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The Baltimore Plot, a stopover in the ride from New York to Washington, D.C. "Fine way to run a railroad." "Fine way to run a country!" The noir sheen on a historical regime turn points up the relation to Reign of Terror, Anthony Mann takes stock of "fanatics" versus "organizers" ca. 1861. A split nation after an election and before a war, celebratory bands and vehement protesters, the claustrophobic inside of a train crystallizes the bitter territory. The police sergeant (Dick Powell) turns in his badge and hops aboard the express, Kennedy is his name, incidentally perfect for the continuum of American conspiracy and violence. The precious cargo is president-elect Lincoln himself, there's an assassination plot afoot, "a nest of secessionists" amid the passengers. The colonel-businessman (Adolphe Menjou), the West Point cadet wielding a telescope rifle (Marshall Thompson), the gruff conductor (Will Geer), the New England abolitionist (Florence Bates) eager to question the young slave (Ruby Dee). "Tell me, my dear. How does it feel being beaten?" Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes and Lang's Man Hunt are visible in the compact structure, Mann's masterful handling wastes not a frame. Faces creep out of shadows in a rattling chiaroscuro, a moving camera on a derringer documents a point-blank shooting. The "tall target" appears silhouetted against engine steam in one of countless finely wrought images, he's last seen as a troubled profile contemplating the unfinished Capitol Dome through a frosty window. "Did any President come to his inauguration so like a thief in the night?" Fleischer's The Narrow Margin is practically a companion piece. With Paula Raymond, Leif Erickson, Richard Rober, Tom Powers, Katherine Warren, Regis Toomey, and Victor Kilian. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |