☆ ☆ ☆
Desperate
(1947) – A. Mann
Early film noir from Anthony Mann that
contains some great moments (for example, a swinging overhead light that
alternatingly reveals the bad guys and casts them into darkness) although the
happy ending shakes off a bit too much of the desperation that a fully-fledged
noir would leave intact. Typical of the
genre, Mann places the innocent hero into a tough position, caught between the
cops and the gang, and having to flee with his pregnant wife from both. En route to the conclusion, things get rather
picaresque but Raymond Burr, the chief heavy, keeps coming and coming. It’s not
clear whether our hero did anything wrong (in needing to make money so badly)
or whether it’s just the fickle finger of fate that laid in wait for returning
servicemen of all moral persuasions – but this guy doesn’t deserve the things
that happen to him. Mann would go on to
make a few more, darker, noirs and then a string of really great dark westerns
with a morally ambiguous Jimmy Stewart.
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