I post reviews (here) of Film Noir movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age of Noir, the 1940s and 1950s. I write as an amateur film noir enthusiast, but not an authority as such.

Maybe, like me, you are looking to enjoy films that are different, or of a different era. Films you may not have seen, ones encompassing cynical detectives, seductive femme fatales, flawed sidekicks all tossed together into intricate plots. Not forgetting the snappy dialogue too.

Backstory: Film Noir has its roots in German expressionist cinematography and American crime fiction. During the 1930s Hollywood became a perfect storm of film artists fleeing the threat of Nazi Germany, emigrating to America, and specifically to the Film studios of Hollywood. This included great directors such as Fritz Lang, Jaques Tourneur, Michael Curtiz and Robert Siodmak.

This new dramatic visual style combined with American hardboiled crime stories (noir fiction), emerged during the Great Depression and produced many classic noirs. Some of these writers include: Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Jim Thompson and Mickey Spillane.

I hope to showcase some of these memorable noir movies here for you. And advance apologies for a mixture of British and US English occasionally. I have applied the link below, to the Amazon.com DVD of today’s featured film. (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases).

Inspired by hardboiled detective stories and film noir, I have written the Sterling Private Investigator Series, set in present-day London. I have also posted a link to my books at the bottom of the page.

Today’s film is: 

Raw Deal

USA link DVD: https://amzn.to/4jH1I6C  Blu-ray DVD: https://amzn.to/3PUg8Co

UK link DVD:  https://amzn.to/3Ea6lWl    Blu-ray DVD: https://amzn.to/4azckjD

“Would you wait three years for me?”

Film Studio: Eagle-Lion Films 1948/B&W

Director: Anthony Mann

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Alfred DeGaetano

Story: Arnold B. Armstrong, Audrey Ashley

Screenplay: Leopold Atlas, John C. Higgins

Produced by: Edward Small

Main Actors: Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt

Run time: 79 minutes

Preview

Courtesy of Britannica:

Anthony Mann (born June 30, 1906/07, San Diego, California, U.S.—died April 29, 1967, West Berlin, West Germany) was an American film director. A poet of action and retribution in the old American West, Mann has long been recognized as an example of the kind of director auteurists love: one who offers stories with recurring themes, whose protagonists share a common psychology, and whose visual techniques are recognizable as his signature. However, the 1950s westerns that earned him a place in film history are supplemented by equally significant movies in other genres.

Raw Deal was a success at the Box office when it came out. Considered to be the finest of Anthony Mann’s noir movies. Mann also directed the film, He walked by Night (1948), a film shot in a semi-documentary style.

Synopsis

Raw Deal begins at the state prison gates as the narrator, Pat Regan (played by Claire Trevor) arrives and begins her story: “… This is the day, the last time I shall drive up to these gates. These iron bars that keep the man I love locked away from me. Tonight, he breaks out of these walls. It’s all set: 11.30 p.m. That’s the word I’m bringing him. I don’t know which sounds louder, my heels or my heart…”

When Pat checks in with the guard, she learns that her boyfriend, Joe Sullivan (played by Dennis O’Keefe), has another visitor. The visitor – a female – Ann Martin (played by Marsha Hunt), exits after a while, catching Pat’s attention. Temporarily putting any jealousy aside, she tells Joe that tonight is the night of the breakout, his flight to be facilitated by his former accomplice in crime, Rick Coyle (played by Raymond Burr). The action switches to the mobster in question. A colleague asks why he is helping to spring Joe from prison, particularly as he crossed him on the Spokane-Mills job. “He’ll be gunnin’ for you,” he adds. Rick fleetingly brushes a cigarette lighter flame under the man’s ear for his own amusement.

“Tell me,” Rick asks, “What’s the percentage of a guy getting out of a cell without getting cut down. One in a 1000? Good, so that gives him 999 chances of him being cut down.” Rick doesn’t want to pay Joe his $50,000 dollar share (by way of non-collection). Cynical.

At the appointed time, Pat waits in a getaway car outside the prison walls. Suddenly we see a man (Sullivan) running along the rooftop, sirens sound and guards start shooting. The escaping figure jumps into the car. As she drives, she tells Joe they have a sailing booked to Panama in three day’s time. Though, after a few minutes the car splutters to a halt; the fuel tank has been sprinkled with bullets. Their getaway is dead in its tracks.

Aware of a traffic dragnet cast, Pat and Joe will have to wait it out… Next, we see a taxi pull up to the home of Ann Martin (triangle alert!)… The taxi driver is in the back (dead or unconscious). They go inside. If Pat wasn’t aware before, she now senses the attraction between Joe and Ann. Besides, of all the places… but they need a hideout for those three days. So, she has to suck it up.

The police have soon discovered the taxi outside and they run out the back in her car and escape. Ann Martin tries to persuade Joe to give up but he forces her to flee with them. On the road, they steal a car and make a switch, evading an arrest at a checkpoint. Meanwhile, the sadistic Rick realises that Joe has beaten those odds (of escaping) and orders to have him killed. Joe is scheduled to meet up with a man called Fantail (played by John Ireland) but realising it is a set-up, and a hit, a fight breaks out… and Ann uses a gun to save Joe’s life.

