Dead Reckoning

Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1948) Notice the title in the poster—John Cromwell's Dead Reckoning, (as it is in the film's credits) indicating a special prominence. Producers don't allow the possessive credit (relinquishing some of their ownership, which they only do kicking and kvetching) unless the director is so powerful they can't refuse.

So, who's this John Cromwell?

We'll get to that; how's the movie? Well, it's Bogart—not looking too healthy and struggling with the material, although it's tailor-made for him...if measured a bit too tightly. But it's warmed-over Bogart, stale and picked from elements of Bogart movies past, with all the presentation of a Chef's Mess. And you know how it is when you get the last leavings of anything Bogarted: not only is there a feeling of disappointment, but also a feeling of resentment.

Things start off well enough: Bogie's a coming-home paratrooper with his buddy to receive medals for valor, but before they can exit the train, the buddy disappears, prompting Bogart's character to start a search to see what's at the bottom of it. The film is introduced by Bogart's character eluding the police, and ducking into a church where, in complete shadow, he makes a confession of sorts to a priest serving as a first-person narration. So far, so good. However, the narration, like the dialog, is as purple as can be, with tortured metaphors and a desperation to remind of Bogart's detective roles (the best of which were done—of course—without narration).* We're introduced to the buddy's wife, Carol "Dusty" Chandler (Lizabeth Scott, meant to evoke Lauren Bacall, no doubt, but more of a bleached, washed out version of her), a low-throated chanteuse at a club run by the mob—and although it's surely unintentional, you get the impression that she must be sleeping with the owner, as Scott can't sing well, even by Bacall's (or the young Andy Williams')** standards.

The movie lurches along with some fine shadow-play, photographically, but that's about it, and it ends with one big howler of a leaden line, meant to have deep meaning and import, but is merely typical of the dumb lines Bogie has to chew through. There are a lot of immortal lines associated with Humphrey Bogart: "Geronimo, baby" is not one of them. ***

So, who's John Cromwell and why was he given possession of this stinker of a movie?

John Cromwell was a well-respected actor, who was also put of the directing fast-track at Paramount Studios when he signed with them in 1928. He continued in his capacity as an actor throughout his career, winning a Tony Award in 1952 for "Point of No Return" and appearing in Robert Altman's 3 Women, and A Wedding late in life.

But forget Dead Reckoning for a moment. Look at some of the other films he directed: the 1930 version of Tom Sawyer, the Bette Davis-Leslie Howard version of Of Human Bondage, the Freddie Bartholomew version of Little Lord Fauntleroy, the Ronald Colman version of The Prisoner of Zenda, Algiers with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, Abe Lincoln in Illinois with Raymond Massey, Son of Fury with Tyrone Power, the "they also serve" war movie Since You Went Away, Anna and the King of Siam with Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne, the lurid Caged with Eleanor Parker. These are really good, and sometimes spectacular films made with a fine craftsman's hand.

So, why is John Cromwell not mentioned in the same breath as Hawks and Ford and the other film-makers of their generation?

The answer is simple. Cromwell was black-listed during the McCarthy era and his career seemingly thrown into a black-hole. Born in 1887, he was in his 60's when he filmed Paddy Chayefsky's The Goddess in 1958. He was still pushing the envelope of what could be brought to the screen at the tail-end of his career.

You might also know him as the father of actor James Cromwell.

Dead Reckoning aside, a re-evaluation and appreciation of his career as a pioneering film-maker is very much overdue.

 

* You'll also recognize lines and sentiments from The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not, and The Big Sleep. More than once, the film evokes a "Deja Vu" feeling: "Now, where have I heard a better version of that?"

** The story goes that Andy Williams, when he was a kid, dubbed in Bacall's singing voice for one of her movies, but I've yet to see any concrete evidence (and a lot denying it) that that was the case, and not some malicious gossip (Bacall got a lot of that).

 
*** I think you have to chalk this one up to that period of time between the acknowledgement of Bogart as a big box-office star, and studios trying to figure out what to do with him. The roles and writing became better once Bogart took charge of his career and formed his own production company.

