Free
from San Quentin after serving a three-year stretch, unfairly discredited cop
Vic Barron (Mark Stevens) is after Tino Morelli (Douglas Kennedy, DARK PASSAGE [1947]), a former San
Francisco-based racketeer. Barron believes Morelli is responsible for planting
the automobile bomb meant for Barron that claimed his wife and young daughter
instead. The explosion left Barron with a horrible scar on the right side of
his face. Morelli now resides in Alaska under a new identity with his daughter
Marie (Cheryl Callaway, THE LINEUP [1958]).
Current San Fran crime boss Nick Buda (Lewis Martin) knows all the details
about what really happened to Barron, and advises his somewhat effeminate heavy
Roxey Davis (Skip Homeier, BLACK WIDOW
[1954]) to eliminate Morelli and let Barron take the rap in a sort of
two-for-one deal.
Lt. Pat Ryan (Don Haggerty) worries about the post-prison plans of Vic Barron (Mark Stevens) |
Though
former colleagues Red Miller (John Doucette) and Lt. Pat Ryan (Don Haggerty)
warn Barron to forget the past, the extremely tough customer Barron is obsessed
with revenge, as the film's title implies. He is among the most single-minded
and stone-faced of all "loner" noir
protagonists, determined to get even with the man he believes destroyed his
family. His short temper goes off again and again; he beats up Davis (twice),
punches out Miller, chokes out and later knocks out Johnny (Mort Mills), and
roughs up local cop Mike Walters (Warren Douglas). In a chilling scene, Barron
offers the child Marie a bullet for her marked father.
A frame that is simultaneously fascinating and repugnant: "...for your daddy." |
If some
of this sounds familiar, the screenplay by Warren Douglas and George Bricker owes
something to the prior year's THE BIG
HEAT (1953): a car bomb killing
loved ones, a burned countenance that emphasizes conflicting personalities, the Lee Marvin-like presence of Homeier, and the Gloria
Grahame type Lily Arnold (Joan Vohs), a sexy lush who consistently complicates
the agendas of the hoods in her life.
Vic Barron (Mark Stevens) visits gangster moll Lily Arnold (Joan Vohs) |
Arnold nicely
summarizes the existential noir
universe of indifference and creeping mortality that is heightened in the
criminal underworld, "One way or the other we're all on a
merry-go-round...None of us can get off 'til they push us off..." The
displaced figure Barron later echoes this sentiment, "Maybe I don't belong
anywhere." And try as he might, Morelli cannot escape his criminal past,
even though in truth he is innocent of the specific crime for which Barron
wants to hold him accountable. CRY
VENGEANCE offers some optimism with its conclusion, which suggests a new
beginning for Barron with tavern owner Peg Harding (Martha Hyer, DOWN THREE DARK STREETS [1954]), but the
overall tone is downbeat, per usual for the noir
form.
Idealized, framed imagery is a familiar noir trope |
This is
the first feature film directed by Mark Stevens, who appeared in the classic Fox
noir vehicles THE DARK CORNER (1946) and THE
STREET WITH NO NAME (1948). With
its impressive location footage around San Francisco and especially Ketchikan,
Alaska, where much of the action unfolds, consider CRY VENGEANCE a "great outdoors" noir in the vein of ON
DANGEROUS GROUND (1951) and NIGHTFALL
(1957). Cinemtography was handled by William A. Sickner (LOOPHOLE [1954], FINGER MAN
[1955]).
Johnny (Mort Mills) keeps a watchful eye on Barron (Mark Stevens) |
The
Blu-ray available from Olive Films is framed at 1.78:1 and displays only a
minimum of artifacts and scratches.
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