SCARLET STREET (Fritz Lang, 1945, USA)

 

A meek and mild-mannered cashier gets crisscrossed by a May-December relationship, where he paints his final masterpiece in thick congealing colors with an icepick. Fritz Lang’s brutish noir spares no one, portraying each character in broad brushstrokes of toxic narcissism, selfishness, greed, or despairing spinelessness. DP Milton Krasner captures this violent rupture with grand noir compositions of rainy streets, low key lighting, and haunting shadows. 

Christopher Cross has been a trusty servant for 25 years, earning his gold watch from behind the cage of his cashier’s booth. Stuck in an insufferable marriage for the past five years, he daydreams of having an affair with a younger, beautiful woman who would be his muse. To make life bearable, he passes his time by painting, transforming his mundane world into primitive and eclectic designs. But circumstances soon lead him into a fateful encounter with Kitty (Joan Bennett) and her beau Johnny (Dan Duryea) where he will learn that no good act goes unpunished. Always castigated by his shrewish wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan), he is easily manipulated by Kitty and rents her a studio apartment and soon moves all of his paintings and supplies there. But Christopher can’t afford this double life, and due to a misunderstanding, must steal from his employer to pay the bills. Then there’s a minor subplot as a deceased husband returns to extort our hapless protagonist. All of this ends tragically. Can it end any other way in a film noir? 

The acting is solid but without nuance. Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea portray their characters without conscience, just two grifters doing their thing. They dominate the screen with forceful personalities and are wonderful, but they are nothing more than cruel, violent, and manipulative. Rosalind Ivan as the wife is an overbearing and over-the-top bitch that we hope gets the knife by film’s end! But it’s Edward G. Robinson's self-deprecating performance that must earn our sympathy, but he is so reductive and subordinate that it becomes difficult to watch. We want him to respond and stand up for himself yet he’s so backwards and introspective, like an artist. This is a brave role for Edward G to play and he does it well, so when his character finally does act out, it’s grisly. This scene may be one of the most hardcore stabbings in classic noir! Well, at least Chris Cross finally penetrates her! 

The film ends with Johnny getting the hot seat for a crime he didn’t commit, but he gets his revenge as he and Kitty haunt their killer as ethereal, accusing voices. And Chris loses everything including his Art (which is his lifeblood), and he wanders by a gallery where the portrait of his dead muse has just been sold for ten grand. This masterpiece will live on, but in someone else’s name. 

Final Grade: (B+) 

THE BAD SLEEP WELL (Akira Kurosawa, 1960, Japan)

 

Nishi is consumed by more than a new identity, the cold breath of revenge fills his lungs and clouds his mind, contaminating his true nature with toxic tragedy. Akira Kurosawa condemns the cankerous contemporary Corporation, a conglomeration of poisonous individuals who subsume public funds to deposit into their own trust. It has become a prescient tale of Wall Street run rampant without regard, where the love of money is the tangled root of human bondage, people willingly enslaved for profit at the expense of others.

Kurosawa begins the film with an elaborate wedding that serves two purposes: first, it introduces the characters and their status in the Corporation; second, it explains a past crime and every major character’s alleged involvement. This is done by a chorus of reporters; in SCANDAL, Kurosawa decried journalism as a corrupt institution but here, the writers are after the truth and newspapers are the ultimate weapon to fight Corporate Greed. The wedding culminates with a huge cake in the shape a building with a black rose like an accusation, inserted in a window on the seventh floor. The businessmen gasp and sweat profusely, as all becomes quiet as the grave because this is a representation of the past crime, a confectionary accusation.

