber also wrote a novel version of the film that was published the same year.

The novel was set in 1960.

The central mystery of the novel involved the disappearance of 16-year old Doris Delaney in 1938.

Wealthy young Doris vanished without a trace "twenty plus two" years ago.

If Doris is still alive she would be 38 years old in 1960.

Forty-one year old Tom Alder is an investigator who follows the case as sort of a hobby. Or is it an obsession?

Alder was an infantry captain who was severely wounded in World War II.

While Alder was recuperating from his injuries in Honolulu in 1944, he meets a prostitute who may be key to unraveling the Doris Delaney mystery.

David Janssen ("Richard Diamond") was cast as investigator Tom Alder.

Janssen was born in March 1931.

He would have been 29 in 1960. He wasn't old enough to have served in World War II.

Gruber changed the movie so that Alder was a veteran of Korea rather than WW II.

In the film Alder recuperated in Tokyo rather than Honolulu.

Doris now disappeared in 1947, not 1938. That would make Doris 29 in 1960, if she is alive.

The changes weren't really necessary.

Janssen was a mature looking guy who could have passed for older. In 1962 he convincingly played a troubled World War II veteran in an episode of "Route 66".

Jeanne Crain, Dina Merrill, Agnes Moorehead, and Brad Dexter were all close to the 1960 ages of their characters in the novel.

Frank Gruber was a veteran pulp fiction writer who wrote hundreds of western and detective stories. He even wrote for "Black Mask". At one time he was writing four novels a year. He is credited with 60 novels. Gruber was a creator of "Tales of Wells Fargo" with Dale Robertson, "Shotgun Slade" with Scott Brady, and "The Texan" with Rory Calhoun.

Maybe Dale Robertson would have made a better Tom Alder than Janssen. Robertson was 38 in 1960 and he was an officer during World War II who was wounded in action. Scott Brady or Rory Calhoun could have been intriguing as movie star Leroy Dane.

The last scene should have shown Alder reuniting Doris with her mother after 22 years. That would have given the film an ending with a real emotional punch. And you would have had to wonder whether Tom and the already married Doris stayed together.

I must admit that I expected more from the Joseph Newman's last picture. I thought that it was an authentic film noir, not necessarily with plenty of action, but intriguing, breathless, well done; with a plot not tepid as the one in this feature.

The story of a private eye - Janssen - who investigates on a murder and meets a bunch of protagonists; as usual in this kind of production. An unbelievable tale, and complicated at the most. But the music score, jazzy, is adequate as the surroundings. I think it's the only positive point of view about this movie.

David Janssen is also rather good in his character, as Brad Dexter, Agnes Moorehead and Jeanne Crain.

In short, it's not a corny picture, but if you miss it, I think you'll be able to live without it.

****SPOILERS**** Privite investigator Tom Adler, David Janssen,who specializes in finding dead person's family members is put to the test here when the secretary to action adventure actor Leroy Dane, Brad Dexter,Julia Joliet played by Gretrude Astor,is found murdered in his office with a scrap book filled with newspapers articles and clippings of Doris Delaney. Doris has gone missing 12 years ago after she found out that she's been put into the family way by a handsome tall & dark stranger who picked her up at the Brown Durby after treating her to a strawberry milkshake. Adler for some reason gets himself involved not in the murdered Julia Joliet's long lost relatives but in the missing and now pronounced dead-by the courts-Doris Delaney. As it soon becomes apparent Adler is or was somehow involved with Doris through his former girlfriend Linda Forster, Jeanne Crain,who he met at a bar a few days later.

With all the confusion about this strange as well as mysterious case were then brought back 10 year earlier in 1951 at a ten cents a dance in Tokyo Japan when Alder, just out of the hospital suffering from combat wounds,meets this hot American chick Nicki, Dina Merrill,that he takes for a spin and soon , within 24 hours, falls madly in love with her. What all this has to do with the story is later explained in that Nicki is somehow connected with the missing and presumed dead Doris Delaney!

****SPOILERS**** The film tries to tie all its loose ends together in Doris' disappearance and Alder discovering that he in fact had a close relationship with her without even knowing about it! But it's what turned out to be actor Leroy Dane brother Jacques Plechette, Jacques Aubuchon, who fills in all the info blanks or about this very bazaar and off the wall mystery. Far too long complicated and confusing to go into detail the the final outcome in all this has to do with who knocked up Doris back in 1948 when she was a teenager and set all this into motion. With Aubuchon while not too successful in trying to explain to both Alder and the audience what the heck is going on here he ends up shooting the man responsible for all this In self defense of course to finally put an end to all this craziness.

. . . details the sordid Real Life back story of a then contemporary notable (and grossly over-rated) Tinsel Town blowhard, Marion Mitchell "Duke-the-family-mutt" Morrison. Mr. Dexter's spot-on performance nails the role of embodying this self-styled Duke (whose stage moniker here--"Dane"--rhymes with loser Morrison's screen alias surname), as a bloated buffoon who claims that he sometimes salutes himself since he specializes in pretending to be such a wide variety of bogus warriors from every conceivable branch of the military services on the Big Screen. Like the rest of Hollywood Village, the makers of TWENTY PLUS TWO knew this deviant Duke to be a notorious panderer in Real Life, making drunken forays into Mexico to marry street-walkers, riding Hogs up and down L.A.'s boulevards with henchman War Bonds clubbing out the teeth of any Gay-looking pedestrians and ratting out the fellow Socialist buddies, cronies and friends of his Youth to Witch Hunters to save his own skin. As ACTUAL war hero "Tom" growls to fake soldier Dane, "You've got a yellow streak down your back a foot wide!"