For my penultimate November Noir this year I’m checking out the very low budget B-Movie Noir “Crime Wave” from 1953 (1954 for the US). This is from director André De Toth (Pitfall) with a screenplay from Crane Wilbur. The movie stars Gene Nelson, with support from Phyllis Kirk, Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia and an early role for Charles Bronson (Credited as Charles Buchinsky, since it is before he changed his name). Sterling Hayden as the biggest star at the time got top billing despite his supporting role. Hayden would of course become an even bigger name in the years to come with films like “The Killers”, “Doctor Strangelove” and “The Godfather”.
Cops and Robbers.
“Steve Lacey” (Nelson), is an ex-con that has gone straight. He has settled down with his lovely wife “Ellen” (Kirk) and holds a pretty decent job despite his record. However, people who knew from his days of crime or his days in prison regularly hassle him and he struggles to truly escape his past. “Gat Morgan” (Nedrick Young) comes crashing into this, injured after he and two others were involved in a shoot-out with the police. Lacey refuses to get involved, but the wounds cause the man to die. The doctor Morgan had called arrives too late, but takes his pay out of the criminals suit before leaving.
Enter detective Simms (Hayden), a hard-nosed lieutenant that seems to have Lacey in his sights, assuming he will try and help his former convict friends, he sweats Lacey for three days in jail but eventually lets him loose. On returning home, the con finds ‘Doc’ Penny (de Corsia) and Ben Hastings (Bronson), his former colleagues, have invaded his apartment. Not only do they intend to hide out at Lacey’s they also want him to be their getaway driver for an ambitious bank job. With his wife as hostage he doesn’t have any choice but to cooperate.
Beating The Budget.
As I said in the introduction, this is a shoestring noir and so it’s not surprising there are times this is very noticable in the film. Two occasions in particular had horrendous dialogue delivery from a couple of bad actors, but both were minor characters and were easy to ignore not matter how obviously they are trying to remember their lines and speak them at the same time. It’s worth noting with low budget movies like this, there isn’t the luxury to reshoot every scene 100 times to make sure the take is spot on. So the acting may not be much worse than on a bigger budget movie, but there is no covering it up here. Even Sterling Hayden has a scene where the dialogue felt wrong in it’s delivery. Not actually bad like the other two events, but notably lacking the sleek delivery of the majority of his lines.
The cheapness isn’t all bad though. In many ways it makes the crime drama feel grittier and more realistic. It’s possibly the earliest film I’ve seen with something akin to “Shaky Cam” footage. Especially of note is the filming from inside vehicles, which really feels like a camera stuffed inside an actual car. It appears that they shot all the car footage on location, not using green screens. Indeed the final car chase actually follows a legitimate car route between the locations. One of the strengths of the film is how it utilizes heavy location filming with these more mobile camera techniques. They used a lot of genuine locations, and some, such as the veterinary practice, are still standing today (albeit with a different name). All told, I think they actually turned the lower budget into something positive here, and the film alone is worthy of praise for that.
Life And The City.
The characters are fairly one dimensional, even Steve Lacey who is a victim of circumstances for the entire movie. His more heroic actions aren’t the result of inner turmoil like was in the case of Dana Andrews character in “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, instead it’s just Lacey being Lacey. From the very start he’s firm in not wanting to have anything to do with the gang, but is forced to take part due to them using his wife as a hostage. Detective Lt. Simms is a very standard Haydn detective character. Hard-nosed, authoritative… frankly a bit of a dick, but unlike Haydn’s character in The Godfather he’s not corrupt and so ultimately figures out who are the criminals and who is the victim. This is played more as a heartwarming moment for the protagonist and his wife instead of a character moment for Simms. It does achieve what it was going for though, giving the movie a somewhat upbeat ending.
The story itself is straightforward, but compelling. It’s a classic noir in that regard, an ex con whose past is catching up to him. A character dragged into events, with seemingly no control of their own fate. This definitely provides the fatalism you expect in noir. The heavy use of location filming and the way way of presenting the city itself almost like a character is all part of the package of 50’s noir. Because of the guerrilla like filming style we get a bit of an unexpected visual treat with this in how authentic the city feels. This is the city as it is, the buildings in their naked stone… the people without makeup. That line is from “The Naked City” (1948), but as good as that movie was, this feels more authentic.
Conclusion
This is an interesting noir. It’s not the best plot, it’s not the best characters and it’s not got the best cinematography or soundtrack. But what it does have is buckets of creativity applied to making an effective film on a shoestring budget. To be fair, the rest is perfectly adequate and would probably land this film with a narrow 6/10. However, the uniqueness of this, the cleverness of how it deals with the budget restraints and the gritty feel all boost that up to a strong 6.5/10. Well worth checking out.
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