“Come on, pop, we need a hunch. What am I not
paying you for?”
The
jocular exchanges between defence attorney Paul Bennett and his father, one-armed
ex-beat cop Wallace Bennett (Harry Shannon), could have graced a light-hearted TV
crime show. These instances of filial good humour provide respite from an
otherwise murky whodunit that touches (with varying degrees of success) on themes
such as the enervating effects of a guilty conscience, loss of juvenescence and
the damaging effects of war. Gravity of legal process and fair trial, other
important aspects of the film, are underpinned by the image of Lady Justice
under the film’s titles. Its paucity of well-known noir performers may not
attract aficionados, but Archainbaud’s canny use of the film’s poverty-row
budget makes it a programmer worth visiting.
The
film starts in territory that film noir fans will find welcoming. Bill Jackson (James
Anderson) and doting co-worker Sally are closing down the diner they work in. Unrequited
love lingers amid the shadows. Happenstance conspires to reveal that Jackson is
actually Richard Kincaid, a fugitive, when he foils an attempted robbery by a gun-wielding
heavy. Although he is regarded as a hero, Kincaid can no longer avoid the murder
trial from which he once escaped.
Kincaid
recounts the night Dan Brian (Robert Cavendish) was murdered, his story
unfurling in flashback. Like many noir victims his descent into psychological limbo
is triggered when he enters a bar for a drink. He is invited to an apartment
shindig by a group of youthful revellers, Musuraca’s camera painstakingly framing
their hopeful faces; their later transformations therefore appear more sombre. When
one of the party drunkenly accuses Kincaid of having an affair with his
fiancée, a gun is drawn, Kincaid wrestles it away but, understandably aggrieved,
he foolishly issues a threat to his assailant. It’s enough for those at the
party to suspect his words foreshadowed the crime.
Regular
guys accused of or committing heinous crimes after carousing with a bunch of strangers
was commonplace in noir – see D.O.A
and another poverty-row mystery, Fall Guy. Unlike the protagonists in those examples, Kincaid is in custody
and isn’t afforded the novelty of investigating the crime himself. Instead it’s
up to Bennett to explore the city’s dives (and for Young to employ his easy
charm) to seek the whereabouts of the witnesses. Interest is maintained by radical
alterations to their personalities. Parker, once handsome and athletic, is now
a bookbinder, injured and blinded while serving in the war; his fiancée, he
tells Bennett, has died. Tip-offs lead to “Lefty” McGuire (John Kellog), shacked
up in a decaying tenement block with a ten-year hangover; his former wife Alice
(Mary Anderson) has changed her name to Peggy Linden and is found ensconced in
a cramped puppet theatre; Rolene Wood has spent time in a state asylum.
Plot
mechanics don’t break any new ground and hackneyed hardboiled scenarios are siphoned
in to liven the pace. The thief whom Kincaid kills is amusingly known as The
Paper Bag Bandit due to the receptacle in which he insists his victims place
their belongings. ‘Skid Row’ is a down-at-heel pool hall where the Bennetts
press rodent-faced Eddie the Elbow for information. The seedy tenement block
where they find McGuire paralytic and racked with remorse is painted with low-key
lighting. You can almost smell the liquor fumes permeating the room. In a
crisply edited sequence, Wallace is tailed by gunmen while he is transporting
McGuire and forced into an exchange of gunfire.
Archainbaud
skilfully stages a disturbing finalé in the courtroom. A startling revelation
prompts Bennett into calling on a mystery witness while simultaneously timing
Rolene to enter the courtroom. As Rolene approaches, the witness is unsettled,
changing the course of the trial; Carla Balenda injects a disquieting madness to
her performance, adding an eerie ambience to a potentially stale scene. Though invariably
watchable, Gig Young is perhaps a little insouciant in the role of a hard-bitten
attorney, but his investigation is assisted greatly by Musuraca’s signature
visual sense. Despite this being a minor production, his chiaroscuro flourishes
lend a sometimes disturbing psychological aspect to an otherwise rudimentary
mystery.
Clark Hodgkiss
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