The story is a bleak parable as Nishi rejects his own nature and becomes a weapon of mass destruction, his fuse ignited by an unquenchable fire. He has married the Vice President’s daughter under an assumed identity just to get inside the organization and murder those responsible for his father’s suicide. He has planned this for five years, willing to sacrifice innocents to see the guilty punished. Nishi is lost in selfishness, convinced that the means justify the ends. He marries the crippled Yoshiko, but she and her brother do not share their father’s guilty burden and they become collateral damage. Nishi uses everyone (including his best friend whose identity he traded) for his own purpose: he kidnaps, tortures, steals, and becomes the very thing he despises; the abyss not only peers into him…it devours his soul.

Kurosawa depicts Nishi’s penultimate failure off-screen in bloodstained twisted steel and this narrative blunt force trauma hammers the audience with existential dread. Though the VP loses his son and daughter, he gains a promotion as Big Business continues to sleep well with politics. Alas poor Nishi, I knew him, Itakura!

Final Grade: (A)

BURY ME DEAD (Bernard Vorhaus, 1947, USA)

Heiress Barbara Carlin soon learns that the reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated. This Poverty Row film is a schizophrenic amalgam of noir elements and screwball comedy, which Director Bernard Vorhaus combines inexpertly. However, DP John Alton makes this film enjoyable, utilizing deep focus, low key lighting, creeping shadows, and wonderful compositions! 

Barbara Carlin (June Lockhart) returns from vacationing without her selfish husband Rod (Mark Daniels) to attend her own funeral. The film begins with a conflagration as a barn is consumed by flames, as firefighters struggle to hold back a man who valiantly rushes to save his wife. A stretcher is paraded past the man, and he is shown a locket with Barbara’s name and a compact (inscribed as a gift from George), which he identifies as belonging to his wife. We cut to the funeral (days, weeks later?) and a woman rides in the back of a taxi, black veil drawn over her face, who asks the driver to follow the procession. “Whose funeral is it lady”, he asks. “Mine”, she flatly states. Great setup that soon descends into goofy hijinks and vaudeville antics. 

The acting is tepid, and characters act unbelievably, so when Barbara reveals her identity to Rod and her family attorney Michael (Hugh Beaumont), their shock is momentary and reductive. The servants react in comedic exaggerated ways, while Barbara tells stories in flashback so she can understand the motives of those close to her, because she believes she was the object of a murder attempt. So, who is the crispy critter in her grave? Well, that’s part of the mystery to be solved by our wide-eyes heroine, who feels no need to involve the local police. Is the murderer Rod, her soon-to-be-ex-husband? Is it George (Greg McClure), the lunkhead whose biceps do his thinking? Is it her adopted and neurotic little sister Rusty (Cathy O’Donnell) who still harbors a grudge against their father for excising her from the Will? Though the film runs barely over an hour, by the third act you probably won’t care who the fuck it is. 

Though the absurd story gets more preposterous as it progresses, it’s the photography and the framing that make this interesting. Legendary cinematographer John Alton imbues this low budget affair with style, elevating this trashy potboiler to some level of Art. He often foregrounds objects and uses them to divide characters in a two shot, isolating them from each other though they may be in close proximity. One beautiful composition involves a medium close-up two shot towards the camera as Barbara speaks, and behind her and still in perfect focus, responding to her conversation, is Rusty. This depicts Barbara’s dominating personality and reduces Rusty to a smaller figure in the background. We also get another medium close-up three shot when Barbara tracks down Rusty and her boxing beau George, and Alton has the girls on either side of the frame arguing, while George remains seated in the middle, a hulking man powerless against these two strident siblings! All of this in deep focus. Alton’s use of lighting is masterful, and when the murderer is revealed it’s by use of key lighting which accentuate the stony gaze of the killer. Alton put more effort into this film than the Director or any of the actors, who remain rather mediocre and goofy throughout the story. 

Final Grade: C 

VERTIGO (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, USA)

 

Scottie is a faded apparition who haunts the crowded streets of San Francisco, his love transformed into a bleached vertiginous obsession. Considered by many to be Hitchcock’s masterpiece, VERTIGO attains the dizzying height of a suspenseful murder mystery but deep below the taught surface tension lurks a bestial narrative of male entitlement and naked aggression. Bernard Herrmann’s score amplifies the psychological dimension, invigorating the trauma with an "illusive" uncertainty; dialogue is often replaced by suggestive musical cues punctuated by Stewart and Novak’s subtle expressions and body language. 

