For today’s Film Noir review I’m going for 1948’s “Raw Deal”. A movie that is about as Film Noir as the genre gets. It’s not a greatest hits though like “The Big Combo”, this is more about the story and the characters. But we’ll get into that. The movie is public domain now so can be found at the Internet Archive and various other websites. It’s also on Amazon.
The movie is directed by Anthony Mann, who directed T-Men a year previous in 1947. Mann has directed several Noirs, but the only other one i’ve seen is T-Men (and I liked it). The movie is written by Leopold Atlas and John C. Higgins (Higgins having also worked on T-Men) and stars Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt. O’Keefe was a Film Noir regular and the lead in T-Men. Claire Trevor was also a regular to the genre having appeared in the likes of “Murder My Sweet” (1944) and “Key Largo” (1948). The film also features a key role for Perry Mason/Ironside star Raymond Burr in one of his earliest appearances.
I Want To Breath.
The movie starts with Joe Sullivan (O’Keefe) in prison having taken the fall for some unspecified crime. He is visited first by his good intentioned legal caseworker Anne (Hunt) and then by his girlfriend Pat (Trevor), who quietly informs him of the plans to bust him out, supposedly assisted by his partner in crime Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr) who had promised him $5000 as his share for taking the fall for the crime. Rick however doesn’t expect him to escape and is hedging his bets on him getting gunned down.
Joe does escape however and decides to hide out with Pat at Anne’s apartment before heading out of town and to his meet up with Coyle and to his eventual escape from America via boat. Unfortunately for him though Coyle has no play of paying up and instead plans to send his henchmen to kill him. Through all this Anne, initially kidnapped by the pair starts to fall for Joe. Pat notices this and reacts bitterly, though when Annes life is threatened by the gangsters she must decide if she loves Joe enough to tell him about the situation or have it forever on her conscience and never know if he truly loves her.
This Is What He Wanted.
This is a traditional film noir with tragic characters and an air of fatalism. Joe was a good person once, but allowed himself to be broken down by life and found himself in a life of crime. But even as a criminal he he was willing to take the fall for others, true there was meant to be money in it for him but that is upstanding for a criminal. However, he yearns for freedom and this likely reflects the attitude that lead him to a life of crime in the first place. Feeling trapped where he was and not able to get ahead. But the loyalty he showed Coyle was repaid with treachery and violence. Such is the fate of criminals in the 1940’s. On a side note, Raymond Burr is a real scene stealer in this movie, it’s a shame his appearances are all so brief.
Claire Trevor’s Pat is a tragic character too and this is presented to us mostly through her voice overs, which are admittedly a little strange mostly due to the use of a Theremin whenever she does it. I am probably too used to the instrument being used in horror and science fiction so it makes her narrative sound a little otherworldly. However her words are one of a woman that is desperately in love but seems to know deep down, even from the start that it will never really work out. When faced with her final choice of going away with Joe and living a lie or admitting the truth and probably sending him to his death she opts for the later. Not an easy decision, but her final voice over suggests she felt it was always going to end this way.
I Never Asked For Anything Safe.
Anne is a bit of a strange character. From the start she sees the good in Joe and it is why she was so keen to work on his case. Throughout the film she moralises about the situation and admonishes Joe for taking the short cut of crime instead of being brave enough to go straight. But despite her complaints she comes to Joe’s rescue when the assassins pull their trap and she then confesses to Joe that she loves him.
Having been kidnapped by him earlier it’s not the best part of the story, suggesting a bit of Stockholm syndrome and perhaps a bit of a silly crush she had before she even got to know him. But she is there because Joe needed someone good to believe in him. Pat by contrast was an enabler for his life of crime and was never going to stand in his way. Indeed, she couldn’t even do it to save his life.
Life Begins With 50G’s
The plot itself moves rapidly and doesn’t waste much time filling in the blanks, like you never find what exactly it is that Joe did, instead we move frantically from location to location with the group nearly being caught at each one to keep the tension up. One key moment involves another man fleeing the police and coming to the same hideout that Joe is at. Joe takes pity on him but ultimately he gets gunned down in front of the house. This doesn’t drive on the story so much as it does the characters and of course teases Joe being captured to keep tension high.
That tension basically drives the entire movie. On one side you have the police trying to capture Joe and on the other the criminal gang that helped break him out, planning to kill him to avoid paying him his cut. The audience knows right away that he will be betrayed so we spend the whole movie waiting for Joe to meet his end at the hands of one group or another and that is about as Film Noir as you can get. Eventually Joe finds an amount of redemption before meeting his end which is about as happy an ending as he was ever going to get (Partially because of the genre, but also of course the Hays code).
Conclusion
The movie has suffered visually and socially due to deterioration of film. It’s worth noting the movie is public domain and while that means it’s easy to find a copy to watch it also means no one has really invested much time over preservation or restoration. Sadly this is quite common with Film Noir, especially for ones from the 1940’s. Still, it’s not as degraded as “The Red House” was and it’s not too difficult to see things in the darker scenes. That’s good because the film features a lot of classic Noir light and shadows, pretty typical lighting and cinematography for the genre, though with the odd flurry of creativity. Some parts work, some not so much.
Overall this is an above average Noir. Quality wise it’s not in the conversation for “best”, but it may be for quintessential. Thematically, there aren’t many movies that nail the genre so perfectly. It’s not a greatest hits like “The Big Combo”, it’s more of a template. If it wasn’t for the degraded film quality this would be a great genre primer. As it is, it’s probably not a good choice for a first noir but it’s definitely worth checking out. This just about hits 6.5/10. Had the audio/video quality not deteriorated this would be a 7, but as always I have to rate for what it is now, not what it may have been back in the day.
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