DESPERATE (1947)

RKO Radio Pictures, 73m 11s

WWII veteran Stephen Randall (Steve Brodie) is happily married to Anne (Audrey Long); so much so that a 4-month anniversary demands celebrating. The couple's plans for the evening take a detour when Reynolds (William Challee) pledges $50 for Randall's immediate attention as a truck driver. It turns out Randall has been recruited for a warehouse robbery masterminded by Walt Radak (Raymond Burr). When Randall is able to alert police while the crime is in progress, an ensuing shootout claims the life of a cop, and Radak's little brother Al (Larry Nunn) is left behind—deservedly— to take the murder rap. Soon Randall and his pregnant wife find themselves on the run. Sleazy PI Pete Lavitch (Douglas Fowley) is enlisted by Radak to track down the Randalls, and Detective Lieutenant Louie Ferrari (Jason Robards Sr.) also becomes connected.

Stephen Randall (Steve Brodie) and wife Anne (Audrey Long) in DESPERATE

In the tradition of Fritz Lang's M, the film noir DESPERATE follows the movements of a man wanted by both police and criminals. As often is the case of the "wrong man" noir, unfortunate occurrences have a cascading effect. For instance, a used car dealer (Cy Kendall) reneges on his deal with Randall, who in an act of desperation steals the vehicle he had restored to working order. After the clunker dies, the couple-on-the-run accepts a ride from a pleasant man who just happens to be the local sheriff (Dick Elliott). When the sheriff's car crashes, suddenly the hapless couple is off in another stolen ride.

In a further convention of the noir form, the traditional family struggles to find its place. When a man on a train comments that the Randalls behave like honeymooners, the man's shrewish wife replies "They'll soon get over that." That statement applies well to the Randalls, who find themselves in one unenviable situation after another. A turning point takes place at a Minnesota farm, the antithesis of the tumultuous urban scene, where Aunt Klara (Ilka Grüning) insists the Randalls be married more officially than they had been. The upbeat conclusion emphasizes a new beginning for the featured couple, made possible through the elimination of the evil family represented by the Radak brothers.

Walt Radak (Raymond Burr) belongs behind bars in DESPERATE

DESPERATE is strikingly stylish noir, rich in sinister atmosphere, perhaps highlighted by a climactic stairway shootout. Cinematographer George E. Diskant stresses an appropriately hazy environment when focused on Walt Radak and his cohorts, particularly when the unsavory thugs mercilessly beat down Randall. Diskant's skill set was put to good use in other noteworthy noir stories, including THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, THE RACKET, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, and THE NARROW MARGIN, to name just several.

1947 was an exceptional film noir year for the principals. Director Anthony Mann also helmed two other terrific examples of the genre:  RAILROADED! and T-MEN. Brodie appeared in CROSSFIRE and OUT OF THE PAST, and Audrey Long starred in BORN TO KILL.

DESPERATE is part of Warner Home Video's 4-disc Film Noir Classic Collection: Volume Five.

BLAST OF SILENCE (1961)

Universal Pictures, 77 minutes

As part of The Criterion Collection, the film noir straggler BLAST OF SILENCE is now available on domestic home video in a restored digital transfer worthy of the film’s revered status. Even with its absolute minimum of plot, the taut 77 minute production offers considerable depth to its characterization of one of the cinema’s definitive outcasts, orphaned as a child and completely ostracized in adulthood.

The film’s writer/director Allen Baron also stars as lead character Frank Bono, a hitman who returns to New York City on assignment around Christmastime. He arranges his murder weapon through Big Ralph (Larry Tucker), an overweight, unkempt man Frank strongly dislikes. As Frank dutifully studies the pattern of behavior associated with his target, “second string” crime boss Troiano (Peter H. Clune), Ralph deduces the intent of Frank’s contract and threatens blackmail. As Frank struggles with his professional commitment, he also must sort out his feelings for Lori (Molly McCarthy) in his private life.

Lionel Stander, blacklisted at the time, delivers the hard-boiled narration so critical to our understanding of the existentialist Frank, who has condemned himself to a life of solitude. The fairly constant narration stresses Frank’s hatred of everyone and everything, most memorably observing that intended mark Troiano sports “a moustache to hide the fact he has lips like a woman.” As Frank’s hate manifests itself, he can kill in good conscience, even while most New Yorkers busy themselves with holiday-related concerns, as Meyer Kupferman’s jazzy score provides musical accompaniment to the urban mise-en-scène. Frank’s isolated character, though, receives more appropriate commentary via the song “Dressed in Black,” performed by a nightclub bongo player (Dean Sheldon, I suppose enlisting Johnny Cash was out of the question due to budget constraints). Frank’s perpetual need to manufacture hate keeps him excluded from mainstream society, where presumably an assassin functions best, though even his professional communications are limited and impersonal. Baron expresses Frank’s dark nature quite bluntly, as when Frank forces himself on Lori, and most definitely when he attacks someone with a fire axe in a surprisingly protracted outburst of violence. The stark conclusion, among the most thematically (and environmentally) cold of films noir, dovetails instructively with the film’s opening sequence, in which the literal “light at the end of the tunnel” proves to subvert the usual connotation of that phrase.