The Informer (1935)

The Informer (John Ford, 1935) John Ford's first Academy Award for Best Director (of four, ultimately and specifically) was for this underdog of a movie that was a pet project for Ford. His studio, RKO, didn't like the idea; it had been filmed before without any box office success, and the "suits" worried that nobody would go see a depressing movie encompassing a "dark night of the soul" with an unsympathetic protagonist.

 

But, Ford promised to bring the film in on-time and on budget—20 days and $243,000—and was aided immeasurably by a joint conference of artisans (including composer Max Steiner, photographer Joseph H. August, set designer Van Nest Polglase and screenwriter Dudley Nichols) before any scripting was done. "This, to my mind", said Nichols "is the proper way to approach a film production-and it is, alas, the only time in 25 years I have known it to be done: a group discussion before a line of the script is written." Nichols wrote the first—and only—draft of the script in six days aboard Ford's schooner, The Araner.

It tells the story of a night in the life of "Gypo" Nolan (Victor McLaglen—who won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance), an Irish mug with nothing going for him. Out of work and kicked out of the IRA for not killing a targeted constabulary, he's more than a wee bit desperate and his mood is made any better when his streetwalker-girlfriend (Margot Grahame) trying to pick up a customer. He man-handles the "john" and only gets grief from Katie because she wants to get out of Ireland and just needs 10 pounds to book a steamer to the States. A chance encounter with Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) on the run from the Black and Tan and trying to make it home to his wife and sister, gives Gypo the idea that turning in his friend could solve all his problems; £20 could book passage to the States for both him and Katie Madden.

 

When the RIC go to his mother's house to arrest him, Frankie is killed while resisting arrest.

Gypo picks up his blood money from the contemptuous police and the first thing he does his buy a bottle of whiskey and tells a suspicious Katie that he got the money from rolling a sailor. But, at Frankie's wake, his drunkenness makes him less careful, spilling coins and handing pound notes to patrons, and the IRA begin to suspect that the newly-flush Gypo may not be so innocent after all, if only they can find the proof.

It is a through-line of Irish literature that desperation and temptation can turn a St. Peter into a Judas (because the Bible tells us so), and as twee and leprechaun-y as the culture can be, there is also the darkness of the guilt hangover, which can drive even the most self-righteous Irishman to his penitent knees. Director Ford knew full well the cycle, enjoying his grog and cursing his weakness, especially when he'd done someone wrong (and it was a tradition on a Ford set that every day one actor would be designated in "the barrel" for abuse—usually John Wayne whose complex father-son relationship with "Pappy" Ford made him a frequent target*). Then would come the regretful tears if reprimanded and the self-imposed penance of humiliation. And then...after a time...the cycle would start again. One reads Maureen O'Hara's autobiography ("Tis Herself," published in 2004) with horror regarding Ford's mood swings. "Love/Hate" are two sides of a coin, but despite that, it was currency that Ford's circle never wanted to toss.

It may be hard to understand. But, then one looks at the craftsmanship of The Informer, impeccably composed, draped perpetually in a fog of war, with its rawness of emotion and understand why his collaborators would always keep that lucky coin and never let it go. They knew, with Ford, they potentially could be doing their finest work, and doesn't one always suffer for art? Loyalty is, after all, earned (not given), but it is also a contract of endurance and the greatest and hardest lesson to learn of it is to whom you bestow its precious gift...and to whom it is valued. It is a trust and to betray it invites eternal damnation.

One watches The Informer contemplating these things and how life can inform art—the issues of loyalty and betrayal must have haunted Ford during this while he pushed for the project, making it personal, as if making a guilty trip to a confessional and paying some form of emotional penance.

 

For his part, when Ford was cooperative enough to provide an interviewer a straight answer, he would suggest that The Informer "lacked humor."

 

In 2018, The Informer was voted into The National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."

 

It has been reported that it is the favorite film of director Samuel Fuller.

