|
"A funny kind of a name," it suits the dapper, nocturnal fellow played by Dick Powell still in his wry Marlowe zone. He's roused in the evening and heads to the casino club he runs with the crime boss (Thomas Gomez), he knows better than to gamble but is fully attuned to the musique concrète of clicking chips and spinning roulettes. The capo's wife (Ellen Drew) is a derisive lush who gifts her former flame with an engraved watch, the hatcheck girl (Nina Foch) carries a torch for the crooked flatfoot (Jim Bannon) and expires in a gas-choked apartment, her inquisitive sister (Evelyn Keyes) materializes full of hard-boiled yearning. The police inspector (Lee J. Cobb) circles closer by the minute. "You keep bad company, Mr. O'Clock." "Late hours, too. Speak your piece." The noir demimonde is already Robert Rossen's turf, the inspector's declaration of murder motives ("Revenge, profit, jealousy") reads like a list of ongoing themes. Palatial corruption and rumpled law, a bit of cigar ash on a sleek hotel lobby, a certain existential tick-tock audible amid the tough chatter. Redemption comes from a struggling actress, and betrayal from the live-in muscle (John Kellogg). "Looks like you've been out fishing." "Yeah, in the sewers." Pungent cameos on the margins, the slattern next door with a curiosity for detective work, the runty dry-cleaning clerk peculiarly invested in the outcome of the investigation. (Possibly echoing the indifference for visuals of a seasoned writer turned neophyte director, a sardonic waiter lights a single candle and calls it "atmosphere.") It builds to "a bullet in my gut and fire in my brain" soothed by a woman's love, and in due time reaches Melville (Bob le Flambeur). With Mabel Paige, Phil Brown, Robin Raymond, Virginia Farmer, and Jeff Chandler. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |