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As in Mildred Pierce, Germanic technique flourishes in Americana: Michael Curtiz's camera prowls through Southern fairgrounds and reveals a Caligari sideshow even before Joan Crawford materializes as a hoochie-coochie dancer, the veil not quite concealing her concretelike makeup. The Dixie town is split between proletarian River Street and the ritzy stretch of the title, the sheriff (Sydney Greenstreet) swells like the overripe fruit of corruption that he is. Chicanery and frame-ups rule the land, candidates are picked between poker hands at the bordello, "I don't see much difference between politics and a carnival pitch." The heroine's trajectory is a political odyssey of its own, falling for the deputy-turned-gubernatorial-puppet (Zachary Scott), getting railroaded to jail, landing on the "roadhouse" ("I lost that around the time of the Spanish-American War," says madam Gladys George of her reputation), returning swathed in furs after hooking up with the construction honcho (David Brian). "Now what are you gonna do?" "Catch my breath." The thick air of widespread venality (Fred Clark as the tabloid editor is the lonesome voice of integrity) is pitch-noir, the dialogue is rich: The patsy feels "like the tail on a runaway kite," the sheriff savors mightily the sound of a police-car siren ("Pinch its ear, bub, I like to hear it squeal"). An early blueprint for Sirk's South in Curtiz's mix of ornate framing and gaseous decadence, the dormitory at the women's prison gets the Brecht Theater design. Tennessee Williams' Big Daddy, Vidal's The Best Man... Crawford's classic punchline about disposing of a dead elephant is set up earlier by Greenstreet's drawling recollection of rats in a warehouse. Ultimately the "nasty streak of honesty" prevails against all odds, here as in Fuller's great variant, The Naked Kiss. With Virginia Huston, Gertrude Michael, Alice White, Sam McDaniel, and Tito Vuolo. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |