FountainPen
A movie that is great in all respects. Actors, directors, producers, writers, cinematographers, and others in the motion-picture industry should watch this several times and LEARN from it !
Yes, it's in black & white. Very highly-recommended for mature audiences. 8/10.
Alex da Silva
Claire Trevor (Helen) returns home after a night out celebrating her divorce. When she arrives at her boarding house, she discovers that her fellow lodger Isabel Jewell (Laury) has been murdered along with boyfriend Tony Barrett (Danny). There is another boyfriend on the scene – psychotic Lawrence Tierney (Sam) – and you had better not make a monkey of him. He WILL kill you. The whole beginning sequence is well acted by all and throws you straight into the story. On discovering the bodies, Claire goes to call the police, picks up the phone but then stalls, puts the receiver down and walks away from the scene. She thinks and then returns to pick up the phone again……..and she calls the train station! Ha ha – fooled us all. It's at the train station where she meets the killer Tierney and a relationship is formed. There are complications to this relationship alongside the added pressure of boozy floozy landlady Esther Howard (Mrs Kraft) hiring PI Walter Slezak (Arnett) to find out who killed her lodger.All the cast are excellent, especially Claire Trevor and Esther Howard. They all have screen presence. The relationship between Tierney and fellow criminal Elisha Cook Jr (Marty) is given a very obvious gay subtext. Cook Jr is his bitch – no doubt about it. Tierney is scary and each member of the cast is given at least one powerful, emotional scene and delivers it as required. At the end of the film I think it's a bottle of beer for Ms Howard please!
AaronCapenBanner
Robert Wise directed this film noir that stars Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wild, a cold and ruthless killer who meets up with equally ruthless Helen Brent(played by Claire Trevor) on a train leaving San Francisco. They fall in love, but decide to marry other people in an effort to social climb and get rich, which includes Sam marrying Helen's wealthy foster sister! Helen doesn't know at first that Sam murdered a woman that she had known, but never told the police about because she didn't want to get involved, and that will come back to haunt her as suspicions and jealousies spiral out-of-control... Well-acted and directed thriller overcomes its contrived story by being quite interesting.
Roger Burke
There are few actors who are prepared to take on the role of evil again and again. Tough guy Lawrence Tierney was one such actor, appearing in The Ghost Ship (1943), Dillinger (1945), The Devil Thumbs A Ride (1947) and The Hoodlum (1951) plus a few outings in westerns playing outlaw, and Jesse James twice, even.The storyline on the main page gives you enough to know about the plot at the outset; so, I won't repeat much here. Instead, I concentrate of the characters and the revealing implications contained in the whole story.In this story, Tierney is true to form: arrogant, petulant, egocentric, coldly homicidal, and psychologically insecure. In today's parlance, he'd probably be classed as clinical sociopath. Assisting him (as Sam Wild – what a deliciously appropriate name!), we see Claire Trevor as Helen Brent, a quick-witted gold digger with the morals of a corrupt cop or politician, who is, respectively, attracted to and repulsed by Sam Wild's forceful persona and his ruthless, take-no-prisoners modus operandi.Sam's the dominant partner in crime; Helen's along for the exciting ride, or so she says. Together, they make a formidable pair in crime. Accompanying Sam, we see Elisha Cook Jnr as the affably degenerate Marty Waterman who, as the plot develops, is revealed as not just a verbal punching bag for Sam, but also an alter ego who can get things done – including functioning as an effete gunsel for Sam, in more ways than one. The two men have been together for five years or more, obviously sleeping on the same double bed in their rented room – an aspect that certainly points to more than just a business partner relationship, given the character of both.And, given the year of production of this movie and the power of the Hays Code at that time, I wonder how much was left on the cutting-room floor to satisfy its demands prior to distribution.On the sidelines, and as a growing presence, we see Walter Slezak as Arnett, a sleazy, greasy, all-too-easily corrupted PI who is always on the make and on the take – from whom ever he can. He'd been hired by Mrs Kraft (Ester Howard) to track down Sam Wild who'd murdered two people in Reno and was now in San Francisco. So there, while digging up the dirt on Sam, Arnett discovers he can maybe get a bigger payoff by twisting Helen's arm, so to speak, for a bigger cash prize than the fee he's currently getting from Kraft. Unfortunately for Arnett, he gets what he deserves, instead.And throughout all of these insidious shenanigans, the "nice" people of San Francisco – Phillip Terry as Fred, and Audrey Long as Georgina – struggle to make sense of Helen and Sam. Fred and Georgina represent the epitome of what The American Dream is supposed to be; instead, we see them enmeshed in the American Nightmare that has invaded their oh-so-idealistic, consumer-driven lives. It's a powerful message that suffuses the story from the very first, and which gradually builds on each and every dirty trick and deed perpetrated by the Unholy Three of Sam, Helen and Marty. As film noir, it's an excellent example with an inexorable build-up of suspense and dread. Lawrence Tierney is simply made for the role of sociopath, and Claire Trevor, as femme fatale, responds in a similar fashion. Sure, it's melodrama; that, however, makes the implicit indictment of The American Dream all the more effective, and ironic, as the dark side of business in America is stripped bare. Elisha Cook Jnr, as always, plays his supporting role to the limit; and Walter Slezak never fails to entertain.Add in the professionalism of Robert Wise's direction and you can be assured of an entertaining and thought-provoking 92 minutes.The production is in black and white, of course; and overall, it's up to the mark to qualify as an excellent B-movie. Recommended for all Tierney fans and lovers of film noir.Give this 8 out of 10.January 18, 2013.