This Criterion DVD features Robert Fischer’s 60m documentary “Requiem for a Killer:  The Making of BLAST OF SILENCE.” It’s an amalgam of original footage from Wilfried Reichart’s 1990 feature “Allen Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which was inspired by the re-emergence of BLAST OF SILENCE at the Munich Film Festival earlier that year, along with more recent material of Baron in Beverly Hills. The re-assembled documentary, as it is, follows Baron’s return to the NYC locations where many of the key sequences from Blast of Silence were given texture. During the tour, Baron offers specifics on the making of the low budget film for which he was the only affordable star. Behind the camera, his background as a cartoonist, illustrator, and painter provided an instinctive flair for the balanced compositions and extensive location footage for which the film is noted. He also explains that one of the film’s most stunning shots, in which a large group of children form a swastika from an overhead view, was completely unrehearsed. In this one shot, Baron effectively captures the dehumanizing element of orphanage life. Other supplements include an on-set Polaroid gallery, photos of locations as they appear in 2008, an insightful essay from Terrence Rafferty, and a nifty graphic-novel adaptation by Sean Phillips.

Based on the modest success of BLAST OF SILENCE, Baron was able to work in Hollywood under contract, mostly in television. Reflecting back, he would have preferred to remain in New York, where he could have focused on projects he couldn’t seem to get going in Hollywood. Though a bit overrated perhaps, BLAST OF SILENCE displays the fascinating promise of a New York filmmaker who might have been.

LOOPHOLE (1954)

Allied Artists Pictures, 79m 56s

Film noir criminals are not always the notorious gangster types. Frequently they are unremarkable personalities; working-class stiffs who view themselves as unfairly condemned to society's oppressed underbelly. Often they come to the erroneous conclusion that a heist of some kind will provide a way out.

Herman Tate (Don Beddoe, HOODLUM EMPIRE, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) is the type of noir character referenced above. In the hope of securing the long-term attention of blonde bombshell Vera (Mary Beth Hughes, INNER SANCTUM), the milquetoast Tate devises a plan to pose as a bank examiner and rob a teller's drawer of nearly $50,000. The man caught short is Mike Donovan (Barry Sullivan), who not only must cope with being completely discredited, but also endure the old-school approach of bulldog investigator Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw), a cynical ex-cop determined to recover the missing funds so his bonding company does not have to cover the national bank's loss. LOOPHOLE illustrates how quickly our lives can be turned upside down, and how difficult it can be to make things right again.

Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw) is difficult to discourage in LOOPHOLE

Forty-something at the time of filming, top-billed Sullivan (THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, CAUSE FOR ALARM!) cannot pass for a 35-year-old, but delivers an otherwise convincing performance in this "wrong man" noir film. Donovan's heart-of-gold wife is portrayed by Dorothy Malone, the book store babe from THE BIG SLEEP. The gravel-voiced McGraw (THE THREAT, SIDE STREET) is well-cast as the omnipresent force determined to make life hellish for Donovan. Slavin is a relic, a dirty badge iconic of a maturing noir movement. By the mid ‘50s, the investigator who had quit the police force in disgust was less moral and less reliable than he was depicted in the ‘40s. Slavin's instincts are dead wrong, and he is too stubborn to consider alternative viewpoints. This character anticipates similarly flawed protagonists who would emerge (and ultimately sink) in KISS ME DEADLY and TOUCH OF EVIL.

Directed by Harold D. Schuster, LOOPHOLE is set in LA and utilizes a fair amount of location footage. The flat compositions of cinematographer William A. Sickner (KIDNAPPED, CRY VENGEANCE) were the order of the day at this point in noir history. Screenwriter Warren Douglas (CRY VENGEANCE, FINGER MAN) relies a bit much on coincidence, but the end result is entertaining enough, even if the film's title is never put to use.

The DVD available via the Warner Archive is framed at 1.78:1 and looks good.

PUSHOVER (1954)

The tense stakeout noir PUSHOVER deposits Fred MacMurray in the middle of the same minefield of temptations he navigated without success a decade earlier in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Each film features a duplicitous blonde who embodies both sexual and monetary desires, as well as a no-nonsense authority figure with excellent instincts. MacMurray is pitch-perfect in his practiced performance, looking increasingly distraught as things get overly complicated.