Jimmy Stewart plays against type as John “Scottie” Ferguson, an ex-cop who suffers from debilitating acrophobia, a man unable to commit to a healthy relationship with Midge, his college girlfriend who adores him. She is the counterpoint to his fragile emotional state; we judge his spiraling madness against her feminine strength in an attempt to understand his sexual addiction…because Scottie seems to destroy those whom he loves most. Kim Novak’s dual performance is exceptional: she is a doppelganger; a cruel mistress of deception and lust who becomes imbued with a graceful humanity, a lovely woman torn between her past…and passion. 

Hitch is at his best with a dazzling 360-degree shot: as Judy and Scottie embrace in her room, his mind reels backwards and we see revealed the carriage-house; the place of the final zealous kiss before the bone-shattering tragedy. As he constructs Judy piece-by-piece like a sex doll she becomes a rapturous puzzle of soft flesh and lipstick, a fabricated ghost deluged with a violent green miasma of jealousy and delusion. Hitch understands suspense: he reveals the cruel charade, which powers the nuclear fission between the audience and the characters. A dark form emerges from the shadows of a bell tower, startling Judy quickly towards her final judgment…and leaves Scottie to bear his own cross of guilt and shame. 

Final Grade: (A+)

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957, USA)

 

A powerful journalist recreates reality by manipulating text, reducing morality to the black and white of the printed word, language a scalpel that cuts to the bone. Director Alexander Mackendrick swims with sharks amid this vicious feeding frenzy where politicians and celebrities alike are chum for the predatory journalist. The meaning of a man’s life is gossiping not truth, worth only a shred of green paper backed by the Federal Reserve.

Falco is an agent short on luck, his last hope of success in the dirty game of show business is to “do a favor” for the Übermensch columnist J.J. Hunsecker: Falco must secretly undermine the romance between his own client Dallas, a jazz guitarist, and Hunsecker’s little sister. Tony Curtis' ice-cream boy good looks are disarming, his piercing eyes and sly grin a mask of greed and self-indulgence, prostituting his friends (and himself) for a shot at the Big Time...whatever that may be. He plays against type by eschewing humor for greed, hiding behind a verbal barrage of insults and accusations: Falco is a true Grade-A Asshole. Curtis' sublime performance makes this very unlikable character too human, imbued with just enough self-reflection that we hope he can change and put this terrible lie behind him. But there is no redemption for Falco, only the clockwork of success and failure.

Burt Lancaster portrays the powerful Hunsecker without compassion, a Nietzschean prototype who judges his success by the trail of dead in his wake. He hides behind patriotism and justice, words and meanings bastardized and bowdlerized to support his opinions: he is the modern equivalent of Republican ethics, redacting history for his story. Hunsecker’s emotionally (and physically?) incestuous relationship with his younger sister is challenged by Dallas, an ordinary young man with no ulterior motive except love, and Hunsecker sets out to destroy Dallas just to satisfy his own agenda: power and control over everyone and everything. Dallas stands up to Hunsecker’s bullying but suffers the consequences: emotionally castrated, framed for drug possession, incarcerated and his jazz career likely over.

