Alias Nick Beal (1949)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Alias Nick Beal (1949) – J. Farrow

Although Ray Milland plays the title character, a Mephistophelean political advisor to District Attorney Joseph Foster (Thomas Mitchell), the film really belongs to Mitchell who descends the slippery slope inherent in the Faustian bargain offered by Nick Beal. This is Goethe by way of political noir: should Foster run for governor on the back of his successful prosecution of a local gangster (facilitated by Beal)? Should he allow Beal to make a deal with another corrupt politician that will bring him the voting bloc he needs to win? Foster may think that becoming governor will enable him to do all the good he can but we can see the corrosive effect on his morals with each baby step in the wrong direction, goaded by Beal. Milland, who had already won the Best Actor Oscar three years earlier (for The Lost Weekend, 1945), plays Beal as a shadowy figure with strange eyes, always on the periphery of the scenes he is in. He plays harder with Donna Allen (Audrey Totter), a prostitute whom he refashions into a competent campaign assistant for Foster, who we think is also positioned to lead him into an affair. Throughout the film, the references to Beal as the devil incarnate proliferate but it’s difficult to know his game – does he seek only Foster’s soul, or a high-placed political leader that he can control? Director John Farrow (Mia’s dad) and cinematographer Lionel Lindon keep things suitably noir with lots of foggy locales. Mitchell seems genuinely torn and remorseful but the film either never becomes dark enough or the inevitable ending isn’t the right one (although it is pretty weird).