The Verdict (1946)

Directed by Don Siegel; produced by William Jacobs

Detective Superintendent Grodman (Sydney Greenstreet) returns to Scotland Yard after reluctantly attending the hanging of a man he had arrested for murder. He almost immediately learns that the prisoner was, in fact, innocent, as proven by new evidence. Goodman is sacked, and his hated rival, Buckley (George Coulouris), replaces him. But soon, Buckley is facing criticism over an unsolved homicide, and turns to Grodman for help.

What seems at first to be an intriguing and atmospheric mystery degenerates quickly - once one applies some thought to the components. The story could have devoted more consideration to the the case over which Grodman is fired. After all, as soon as he returns to his office after the hanging, he is confronted by the police commissioner (Holmes Herbert), who berates him over the circumstantial evidence that led to the execution - though surely the commissioner should have intervened before this, if he thought the case faulty. Grodman later - also without much proof - uncovers the original murder’s real perpetrator, though common sense should have led to the killer in the first place.

Further, Buckley’s character is more incompetent than any official detective Conan Doyle devised; Lestrade was at least a workman-like plodder. A good writer would have made such an unsympathetic character as Buckley a better policeman without abdicating his wrong-headedness. Such a stupid man might be found in broad farces, but has no place in more realistic mysteries. And the motive to the crimes in the film would have been almost clever if it hadn’t been polluted by several unnecessary red herrings.

The story was adapted from a novel by Israel Zangwill, an Englishman born in 1864, so he would have been familiar with Victorian Britain as a matter of course. Yet, there is something inauthentic about the setting (London, 1890) that suggests whatever innate atmosphere the original had was diluted by Peter Milne’s screenplay. The depiction of a music hall is entirely a 1940s night-club in earlier garb, and the notion that a police superintendent would live in the same street as a member of Parliament, and belong to the same club, is quite a stretch.

Interestingly, the costumer (Travilla, the man who put Marilyn Monroe in a potato sack) seemed to know more about the era and place than anyone else. The police sergeant Grodman speaks with outside Newgate Prison has the crested helmet of the City of London Police (distinct from the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard)), since the prison was in the City. Later, a constable is seen outside Scotland Yard, wearing an i.d. number beginning with ‘A’, the letter of the division that did indeed police the immediate vicinity of the famous headquarters. It’s too bad the film’s scriptwriter didn’t follow Travilla’s example in research.

It is always fun to see Greenstreet and Peter Lorre working in the same movie; I believe they were in nine pictures together. But they don’t have the verve created by a fine script to work from, and neither seems entirely thrilled with his work, though it in fact is good. Mediocre Greenstreet is more entertaining than most other actors’ best.

The Verdict is a movie that has promise in its opening, but quickly loses its potential in its execution. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie is that it is the first feature directed by Don Siegel, and quite different from the work for which he is famous.

Undertow (1949)

Directed by William Castle; produced by Ralph Dietrich

Tony Reagan (Scott Brady) was a small-time member of the Chicago Mob until he joined the army for seven years, much of it spent in combat. The experience turned him away from any thoughts of crime, and onto a ‘little piece of Heaven’: a hotel in the Nevada mountains. Coming back to Chicago to whisk his girlfriend (Dorothy Hart) off to join him, however, proves to be a mistake: his former boss is killed and Reagan’s framed for the deed. Now, both the cops and the gangsters are after him - and he’s after the real killer.

Before he became infamous for low-budget ‘horror’ films, William Castle was directing enjoyable B-movie winners like Undertow. This is the third film of his in this genre I have seen, and the third I’ve liked. Castle makes good use of location, starting with Reno (I’m always surprised when gambling or resort cities have districts that look ‘normal’, like New York or Los Angeles) and ending with Chicago. There are some tense moments that are effective.

Brady, somewhat resembling a later generation’s Ray Liotta, is a sympathetic hero, giving his character a suitably light-hearted optimism at the beginning, and a confusion just as fitting later on. The other actors are largely unknown but, as can be the case with the many forgotten small-timers, give good performances.