 

St. Patrick's Day, 2022
 

 

* Ford was always in "command" of his sets and Wayne owed his career to Ford and suffered his humiliations out of respect for the "Old Man," even after tables had turned and Ford depended on Wayne's box-office draw to get projects made at the studios.

Freaks (1932)

Oh! It's October. Guess I should be paying attention to Horror films. 

Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)  During the pre-Code days, the director of Dracula was given an edict by Irving Thalberg of M-G-M to "outdo" Frankenstein and so produced this mind-blowing soap opera about dysfunction in a circus, with the ambition to show that "they" are as normal as "us" (even though that's hardly a three-ringing endorsement!). The film was deemed "exploitive," despite casting the human rarities as "good guys" and the venal "normals" as "bad guys," as folks couldn't get past the visuals and pay attention to what the film was actually saying. Thus, the film was banned in some countries for many years (and there are still probably some antiquated laws on the books in some U.S. states prohibiting the showing of it—in which case, tough luck TCM!)

We are introduced to the story in flashback as a carnival "barker" presents one particular exhibit, the story of it being what makes up the bulk of the movie. And despite the physical hardships of the various displays, the human rarities seem more concerned with the gossipy interactions, than with dealing with, or suffering, their handicaps. The mongoloids (called "pinheads") are happily in a family unit, the siamese twins are dealing with in-law problems (as well you could imagine), the half-man/half-woman sets him/herself apart from the others, eyeing in the various male/female conflicts by looking inward, and the midget couple are squabbling—he has eyes for the beautiful trapeze artist (but then, he's a social climber), while she has set her sights considerably lower.

Browning has measured, semi-respectful fun with the populace, saving his contempt for the true freaks at the circus—the angry strong-man and the high-flying trapeze artist. They're mean-spirited, wicked people out to exploit weakness—and there's a lot of it in this circus. The metaphor is pushed hard, the lessons imposed in a Grand Guignol style that climaxes in a thunderstorm when the oppressed take on their oppressors (there's one image that's particularly striking—Prince Randian "the Human Torso," born without arms and legs, unstealthily but menacingly approaches his intended victim with a knife between his teeth. One wonders if he can accomplish the task, but one is quite sure he will and it won't be pleasant, having seen how dexterously he opens a box of matches and lights his own cigarettes). Exploitative? Certainly. But it's also a radical statement of revolution meant to make the complacent less so, given the context with which the film operates—one only imagines an updated version for these times with the Strong Man berating the half-man for the "entitlement" of having arms (ignoring that he has no legs). A bizarre, though-provoking film—if one can get past the distractions up-front, and get into the tent where the real show is. 

  

T-Men (1947)

T-Men (Anthony Mann, 1947) "T-Men" stands for "Treasury Men" or agents for the Department of the Treasury. Before 9/11, they were just behind the FBI in terms of domestic crime investigation, dealing with tax fraud, counterfeiting, bootlegging, illegal arms, as well as housing the Secret Service. The ATF and the Service broke off in 2003 to be a part of Homeland Security, but at the time this film was made it was still all under one bureaucratic roof...and probably looking for some publicity.

Now, an FBI movie could get an A-list budget. But, T-Men was strictly a B-picture, consigned to the bottom half of what they used to call in the movies "a double-bill" (look it up, you kids), but it had the great good fortune to be directed by a young up-and-coming director named Anthony Mann, who'd made a name for himself directing low-budget films for RKO and Republic. Mann brought to the mix a brilliant cinematographer John Alton, and together, the two would craft some of the more interesting examples of "film-noir" in cinema.

But, Lordy, it doesn't start out well. After a brief introduction to the work of the Treasury Department by a stern announcer (who will serve as narrator for the film), there is an introduction by former Treasury Law Enforcement Head Elmer Lincoln Irey, who flatly introduces the film as a case-study from the annals of the Department. The only notable thing about the sequence is that it's filmed, not across at the former director, but at desk level looking slightly up, giving him a slightly more authoritative air—especially to audiences naturally looking up at a screen from theater seats. But, from there, the film takes a decidedly dark turn.

