A bruised brain and two blinking eyes set one man’s fate on either the road to salvation or the long, lonely walk towards the death chamber. Director Jack Hively’s work is perfunctory, while the pacing drags a bit as the mystery is slowly revealed. DP Theodor Sparkuhl’s low-key lighting and chiaroscuro compositions, with an excellent crane-shot in the denouement, elevate this above it’s preposterous substratum. The construction of the plot is absurd as our protagonist is a double amnesiac, with no explanation as to how he becomes a new person in the months before the story begins. So, when he’s concussed in the first moments of the film, he reverts back to his original identity. This dude should wear a fucking helmet.
Burgess Meredith is wonderful with top billing as Frank/Danny, a man whose entire world has seemed to change around him while he’s stayed the same. This skewed perception is played with subtly and intelligence as he attempts to discover why his reality is subverted and deformed. When he returns to his old life from which he has been missing for the last year (unbeknownst to him), he’s chased by gun toting men in dark suits. The setup leads us to believe he’s being chased by gangsters, as if he was a witness in an important trial, but these men turn out to be cops. He’s the wanted man! Nice twist. Of course, he searches for the person he was, and his only clue are the initials DN on his cigarette case. Another grand coincidence brings him into the arms of Ruth Dillon (Claire Trevor) where he learns he’s on the run for murdering her employer. Is he innocent? Even if he committed this murder as Danny Neary (DN), which is after his first brain trauma, is he legally and morally guilty as Frank Thomas? The story doesn’t delve too deeply into these themes but instead focuses on self-discovery and poetic justice. A film that does investigate such philosophical issues is Nagisa Oshima’s DEATH BY HANGING (1968).
The third act introduces a paralyzed matriarch whom Frank/Danny believes may know the identity of the killer, so he devises a simple yet effective means of communication. But why did he want to return to the scene of the crime since he has no memory of it? The film doesn’t allow Frank to unlock his past with triggers, such as the return of a memory when he visits a particular place or examines a specific item (which would have made more sense). The story is designed to make us believe that the scheming brother of the deceased and the ex-wife, who stand to inherit $250,000, are the masterminds who framed Danny. But blinking eyes and 26 letters reveal the fatale as femme, Danny’s paramour Ruth. As Frank struggles to take her pistol, she’s gut-shot and dies in his arms, while his last words are a lie to appease her departing spirit. But doesn’t anyone know first aide?
Final Grade: (C+)