Peggy Dow plays the perhaps obligatory woman to whom the hunted protagonist turns for help. Interestingly, she was in nine films in three years, then retired upon marrying an Oklahoma oil tycoon, and devoted much of her life thereafter to philanthropy. The only other familiar name is Rock Hudson’s, though here it’s spelled ‘Roc’ (like the mythical bird; he was wise to change it). He has a bit part, though it’s his first credited role.

What is particularly attractive is the story and the script. It’s rare that clever detective work comes into play in lower-grade film noir, but the sharp wits of Reagan’s childhood pal turned cop (Bruce Bennett) are impressive. This leads to an exciting conclusion with a satisfying climax. As well, it’s good to see that the effects of a beating and a bullet wound cannot be shrugged off by every hero in an old movie.

Undertow is not excellent by any means but is nonetheless a fine little film noir with good pacing, direction, acting and writing. (Even so, a rewarding field of study by film-buffs might be the number of crime movies or thrillers that have titles with nothing to do with the story. The closest this one comes to any kind of under-tow is showing Lake Michigan.)

WarGames (1983)

Directed by John Badham; produced by Harold Schneider

High school slacker David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) lives for computers. He’s recently discovered the pleasures of hacking into others’ systems. Along with his new friend Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy), he attempts to cut into the computer of a game company, in order to play their new game ahead of its public release. While group-dialling a large collection of telephone numbers through his modem, in order to find the company’s number, he accidentally connects with an unidentified computer that offers a selection of games. He chooses the exciting-sounding Global Thermonuclear War. What David doesn’t realise is that he has hacked into NORAD’s master computer. What no one realises is that the computer doesn’t know the difference between games and reality.

An exciting and fun thriller from the early days of personal computers, WarGames holds up very well as a movie, despite depending on technology that rapidly became dated. The story has a good anti-war message and, though one of its central characters is a computer, it is not really about technology and its take-over of decisions that should come from humans. This isn’t The Forbin Project. Rather, the computer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), is a stand-in for a completely unemotional entity who looks at war objectively and remorselessly. This makes both the tension and the conclusion more forceful.

The story is better than the script. The characters the latter creates are not deep, though the two leads are given greater scope than the adults. The latter are fairly stock, especially David’s parents, who are the dummies that parents seemed to have been reduced to in movies aimed at adolescents in the 1980s. As well, the conflict between McKittrick (Dabney Coleman), who believes electronics can replace people in decision-making, and Beringer (Barry Corbin), the general who is dubious of computers, gives an acceptable but black-and-white debate, though, except for some language, it is no different than what one might find in young adult fiction.

More thought is put into the character of Stephen Falken (John Wood), the inventor of WOPR, though his decision to help David and Jennifer, after first expressing acquiescence in a possible nuclear war, is sudden, and its cause can only be surmised.

David’s escape from custody in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex looks to be rather too easy, beginning with breaking out of a locked room á la McGyver, then slipping out of the base all together. This too is on the level of a story aimed at fun-loving young adults.

These criticisms might suggest that there is more wrong with WarGames than there is that’s right; this would be erroneous. The direction is very good and keeps the pace going. The climax is invigorating and satisfying, and the lesson given is both fitting and sensible.

The acting makes up for a lot. Broderick and Sheedy are convincing as teenagers basically wanting a good time but rather scared of the consequences of their actions once they see what has occurred. It’s not always easy to show people on the watershed between two phases of their lives, but the performers do well. Coleman is the sort of impatient, snide character he claimed as his own in the ‘80s and Corbin started working on his stock character about this time, too. Also appearing in small roles are John Spencer, Michael Madsen, James Tolkan, Maury Chaykin and an uncredited William H Macy.

Though the story of WarGames is slight, the execution and the resolution are successful, and contribute to making the film a thriller aimed at younger people, but enjoyable for their elders as well.

