Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

zardoz-13 Former Academy Award winning editor Robert Parrish cut his teeth as a director on this gritty, hard-broiled, black & white, Dick Powell urban thriller. Powell plays a hard-luck guy fresh out of prison after serving five years of a life term for a $100-thousand dollar robbery. No sooner has Rocky (Dick Powell of "Murder, My Sweet") gotten out of stir courtesy of a lame Marine, Delong (Richard Erdman of "Objective: Burma"), who has provided an alibi about clearing Rocky of a crime that our hero didn't commit. Meantime, a Los Angeles Police Lieutenant, Gus Cobb (Regis Toomey of "The Big Sleep"), tells Rocky that he plans to maintain tabs on him twenty-four/seven until he recovers the stolen loot. Rocky checks in with a shady bookie, Louie Castro (William Conrad of "The Killers"), who gives him $500 to place a bet on a horse that he claims will pay off 18-to-1. Naturally, Rocky demands more money to make up for the $100-thousand that he lost because he went to jail and couldn't hold down his $20-thousand dollar a year job. Everything goes smoothly for Rocky and Castro's long-shot horse pays off. Rocky picks up five grand from another bookie (Hy Averback), but he learns to his chagrin that he was paid off with dough from the robbery. Cobb pulls Rocky in, and Rocky cannot prove where he got the race horse money. As it turns out, Cobb has been following Rocky so he knows that Castro is lying when Castro tells him that he hasn't seen Rocky. Rocky hooks up with a friend's wife, Mrs. Nancy Morgan (Rhonda Fleming of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral"), whose husband Danny is up for parole. The villains shoot up a car that they believe is being driven by Rocky, but he isn't behind the wheel when the bullets blast holes in an innocent bystander, Delong's part-time model girlfriend Darlene (Jean Porter of "Bathing Beauty"). Delong winds up in the hospital, and Rocky packs a pistol and goes after Castro. He plays an interesting game of Russian roulette with Castro and convinces him to spill his guts to Cobb. When Castro calls the police, he is actually calling his own henchmen. Rocky calls Castro's bluff and forces him to ring up the police. The cops show up just as Castro's gunsels are coming to his rescue."Cry Danger" isn't the best movie that Powell ever made, but this atmospheric RKO release holds its own until the final revelations. Conrad makes a sturdy villain. This complicated movie qualifies as a film noir because the heroine isn't on the level and the heroine is treacherous. She has been lying all-along to our soft-touch protagonist. Of course, Rocky gets away without having to go back to jail, and Cobb collects the loot. Powell and Fleming never generate sparks. Nevertheless, "Cry Danger" has some strong moments, and the Los Angeles setting is terrific. Interestingly enough, future James Bond credits creator Maurice Binder served as an assistant to the producer.

krocheav Dick Powell must represent one of the most successful transformations of character in screen history, from light hearted romantic crooner to tough guy. While this little, recently re-discovered film, may be far from one of the best examples, it certainly makes for a good watch.The story by Jerome Cady (A.K.F. Call Northside 777 '48) has many good one liners, and enough twists to keep you hooked till the close. It's unfortunate Cady died at only 45 from an overdose of sleeping pills, taking with him whatever other stories he may have wanted to tell...as well as his own! The Screenplay by William Bowers (A.K.F: The Web '47, Night and Day '46 and Split Second '53) rolls along at a lively pace up to the final scene, that unfortunately, seems to have been either tacked on or hastened by other commitments. The support cast are also good, with William Conrad menacing as the Orson Wells look alike - double crossing partner in crime. Richard Erdman adds a good presence as Delong, a strange opportunist tagging along hoping for a share of missing heist monies. Auburn haired beauty, and trained Soprano, Rhonda Fleming provides adequate feminine interests. Would sure be nice if someday, footage of her traveling Gospel quartet with Jane Russell, might come to light. Ms Fleming also received the Living Legacy award in '95 for her many contributions to women's health issues. Regis Toomey makes a convincing Detective, and his character is intelligently defined. 'Cry Danger' marks the first Directorial effort for Award winning editor Robert Parrish (Body and Soul '47) who went on to direct: Saddle the Wind '58, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun '69. Prolific Director of Photography: Josef Biroc (It's a Wonderful Life '46, The Detective '69) captures the seedy sets designed by Hungarian Joseph Kish, to the point where you can almost smell the mold and dust on the walls.Paul Dunlap (Walk Like a Dragon '60, and several Samuel Fuller efforts) along with Emil Newman, are credited with the Music Score, but others were also involved, so it comes across as pretty much like a stock Library effort.Not first class Noir, but should please lovers of 50's mystery double features and, any work by Powell is worth watching.