In a dark-Los Angeles-alley behind a stadium, there is a rendezvous in progress. A Treasury Agent is going to be meeting a snitch. But before he can reach him a figure comes out of the shadows (literally) and cuts the contact down. End of the road. End of the investigation. The Department needs to take another tack.

Two agents are called to Washington: Dennis O'Brien (Dennis O'Keefe) and Tony Genaro (Alfred Ryder), who are called upon to go undercover and infiltrate the gang of counterfeiters, who have been passing bills with a superior paper very similar in composition to that used in legitimate currency. They travel to Detroit posing as former members of a crime ring that have been subsequently killed, leaving no traces of contacts that might blow their cover. They manage to do enough research of their cover identities as "Vannie Harrigan" and "Tony Galvani" that they work themselves into a counterfeit liquor stamps business, getting a lead on an overseas smuggler of the paper, known as "The Schemer" (Wallace Ford). The two split up with O'Brien going back to Los Angeles tracking down The Schemer, while Genaro stays in Detroit and continues to make in-roads with the counterfeiters.

O'Brien manages to find The Schemer eventually, as he's a frequenter of turkish baths, and after several steams—"I think I lost eight pounds," he tells his superiors—he makes contact with the older hood and gains enough trust that he proposes a joint effort. If "Schemer" can provide the paper, he can provide engraving plates for currency far superior to what's making it into the streets. The Schemer, though, wants to make sure that O'Brien is legit and has two of the gang's enforcers, Moxie (Charles McGraw) and Brownie (Jack Overman) to work over the agent to try to determine why he's so interested in the business. O'Brien's failure to "crack" wins him and Genaro a visit to Schemer's boss "Shiv" Triano (John Wengraf), who is interested in the venture, but wants to run tests—O'Brien only turns over one of the plates and says he'll only deliver the other to Triano's boss, a shadowy figure that is never mentioned by name.

A chance encounter in San Francisco makes Schemer suspicious of Genaro, just as O'Brien gets to meet the next tier of command, Diana Simpson (Jane Randolph), who is suspicious of any betrayal. She orders a hit on both The Schemer and Genaro: The Schemer being roasted alive in a steam bath and Genaro shot in front of his partner, who can only stand and watch helplessly as Genaro implicates himself, taking suspicion off O'Brien, and is executed, gangland-style. 

But Genaro has been clever enough to leave O'Brien clues to where he can find The Schemer's coded notebook, which the agent turns over to his superiors, bringing them closer to cracking the case, even as O'Brien has to overcome greater suspicion, due to his closeness to Genaro.

He has one advantage, however, he still has the other engraving plate that the counterfeiters now want...very much. But, as he's being watched closely—too closely by the assassin, Moxie, he has to find a way to complete the transaction, with the added incentive of bringing the ring to justice and avenging his partner.

T-Men is filmed in that "semi-documentary" style popular in the 1940's whenever a studio wanted to lend an aura of verisimilitude to a story "based on a true story" (as they like to say these days) by using real locations whenever possible. However, no documentary, semi or otherwise, has been as artfully shot and lighted, here by Mann and his cinematographer John Alton, who make the photography as oppressive as it is beautiful, enveloping the government agents in precipitous angles, uncomfortably close close-ups, and an ever-encroaching darkness that seems to swallow them up in the frame. The danger is so visually palpable you can practically smell the sweat, with or without the benefit of steam-baths.

It's a fascinating portrait of professionals, good and bad, just "doing business" with a restraint of attitude in the "Dragnet" manner, but explodes into ferocity when the guns come out. In fact, there's an energy to the finale that almost has a supernatural "horror" quality to it, of implacable hate that pulses through the veins of wounded men, rather than blood. The darkness veils emotion throughout the movie—especially in the scene where O'Brien's hat-brim shadows his eyes after witnessing Genaro's murder—only the spare splashes and flashes of light betraying the character's inner thoughts and rages. Despite good restrained performances, there's almost no acting needed, when Mann and Alton are presenting all the drama in their choices of light and dark. T-Men is one of the greatest of film-noirs, of the forces of light trying to penetrate the darkness.