(For those who like trivia, it may be noted that the characters Falken and Beringer were inspired by (rather than based on) the physicist Stephen Hawking and General James Hartinger, respectively. At one time NORAD used a computer for war-game strategies; its acronym was BRGR. WarGames’s computer was called WOPR, which, after all, is a brand of BRGR.)

The Wages of Fear (a.k.a. Le Salaire de la Peur (1953))

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot; produced by R Borderie and H G Clouzot

In an isolated South American village dominated by an American oil company, four men are seeking ways out. Mario (Yves Montand) is a French ex-patriate, dreaming of Paris; Jo (Charles Vanel) is a big talker with big plans; Bimba (Peter Van Eyck) ekes out a living as a driver; Luigi (Folco Lulli) is a dying man who wants to go home to Calabria. For a small fortune each, they are hired by the oil company to transport nitro-glycerine in trucks over crumbling mountain roads, decrepit bridges and treacherous mires, a route of which every mile could be their last.

The Wages of Fear is a fine cinematic work on a number of levels. The most obvious is that it is an exciting, often tense, drama. It can’t really be called an action movie, since much of the suspense comes from inaction, or at least, slow action. It’s also a drama of characters, showing their personalities despite giving very little information about them. Lastly, and fittingly most vaguely, it is a cynical essay on life.

The direction is first-rate, though that is not immediately apparent. The beginning is slow, as it depicts the characters and their desperate situations. But the viewer sees story-telling in the direction. For instance, in a scene in which Mario and Jo are discussing conditions in the village, they walk and talk through searing heat, downpours, dust-storms, all illustrating what they must put up with, while narrating their predicament with words.

But when the journey to the wells begins, Clouzot’s talent becomes more evident, because he has to show that the men are constantly in danger, yet cannot stress it all the time. Indeed, such is the journey that there are numerous hazards aside from the obvious, and these are handled so well that one forgets that there is still the nitroglycerine to worry about.

The script makes clear that none of the four men is safe; when Bimba hits on a plan to use the explosives to blow away a huge boulder blocking the road, the audience has no idea whether it will succeed or, if it does, if someone will be killed anyway. In this, the writing takes a fatalistic approach: a man’s skill can help him only so far. Luck plays a bigger part, and random chance the biggest. Some events occur the causes of which are never known. This isn’t contrivance; it’s the way life is sometimes.

The film does have weaknesses. The needless sub-plot, if it can be termed that, featuring Mario’s apathetic relationship with his girlfriend, Linda (Véra Clouzot), is a distraction more than anything else, and was likely included to give a rôle to the director’s wife. (His brother also contributed, more productively, by co-writing the script under the pseudonym Jérôme Géronimi.) The denouement is more ironic than realistic.

The faults in The Wages of Fear are few, and are amply overwhelmed by the merits of the movie. A film filled with slow, creeping tension, rather than overt scares, The Wages of Fear is rightly considered a superb thriller.

The Naked Prey (1965)

Directed and produced by Cornel Wilde.

In 1890s Africa, a hunting party encounters a group of natives who demand a small payment for passage through their territory. The party’s guide (Cornel Wilde) sees it as a reasonable and customary request, but his client refuses, treating the natives with contempt. Offended, the natives attack the party at camp, and inflict punishments on the hunters and their bearers. The guide, saved for the last, is given the chance to run for his life, hunted like the animals his clients had killed.

The Naked Prey is a very literal entry in the man on the run genre, which pits an intelligent character against equally intelligent characters. It’s the best of the eight movies directed by actor Wilde, and, despite some slow sequences, manages to keep a good level of tension and excitement throughout. This is assisted by the rather horrifying tortures inflicted on the hunting party, and by the time and effort devoted to the personalities of the guide’s pursuers. Though their language is not accompanied by sub-titles, the acting and direction makes clear their own stresses and conflicts.

Also to be noted are the director’s messages depicted in scenes of nature. Numerous sequences show the brutality and ruthlessness of nature, animals fighting each other for survival. Interestingly, though the hunters are ‘shooting ivory’, the director makes it clear what he thinks of such activities, even using just a single still image to get his point across.