In an early scene that sets up the remaining narrative, LA police detective Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) recalls his parents fought constantly over irresolvable money problems. He vowed never to be caught short of cash, thus equivocating financial freedom with a lifetime of happiness. It’s a telling expositional sequence, especially given the presence of MacMurray, already noted for playing characters whose sleazy inner workings are concealed behind a façade of straight-laced righteousness in DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE CAINE MUTINY. In this outing, MacMurray’s cop gets romantically involved with a moll named Lona McLane (Kim Novak in her official screen debut). Sheridan hopes to nail down the whereabouts of McLane’s bank-robbing beau Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards). Predictably enough, McLane suggests she and Sheridan make off with Wheeler’s satchel full of stolen loot. At first uninterested, it isn’t long before Sheridan’s base instincts kick in. We instantly know how things will turn out, just as we know alcohol will somehow get the best of Paddy Dolan (Allen Nourse), who is one slip-up away from losing his pension, yet cannot resist the magnetic pull of a nearby pub while on duty. Director Richard Quine never allows predictability to detract from the suspense, though, as the mise-en-scène gradually caves in on Sheridan with fatalistic precision. Most of the key sequences are engulfed in darkness and shadows captured skillfully by director of photography Lester White (WOMEN'S PRISON, 5 AGAINST THE HOUSE).

Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) and Lona McLane (Kim Novak) keep it on the down low

Problematically for Sheridan, he is assigned to a surveillance team dedicated to keeping tabs on McLane. While he remains focused on his secret lover, his stakeout partner Rick McAllister (Phil Carey) takes a voyeuristic interest in McLane’s neighbor Ann Stewart (Dorothy Malone). This arrangement firmly establishes basic noir oppositions: the working-girl brunette vs. the kept blonde, the honest cop vs. the corrupt cop. PUSHOVER concludes by cancelling out the negative components of those equations:  the “bad couple” is deleted, and the “good couple” walks away from the scene, with the “good” man reinstated as altruistic protector of woman. Police Lt. Carl Eckstrom (E.G. Marshall), the film’s highest ranking authority figure, makes it official by overseeing the resolution, reminiscent of the way Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) presides over the closure of DOUBLE INDEMNITY.

Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) in a real fix

PUSHOVER is available as part of Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics II 5-disc DVD set.

THE THREAT (1949)

RKO Radio Pictures, 65m 59s

When Arnold “Red” Kluger (Charles McGraw, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, THE NARROW MARGIN) breaks out of Folsom State Prison, LA police immediately go into high-alert mode. Particularly concerned are Detective Ray Williams (Michael O'Shea, VIOLENCE, THE UNDERWORLD STORY) and D.A. Barker MacDonald (Frank Conroy, THE NAKED CITY, LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE), the two Kluger blames for his abbreviated time in the joint. With the less than genteel assistance of Nick (Anthony Caruso) and Lefty (Frank Richards), Kluger captures Williams and MacDonald, as well as Carol (Virginia Grey, HIGHWAY 301, CRIME OF PASSION), the ex he suspects ratted him out.

Nobody is safe when Kluger (Charles McGraw) escapes in THE THREAT

This is psycho-noir at its toughest, featuring a vicious protagonist whose mean streak only gets worse as time passes. Kluger resorts to violence intuitively and without any notion of self-restraint, routinely dishing out impatient slaps whenever he gets the wrong answer. He orders MacDonald to be tortured with pliers, repeatedly manhandles Carol's slight frame, and, most chillingly, attempts to crack open the skull of the defenseless Williams. Kluger even fires repeatedly on an empty chamber at a target who clearly is down for the count. Perhaps Quentin Tarantino had Kluger in mind when Freddy (Tim Roth) cannot stop pulling the trigger at Vic (Michael Madsen) in RESERVOIR DOGS.

THE THREAT was received well by critics and led to a 7-year deal with RKO for McGraw. Director Felix E. Feist helmed the equally gritty THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE starring Lawrence Tierney in the badass role. Feist stages suspense quite effectively, especially when a moving truck causes a motorcycle cop to become suspicious. The Iverson Movie Ranch serves nicely as the desert setting for the final act, where the sweat on the characters is emphasized by notable noir cinematographer Harry J. Wild (MURDER, MY SWEET, CORNERED, THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH, PITFALL, WALK SOFTLY, STRANGER, THE LAS VEGAS STORY).

That distinctly noir moment of recognition has arrived for Kluger (Charles McGraw)

THE THREAT is available via the Warner Archive and demands placement in any serious film noir collection.