Joe calls Pat, telling her to drive out to meet them, the two women switching, and freeing Ann. Later, about to take that boat passage, Pat takes a phone call alerting them that Rick has captured Ann. Pat does not tell Joe and they make their way to the boat. Finally, she has what she wanted…

Things to like

The introductory narration (and occasionally throughout the film) is a nice twist, being a female voice. We are accustomed to male narrators in film noir, and here, her voice tone works really well. Immediately too, we have an insight to the character of Pat Regan, and we know the stakes (the escape) and the motivation of the narrator (love). The unusual Theremin electronic music plays during the narrative which adds a menacing vibe which is sometimes found in sci-fi movies.

The Breakout. In the darkness, Pat Regan sits in her car with the engine running. Her grimaces and facial expressions allay any notions that this isn’t tortuous for her. But it does underline her motive. Oncoming car headlights and a passing train only add to her unease. It’s almost a relief when those prison sirens go off, the beginning of the end of that torment. Suddenly, the searchlights are swung in Sullivan’s direction and the guards are shooting to kill. The escape scene (of its time) is not particularly elaborate, but you suspect, it is one that is baked in reality, nonetheless.

The scene: late at night Joe sees Ann sitting out by the lake at their temporary hideout. “This is a perfect spot,” he says, “where guy meets gal. Moonlight, water, everything. Even the music.” (Ann): “Except I’m not the girl and you’re not the guy.” Ouch.

The boat deck is shrouded in an otherworldly layer of fog, soft lighting, and shadow, making this scene perfectly atmospheric. Onboard, Joe says, “In five or ten minutes, we’ll be pulling out.” But there’s no gangway being pulled up. In fact, in this surreal scene, it feels as if time has stopped still, only interspersed with Joe’s quiet philosophical musings about their future together. The wait and the tension is applied like a tightening bow line, and we’re starting to guess the reason why.

Quotes

Joe Sullivan: “I want to breathe. That’s why I want out of this place… so I can take a deep breath again.”

Must see scene

At the beginning of the film a visitor checks in with the guard at the state prison. Pat Regan is dressed as if in her Sunday best: a dark dress, a bonnet and wearing a face veil. There to see the love of her life: the incarcerated Joe Sullivan, she is informed he already has a visitor. Surprised, she takes a seat and waits patiently (but perhaps not happily).

The action switches to the parloir, where Ann Martin, the prisoner’s legal case worker sits across from him. The fetching visitor seems to have a connection (and attraction) to the inmate, and he even tells her not to wear her perfume again as it “doesn’t help a guy’s good behaviour.” We sense there may be a potential love triangle at play. Ann Martin (presumably, the second side of that triangle), encourages Joe to be patient and wait until his parole. His slate will be wiped clean.

“Would you wait three years for me,” Joe asks rhetorically. She stumbles over her answer (and perhaps in doing so, reveals her true feelings). “I didn’t mean you particularly,” he says (letting her off the hook), “any dame.”

Pat Regan eyes Ms. Martin suspiciously when she leaves, and finally gets to sit across from her man. Part in mock tones and part in annoyance Pat says: “A girl can’t even trust a guy even when he’s locked up in the pen.”

“Turn off the green lights,” Joe says. “You remember her.”

“How could I forget her? She practically sat in your lap all through the trial.”

This guy may have messed up his life up but he’s got something going on…

The scene efficiently introduces the three main characters, setting the film in motion: a fatalistic crook, and the two women who have become rivals for his affection. Their tangled feelings are already wrapped around them so tightly, that unravelling them is as unlikely as untangling a set of Christmas lights in a darkened attic. And you know, sooner or later, that attic floor is going to collapse from the strain…

Summary

A film that packs a punch with its protagonist (O’Keefe) having a score to settle, finely compounded by two contrasting women vying for his affections. The criminal, his moll and the plus-one, make Raw Deal a film full of deceit, disloyalty and distrust.

Joe Sullivan started life at an orphanage in the deprived area of Corkscrew Alley and has been unable to escape its hold on him. And as he says, he is, “something buried under a pile of rocks.” Claire Trevor is from similar (crime) stock and hopelessly in love with him. His redemption is left to Marsha Hunt, the naive third wheel, who wants to uncover him from those same rocks.

Raymond Burr is particularly compelling playing a cruel mobster with a penchant for cigarette lighters, lit flames and all things, fire. The photography (by John Alton) is dark, grey and moody and hits all the noir notes, or rather, lights.  And when I say, light, I mean dark, because this is a dark noir, with dark themes and dark scenes. It all adds up to a very well-acted, solidly plotted and visually stunning film. Full marks go to the director, Anthony Mann for this one.

USA Link: Film Noirs & Pullman Cars (paperback): https://amzn.to/42utdKu  (eBook): https://amzn.to/3PPpQpL

UK Link: Film Noirs & Pullman Cars (paperback): https://amzn.to/3WzL5j4   (eBook): https://amzn.to/4hvopZr