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The main study is by Sturges in Sullivan's Travels, and there's much groundwork for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. "Out of step with everybody," the First World War sergeant (Paul Muni) returns with engineering aspirations and a Belgian Croix de Guerre that can't be pawned. His luckless wandering leads to the South and a diner robbery, the dissolve from the judge's pounding gavel to shackles hammered onto his ankles melds abstract legalese into visceral bondage. From one hell to another, the endless quarry beneath a blasting sun, slop and slime for lunch and whippings for dessert. ("Work out or die out," Allen Jenkins as a fellow prisoner departs by riding a hearse and striking a match off the coffin.) A new suit, a close shave and time alone with a blonde are the rewards after the daring breakout, the path towards "a model citizen" includes being blackmailed into marriage by the brassy landlady (Glenda Farrell). "They're still after me! They'll always be after me!" Fate of the doughboy Jean Valjean, the bristling Warner Bros. outrage doled out by Mervyn LeRoy in sharp, raw portions. The protagonist builds sturdy architecture to ward off a world of unpredictable traps, wishful thinking in a vindictive system already showing the seeds of film noir. "Why, their crimes are worse than mine," he seethes back in chains, his stubbly anguish further contorted by a mesh grid. The specialist in bridges must finally dynamite one in order to flee the inferno, Muni in the getaway truck is remarkably like Montand in Le Salaire de la peur. The famous finale reveals a face hollowed out as if on a wanted poster, a whole Dos Passos injustice screed distilled into a raspy voice and footsteps in the gloom. With Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Berton Churchill, Edward Ellis, David Landau, Hale Hamilton, Louise Carter, and Sally Blane. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |