Red Light (1949)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041790/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

**** out of 5

"When you play solitaire, you can only beat yourself."

Roy Del Ruth produced and directed this film from a story by Don "Red Ryder" Barry.  The screenplay is written by George Callahan, who also did  several of charlie chan films (maybe that accounts for the otherwise unessential presence of Victor Sen Yung as a houseboy named Vincent?).

George Raft is Johnny Torno, the owner of Torno Freight Lines (24 hour services, the two-story high neon lights declare!).  He is tracking down the murders of his brother (Arthur Franz) an army chaplain recently returned to states from a P.O.W. camp.  Aiding in his search is Virginia Mayo, who he met in his search and learned was brother to one of Franz's fallen military comrades.

The film features lots of great character actors in colorful bit parts, from Gene Lockhart as Torno's business manager to Barton MacLane as a police investigator, to the likes of William Frawley, Stanley Clements, Leonard Bremen, Arthur Shields (Barry Fitzgerald's brother - as a priest, of course), a young Paul Frees, and noted showman Ken Murray as himself.

An opening scene of a prison yard full of convicts watching newsreels makes an effective and succinct set-up of plot and stakes, beginning with a reel showing Raft meeting his brother at his arrival stateside.  The camera tracks in to reveal Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan as two cons reacting to this footage from the projection booth.  It seems Raymond Burr was sent up for embezzling funds from Torno's business and carries a deep resentment against Torno for "ratting me out."   Because he has less time left in prison, the repulsive Harry Morgan character is offered payment (with those same funds) to kill Torno's brother and exact revenge for Burr, who will then have an alibi that allows him to further torment Torno when he is released from stir.

Torno finds his brother still alive long enough for the brother to tell him an enigmatic message about a message written in a Gideon bible (a classic example of Hitchcock's MacGuffin concept!), which Torno then hopes will help find the killer.  How the hunt pays off is a big part of what makes this a special entry in the noir cycle.

To begin with, any movie that brings a George Raft to shed tears is a pretty tough story. but it gets even more grim. Just watch the brutal way in which several characters meet their deaths, and you can see how unfairly overlooked this film is among the noir greats.  It is a sobering examination of  how
loss of an innocent brother causes Torno to embrace blind hatred that drives him to obsession in his efforts to bring about justice on own terms.  The film grapples with themes of revenge, forgiveness, and hope founded in faith, with a noted lack of cynicism toward religion which may partially account for this not being more widely revered as a great noir. Regardless on one's views on religion, though it should certainly be more recognized, as it is presents George Raft in one of his finest performances.

House of Strangers (1949)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041487/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

**** out of 5

"Got an appointment?"
"Yeah- for SEVEN YEARS!"

In this chilling family drama, Fate takes the form of Edward G Robinson, a powerful father figure, under the shadow of whose dark influence his 4 sons can't seem to escape, even after his death.

Joseph Mankiewicz directs with deliberation and exacting control of mood and structure, crafting a deep sense of oppressive atmosphere in the house where Robinson lives with his sons, this "house of strangers."

The sons are played by Ricard Conte, Efran Zimbalist Jr., Paul Valentine, and Luter Adler.  Each has their own way of coping of responding to their father's overbearing and self-important ways. Zimbalist is eager-to-appease, and sublimates his own identity into his father's plans. Valentine is a boxer, who nonetheless cows to his father's commands, but harbors deeply violent emotions.  Luter Adler is the oldest brother, resentful of his father's favoritism of Conte, the only one of the four who seems capable of going his own way.

But Conte, the central character of the tale, is the one who has the most challenging road to freedom.
His father has his life planned out just as the rest of the boys- he has a wife picked for him (Debra Paget), a corner office in the family bank out of which he can run his law practice, like a playhouse inside a family mansion, never truly his own man, despite all his claims to the contrary, including his daliaances with society girl Susan Hayward, who is really wants to be with.

When the family head faces a crisis, he turns to his sons to help him out, but only Conte is willing to stick his neck out.  The other three brothers quickly leap at the chance to lop it off.  He ends up in jail.  

Like many other noir dramas, much of the tale is told in flashback, as Conte, released from jail, explores the old family house alone in the dark and recollects the histories that those shadowy halls have seen.