secondtake Cry Danger (1951)Humphrey Bogart smiles. Robert Mitchum smiles. Lots of tough film noir types also show a grin or manage a laugh. But not Dick Powell. Forever grim and determined, he is a the archetype of an unhappy man, and usually, as in "Cry Danger," he's out to fix some problem.This is a Dick Powell movie all the way, and a really good one. There are some great secondary characters, especially the mob leader William Conrad and a suspicious and wise-cracking Marine sidekick played by Richard Erdman. And the plot is good, if twisting slightly and improbable at times. It's also a somewhat cheaply made affair, with a car crash that won't convince a child, and some sets that show their seams. But hey, who cares? It barrels along and stern stiff unflappable Powell (his name is Rocky Mulloy in the movie) won't be stopped, even by love, even by duplicity. And certainly not by cops who should have arrested him several times for his liberties while on parole.This is director Robert Parrish's first film, and he didn't really direct much later of note except, in 1966, a couple scenes in "Casino Royale." Between the two he did a bunch of so-so westerns. William Conrad, who is thirty at the time of filming here, went on to be television's "Cannon" and "Jake and the Fat Man," but he appeared in a bunch of these B-list noirs and is good every time. The leading woman is a simple type, and good enough at it, but her most memorable role is in "Spiral Staircase," a couple years earlier (definitely see that one). She, too, like half of Hollywood, drifted to t.v. by 1960. Powell's career is interesting, and his last big role before moving to television himself was in "The Bad and the Beautiful," just a year later. He is never quite a distinctive leading man, and I'm guessing he thought of this as just bread and butter work, but he gives it his usual steely best, and holds the movie together. The other leading character has to be 1950 L.A., without the glamour. Every scene is gritty and real, night and day, and it's yet another sign of end of the studio system and the rise of t.v., with all the location shooting. A fast, fun one, well filmed.

jimddddd Thanks to lighter, smaller film cameras developed during World War II, B-movie directors on a low budget often took their productions into the streets of Los Angeles (and elsewhere), adding a kinetic and exhilarating realism unavailable on the back lot. So-called films noir, particularly the documentary-style police procedurals, were especially enhanced by location shooting. I can name several films--"Crime Wave," "Kiss Me Deadly," "Angel's Flight" and this one, "Cry Danger," among others--that would have been far less interesting if the producers had kept them studio-bound. "Cry Danger" was shot at two locations on Bunker Hill, one at the corner of Third and Olive (the Amigos Club, where William Conrad had an upstairs office) and the other at the New Grand Hotel complex on the northwest corner of Third and Grand (where Conrad tricked Dick Powell into winning a bet with hot money from the robbery that had sent him to prison). But the most atmospheric scenes were shot several blocks away, at the top of Hill Place north of Sunset Boulevard in what is now a Chinatown neighborhood, where Powell moved into the Clover Trailer Park. (To see film stills matched with 2010 photos, check out www.electricearl.com/bh.) I recently (April 2010) saw the restored film version of "Cry Danger" at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood (where, incidentally, Rhonda Fleming and Richard Erdman were on hand to talk about the movie), and I can attest that the location scenes drew audible breaths and exclamations from the audience. Don't get me wrong; "Cry Danger" has great dialog and interesting characters, but without that wonderful personality called postwar Los Angeles it would have been much less of a movie.