Mackendrick’s direction is superb as he moves the camera through busy New York City streets and nightclubs, crowding the frame with movement and suffocating anxiety. Though the film is verbose, it’s whip smart dialogue breaks the sound barrier and pops with intensity. The cool jazz music and Elmer Bernstein score create the perfect soundstage, both as diegetic and diaphanous narrative instruments. There is no justice in this seedy egomaniacal melodrama where the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

Final Grade: (B+)

BABY FACE NELSON (Don Siegel, 1957, USA)

 

Lester Gillis is a big man in a small body, his social etiquette written in blood by his Chicago Typewriter, his manhood defined by both his Tommy Gun and his raven-haired muse. Don Siegel’s film is a violent testament to the FBI Agents killed by trigger happy punks during Prohibition, revealing the characters without glamour or appeal. DP Hal Mohr captures this perspective in drab compositions and utilizes low key lighting and deep shadow to imbue the film with a gritty realism. In one scene, Mohr frames the protagonist laying on a bed in a seedy hotel room, while outside the window an electric sign blinks its message, lighting the set with its anemic glow. This reminded me of DP Vittorio Storaro’s exceptional photography in THE CONFORMIST where he echoed many film noir tropes, except in lush, exaggerated colors. 

Lester Gillis (Mickey Rooney) is paroled from Joliet by mob boss Rocca (Ted de Corsia) but won’t be his hit man on a Union Organizer, as he feels kinship with anyone who takes the heat from the coppers. So, Rocca frames Gillis for the hit but Gillis gets his revenge with the business end of his revolver. With his gal Sue (Carolyn Jones), they go on the lam and eventually hook up with John Dillinger’s gang. Now christened Baby Face Nelson by Public Enemy #1, their heists become a morgue for FBI Agents who are mowed down at 900rpm by the trigger-happy Napoleon. When Dillinger meets his bloody demise, Baby Face and his gang continue their murder spree, collecting bank notes and toe tags in equal measure! During one bank robbery, Baby Face spares the bank teller because he’s a short man like himself, but a previous scene reveals his psychopathic intent as he guns down an innocent motorist without cause. 

Siegel depicts the criminals living in squalor, fleeing from one hideout to the next, and shows the brutal consequences of their antics as they suffer gunshot wounds, and become helpless and at the mercy of those around them. For Dillinger, this proves fatal but for Baby Face, his girl stays by his side until the very end, and even delivers his coup de grace to end his suffering. Nice! Every character is so unpleasant and toxic, yet Mickey Rooney makes Baby Face Nelson interesting, a punk whose speaks with his Tommy Gun yet has tender moments with his gal. And Carolyn Jones is gorgeous, a beauty who stands by her man even when he’s shot full of holes. Elisha Cook Jr. makes an appearance in Nelson’s gang in the third act...and survives! Though he takes three slugs from his boss’s .38, he’s saved not by fate but a bullet proof vest. He survives when locked in a bank vault by Baby Face, so our protagonist can get away with all of the dough! What a guy. 

“The good do not perish. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies with them and is the end,” 

Final Grade: (B) 

THE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH (Nagisa Oshima, 1965, Japan)

 

A man is caught in a conspiracy of justice, divorced from reality, his life as transient as a suitcase full of stolen money. Director Nagisa Oshima’s film noir plot is a destination mirrored in destructive impulses, a character study of a man denied his obsession, his kamikaze life spiraling towards self-fulfilling prophecy.

The opening shot is a surreal perception of a young bride, running through the crowd to embrace a shadow, a nightmare in slow motion. Suddenly, we realize this to be a fantasy and are catapulted backwards in time to the dreamer: a young teacher who has a Lolita-like crush on a student. The post-pubescent Shoko has a secret lurking in the dark recess of her mind (and libido), a shameful burden imposed upon her by a rapist who has come back to blackmail her. Wakizaka (our protagonist) delivers the ransom money to the bestial rapist, slathered in sweat from the ubiquitous heat, then pushes him from speeding train. But his crime is witnessed by another and soon Wakizaka is blackmailed, not for money, but to keep a cache of cash for an accountant who swindled public funds. So begins the downfall of a human being.

