☆ ☆ ☆
99
River Street (1953) – P. Karlson
John Payne plays a washed-up boxer
driving a cab who catches his wannabe gold-digger wife with another guy. This sets the wheels in motion and the screws
gradually tighten on Payne in true noir style.
Turns out the other guy is a diamond thief who has trouble with his
fence and the fence’s tough guy assistant (played by noir stalwart Jack
Lambert) over Payne’s wife’s involvement in the heist. When she turns up dead, the cops come looking
for Payne. After having reality
literally ripped away from him in one crazy scene, he has to use his knuckles
to fight his way to the truth. Director
Phil Karlson knows his noir sets (see also Dark Alibi, Kansas City
Confidential, or The Phenix City Story) and he lays them all out for us here
(late night drug store, boxing ring, all-night café, waterfront, expensive
upper class apartment, neon lit or darkened streets of New York, and unusually
the Broadway footlights). Perhaps there
isn’t as much a sense of dread as in other 1950s noirs and perhaps Payne is a
little too wooden in the lead but for solid genre fare, look no further.
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