The acting is commendable. Wilde was a long-established player by this time, and well-respected. Ironically, therefore, though his performance is good, the actors who play his pursuers are the more interesting, particularly their leader (Ken Gampu, near the beginning of a long and successful cinematic career). His obsession with catching his prey becomes as dangerous to his fellows as does their quarry.

The dialogue is kept to a minimum, restricted mainly to the opening scenes featuring conversations between the guide and his client (Gert van den Berg), to show what they are like. There is also some talk between the guide and a little girl (Bella Randles); the two save each other’s lives but can’t communicate through words because each doesn’t comprehend the other’s language.

Also shown are the differences in native culture between the primitive interior tribe and the more advanced villagers closer to the coast. That disparity brings its own drama, inadvertently involving the fugitive in added danger. (It’s clear too that Wilde performs his own stunts; just running shows that he was in excellent condition for a man in his early fifties.)

A simple story, along the lines of The Most Dangerous Game, The Naked Prey is a straightforward, exciting movie, with surprising character development.

(Though the opening narration suggests the story takes place in the 1860s, the clothes, rifles and headgear of the Europeans indicate a later decade, and the British fort, Arab slavers, and the mention of Swahili place it in eastern Africa, though it was filmed in southern Africa.)

Hunt the Man Down (1950)

Directed by George Archainbaud; produced by Lewis J Rachmil

A heroic defence of his work-place during an armed robbery puts a diner’s dish-washer (James Anderson) on the front page. Unfortunately, his picture is recognised as that of Richard Kincaid, a man put on trial for murder twelve years previously. He had escaped custody before the trial’s completion. Now re-captured, he insists that he is innocent, and it’s up to the public defender, Paul Bennett (Gig Young) to make the jury see that.

An enjoyable aspect of choosing to watch a movie based on nothing more than a one-sentence synopsis, or on who acts in it, is the chance of finding an unexpectedly good film. Hunt the Man Down is one of them. Despite the title that makes it seem like an entry in the ‘fugitive’ category of film noir, the subject of the story is already in jail. What needs hunting is the real killer, one of seven suspects from a dozen years before. Thanks to a good script and direction, Hunt the Man Down delivers a lot of entertainment in its 69 minutes.

The running time is one of the few complaints the audience may have with the movie. Usually, a short and lean length is an asset to a b-movie. In this case, another twenty minutes or so would have been an advantage. The seven suspects, first seen in flashback, are a diverse lot and might confuse the viewer since little time is devoted to the characters. We get to know them better in the present, but, not having the luxury of being able to match in every case name to face - and some having changed subtly in the meantime - the audience has to catch up with recognition as the movie goes.

This is really the only difficulty with Hunt the Man Down. A minor problem is that during the flashback scene, taking place in 1938, the characters’ clothes are no different than those of the present.

Gig Young, future Oscar-winner, is very good as the public defender, though one doubts that such an official would, in real life, have the time to play detective, even if his department’s investigators are already fully occupied. To help, Bennett brings in his father (Harry Shannon), a one-armed former cop. Their interaction is natural and, at times, humorous, and they would have made a good pairing in a tv series.

James Anderson’s most noted rôle would be that of the nasty Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird, by which time Anderson’s face had become fuller and he resembled a later generation’s Robert Loggia. Also in the cast of Hunt the Man Down is his actress sister, Mary Anderson. Contrastingly, James died at 48, an end described variously as being due to a heart attack or to barbiturate poisoning. Mary lived to be 96. Both give creditable performances here. In fact, given the relatively short extent of their time on screen, most of the cast provides fine vignettes of their characters, a poignant one given by Willard Parker.

The French-born director keeps the pace going, his conversations - and in a mystery like this, most scenes largely comprise talking - concise and to the point, though he manages to throw in a short car-chase that is relevant. Archainbaud, who was responsible for some very good work, later turned to westerns and television, being associated with Gene Autry.

Hunt the Man Down is a low-budget winner, another example of how talented people can make the most out of the least.