Oshima’s exemplary use of Cinemascope compositions is used to full effect, eclipsing characters to create a claustrophobic tension and often isolating action to the periphery, relegating people to the fringe. Often bright colors flare across the screen, like neon lights painted upon glass: a characteristic of Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle’s style in modern films. Oshima’s narrative is also a tribute to B-movie crime dramas, allowing the story to revolve around genre conventions with gang leaders and knife fights, and the nihilistic denouement: everybody is guilty of something; jealousy, greed, murder, or sexual abandon (or all of the aforementioned!). Though Wakizaka is a flawed hero, he is not without the audience’s compassion and relegated to the status of victim, dividing the morality tale into fractions. Wakizaka’s ejaculatory purge strips him of his humanity when he needs it most, able to purchase sex but finding it impossible to procure love. 

Final Grade: (A)

HOT FUZZ (Edgar Wright, 2007, UK)

 

Nicholas Angel is the perfect cop, much to the detriment of the London Metropolitan Police Department, more dedicated to his job than his fiancé, a divisive chasm that separates Nicholas from the world around him…and himself. Once again, Director Edgar Wright makes a near perfect parody, this time of inane cinematic perversions known as the “Summer Blockbuster” but is also able to imbue the story with heartfelt humanity, humor, and passion. 

The plot is simple: Nicholas (Simon Pegg) is so perfect that his superiors relegate him to the model town of Sandford, a rural village stuck in the molasses of anachronism, virtually crime free and filled with colorful but harmless caricatures. Of course, all is not what it seems, and he soon finds himself in the midst of a grisly murder spree and assigned Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), a slovenly partner whose reflection is the antithesis of Nicholas’ self-image. The film is structured as a buddy movie and slowly builds their frustrating relationship towards the gruesome climax, utilizing the “Action Hero” tropes of films such as BAD BOYS II, POINT BREAK, and LETHAL WEAPON because this time…"It’s for real". Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are pitch-perfect in their respective roles, playing it straight and reveling in the quiet emotional moments that make their relationship believable. 

Edgar Wright eschews a condescending attitude towards this typical action tripe and spices the drama with references to THE WICKER MAN, CHINATOWN and Sergio Leone’s operatic westerns. This alchemical combination creates gold from leaden clichés, a violent dichotomy between gags and bloody violence. As Nicholas begins to unravel the twining mystery, he spouts exposition whose logic is acute and factual but hilariously erroneous. Wright utilizes a blistering 5.1 soundtrack with huge explosions, overindulgent voice-overs, screeching car chases and outrageous shootouts…all to good effect! The final act is so flamboyantly violent it becomes burlesque but works in the context of the film, and we cheer for the protagonists and laugh-out-loud without taking it too seriously…but just serious enough because we want Nicholas and Danny to succeed. HOT FUZZ is a heated journey where Nicholas does not go gently into that Dark Knight and finally earns his soul. 

Final Grade: (B+)

KISS OF DEATH (Henry Hathaway, 1947, USA)

Nick Bianco is a raptor who turns stool pigeon, and he learns that birds of a feather do indeed flock together, especially when they become a murder of crows. Great direction from Henry Hathaway and photography from Norbert Brodine, who decide to film on location in The Big Apple with both crowded exteriors and cramped interiors, giving the film a lived-in feel. 

Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) is a mug whose felony record is like a birth certificate, a man who decides to rob a jewelry store on Christmas Eve so he can afford presents for his family. This leads to a repeat performance at Sing Sing, booked for the next 20 years! Nick is unwilling to cooperate with the Assistant DA Louis D’Angelo (Brian Donlevy) so he is sent up the river to leave his wife and two little girls incarcerated in their own poverty row. His co-conspirator Rizzo, who wasn’t implicated in the jewelry store robbery, was supposed to look after his family while he’s doing time. But after three years Nick learns that his wife designed her own final solution, and the two children are now in an orphanage. Fuck! He feels betrayed and is ready to squeal, so the ADA paroles him so Nick can gather information on the syndicate who betrayed him. Unfortunately for Nick, the DA’s Office is hot for the psychotic hitman Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark), and it’ll be the kiss of death to double cross him. Hell, you’re taking your chance just saying hello to this fucking maniac! 

The jewel heist that begins the film is expertly crafted, creating suspense out of taught editing and silence as it elides a musical score. As Nick and his cohorts ride the elevator to the 24th floor (on December 24th) they are a cohesive unit, just another day at work in someone else's office. They knock out an employee and tie up the manager, and the next five minutes are the gangsters riding the elevator to the lobby, sweating at each floor as shoppers get on and off, crosscut with the manager crawling slowly towards the alarm. Brilliant! The film also begins with a female voice-over who we assume to be Nick’s wife but is revealed in the first act to be his wife’s neighbor Nettie (Coleen Gray), a young lady who visits Nick in Sing Sing and soon declares her love for him. Nettie is no fatale, she is femme adorables! 

Victor Mature as our paroled protagonist channels the intensity of Paul Muni! Mature is able to be brutish one moment yet reveal a suppressed compassion the next, an internal struggle to become a better husband and father that wars with the poverty of his soul. Coleen Gray is fucking adorable as Nettie whose unconditional love for her man knows no bounds, a woman so excited by his kiss that she just becomes limp as spaghetti. She imbues her character with a naive charm and motherly instinct, loving his two daughters as if her own. Brian Donlevy as the Assistant DA punches like a mug yet is a man of his word, and his intentions remain ambiguous. Does he truly care what happens to Nick and his family, or is he just using him to catch more bad guys and further his career? But it’s Richard Widmark who is the joker in this house of cards, a grinning, giggling psychopath who smiles like a bird of prey, with a laugh that’s like flesh being torn from the bone. Fuck, in one of the most famous scenes in the Film Noir genre, he ties up Rizzo’s crippled mom in a wheelchair and launches her down a flight of stairs! 

Finally, after Udo is acquitted and Nick sends his family to temporary safety, the final showdown happens in an Italian Restaurant where Udo serves Nick his last supper. But Nick frames Udo to protect his family and takes several bullets in the gut (because Udo likes to see squirts squirm), so the police can gun Udo down. So, it ends happily ever after, probably with the need for a lifetime colostomy bag! 

Final Grade: (B+)

HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa, 1963, Japan)

 

A man is willing to sacrifice a child's life in order to secure his own future but sees his best laid plans go up in pink smoke. Akira Kurosawa dissects the morality of a self-made businessman, exposing him to a life shattering decision where success is measured against the high cost of living.

Gondo holds thirteen percent of the stock in National Shoes but forges a plan to buy a majority share in order to keep the company from making cheap and inferior products. Gondo's hostile takeover is interrupted when a kidnapper mistakenly seizes his chauffer's little boy and holds him for ransom. Is Gondo morally and ethically bound to sacrifice his family's welfare for his servant’s? Kurosawa posits a complex question with dangerous possibilities but goes deeper into the double standard of big business and class distinction, where the criminal law decides right and wrong with little regard to Justice.

Gondo is a self-made man who worked his way from the sweatshops of National Shoes, where his skill and hubris were tools to conquer the boardrooms of this huge corporation. Ginjiro is a medical technician who lives in squalor, eclipsed by the shadow of Gondo’s mansion, his spirit poisoned by self-pity like a disease spread by the ubiquitous lice and crawling parasites (both human and insect) that inhabit his world. Kurosawa contrasts these two seemingly disparate characters and asks the viewer to cast moral judgment upon them (expecting sympathies to lie with Gondo, of course), then reveals that they are infected with the same intent, differentiated only by their actions. 

Gondo will let the boy die. There is no doubt that this is his final answer. Though his wife begs him he decides that his well planned takeover of National Shoes is more important than a human life. It’s revealed that Gondo is not all that ‘self-made” after all, that he married into a wealthy family and used the dowry as capital to form the takeover. But once he answers the final phone call, Gondo contradicts everything he previously stated and agrees to pay the ransom. Gondo’s is not a selfless sacrifice. On the contrary, he expects to recover the money and complete his mission. Is Gondo a murderer? Yes and no. His takeover will murder his competition and probably end in disgrace and seppuku for the losers, but this is well within legal and moral limits of the law. Gondo is not the one to wield the executioner’s sword, but he casts the penumbra of the grim reaper, bringing about their doom. 

Ginjiro haunts the dregs of society, born at the bottom rung of a ragged social ladder through no fault of his own, and plans to use the money to escape this hell. When he recovers the satchel full of money, he plans a hostile takeover himself. His conspirators are drug addicts and Ginjiro supplies them with pure heroine which results in their death from overdose. He doesn’t administer the deadly needle to the vein, he is only the harbinger of their doom. What becomes acceptable in the business world now become illegal in the criminal underworld: are these worlds of heaven and hell really that different?

Yes. Ginjiro is captured and sentenced to death while Gondo is hailed as a hero, losing his company for the sake of a child. Though this public impression is not totally true, there is little doubt Gondo welcomes the illusion. But Gondo decides to visit Ginjiro in prison, the first meeting between the two characters in the entire film. What he sees is not a reflection but a subjugation, two images that become one. Not two sides of the same coin but a rare double impression which blurs identity, now conjoined in both act and intent.

Final Grade: (A+)

JOHNNY EAGER (Mervyn LeRoy, 1941, USA)

Parole Johnny Eager is surrounded by two bards, one a knockout blonde and the other his Shakespeare-quoting friend, and soon Johnny learns the grafts the thing, wherein he’ll catch the conscience of the kingpin. Mervyn LeRoy’s direction focuses upon the actors and not their acts, telling a story between the violence so we witness the emotional and psychological toll that eats up their lives. As Johnny becomes more human, he becomes more vulnerable, and when he finds his pulse, he loses it. What a wonderful film. 

Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor) lives a duplicitous life: he masquerades as a Taxi Driver to fool his Parole Office by day and assumes his true identity of gangster top dog (as in Greyhound) at sunset! Johnny is smart, tough, and charming, a man as sincere as a heart attack who lacks even the slightest ounce of compassion. His selfishness is as toxic a radium and eventually poisons everyone around him. His only friend Jeff (Van Heflin) is a drunken poet, a Proustian compatriot who wears his own heart on his sleeve, but Johnny is too blind to see. The triptych is completed by the sultry yet guileless Lisabeth Bard (Lana Turner), a college intern who falls for Johnny, the bad boy who embodies the antithesis of her DA stepfather John Farrell (Edward Arnold), though both men are dominating in different ways. The plot involves Johnny’s eagerness to open a dog racing track, but the DA is the key to lifting the injunction, so fate intervenes and Lisabeth becomes the perfect leverage. Murder, mayhem, and broken hearts ensue. 

The acting is the key to the film as the complicated story takes a back seat to the psychology of the characters. Though Johnny’s selfishness could be relegated to a one-note performance, Robert Taylor is able to infuse his character with a subtle humanity, so even when he’s selling out his cohorts and dames, we feel the glimmer of regret in the darkness of his actions. Lana Turner as the femme amour subverts the trope and is revealed to be a decent gal, not wanting his money or expensive gifts, but just Johnny himself: she can see the fella beneath the felon. But it’s Van Heflin as his best and only friend who steals the film (and the Academy Award for best Supporting Actor!) with his quicksilver riposte and his barely concealed queerness for his pal. Heflin’s drunken soliloquy where he exposes his very soul is achingly tender, spoken to another man who is intoxicated with himself. 

Finally, Johnny’s past catches up with him as badge #711 and he meets his end when he becomes reborn, committing one final unselfish act to save Lisabeth. She may be safe, but he dies in the arms of his true love. 

Final Grade: (B+)