How will he respond to the traitorous actions of his brothers?  Will he follow his father's footsteps of vendetta and eye-for-an-eye?  That seems to be the key question in the film.  Can we escape our past? Can the sons escape punishment for the sins of their fathers?   Esther Minciotti, who, as the wife of Robinson's character, delivers one of the film's most potent performance despite her few lines of dialogue, offers one heartbreaking possible answer in those questions. "Once I have a husband. I give him four sons. Now I have nobody.  No husband, and no sons."  Only in the film's final frames does another possibility emerge.

Cover Up (1949)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041263/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5

*** out of 5

Old Hollywood workhorse Alfred E Green directs an able cast in this unique noir film. The script appears to have been a group effort, with 4 names credited to the story. It is interesting to note that among these is the film's star Dennis O'Keefe, credited under the name Jonathan Rix, the first of 4 instances in which he worked on the stories of films in which he performed.

O'Keefe plays an insurance investigator (what else!), who goes to a rural midwest town to check up on an alleged suicide, to be sure it wasn't actually a murder, in which case a double indemnity clause would have applied, and the beneficiaries gotten twice the amount on his life insurance policy.

William Bendix is the sheriff in town, who seems to display an unusually casual reticence to help O'Keefe investigate the case.

Barbara Britten is a local girl who has arrived back in town the same time as O'Keefe.  The two take almost immediate mutual interest in one another, which sets up one of the central tensions of the story, when her father, a leading citizen (Art Baker), becomes one of the possible suspects.

The rest of the cast if filled out with interesting character parts like Doro Merande as the family's sardonic housekeeper, Anne Todd as the sassy teenage younger sister, Henry Hall as the town's mayor. and even a brief scene with John Ford repertory player Hank Wordon (credited as Wordon Norten) as a local undertaker.

The film crafts a noir portrait of the town that somehow manages to simultaneously challenge and affirm the notions of small town Americana, with the entire town in one way or another being complicit in the murder by their silent cover-up of the perpetrator.  Ultimate it seems to make the shocking conclusion that murder can be excused if it is a good man killing a bad. anyone up for a time travel trip to kill Baby Hitler?

Stage Struck (1948)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040832/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

** out of 5

This film begins with a slam-bang sequence that make you think for a few moments that maybe this will be better than the average Monogram noir, and for a little while it is, but there are several jarring shifts in tone (especially the music, which leaps wildly from tough, punchy stings to gently idyllic violin strains in a way that leaves the overall score sorely disjointed and unfocused),  The result is a quick collapse into an investigative drama that is unrealistically set-bound in a manner consistent with the standard of mediocrity for which Monogram achieved great renown.
It is unfortunate, as the cast contains several actors who are solid performers, and even turn in decent characterizations here.  Nagel particularly demonstrates the skills that made him so big in the silent era, with a refinement that shows he has managed to adapt well to sound over the intervening years.
This is not to say the film is a complete loss.  there are moments of genuine tension, and the resolution of the plot, if a bit forced, is satisfactory.

Incident (1948)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041508/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

** out of 5

Incident is another William Beaudine quicky, lacking polish, but the central mystery is at least marginally engaging enough to keep it from being too boring.

Warren Douglas is Joe, who, as the odd Pete Smith-esque narration informs us, "could've gone back and let Bill drive him home, but if he has, we wouldn't be telling this story."

He gets mistakenly beaten up in an alley walking home from an evening with friends, and gets drawn into trying to figure out who did it to him and why.  In an odd bit of casting, Knuckles Morgan, the thug who mistakenly delivered the beating, is played by short, round, bespectacled, raspy voiced character actor Meyer Grace.

They man he was supposed to have given the working over is a shady character known only as "Slats," played with wild-eyed dangerousness and unsavory demeanor by Robert Osterloh.

Jane Frazee has perhaps the most interesting role as a girl who is suspiciously eager to help Joe find the gang behind his beating.  Interesting, because she turns out to be probably the smartest character in the film, and no wonder, when we learn that she is actually a gun-toting female insurance investigator on the trail of the gang for some fur robberies.

Her character's intelligence and quick thinking are a unique surprise in such a formulaic no-budget quickie, especially when compared with the more typically empty-headed female type in the film, played by Joyce Compton with such gratingly shrill denseness that one is almost inclined to agree with her husband Bill when he suggests she shut up.

Mystery in Mexico (1948)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040631/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

Director Robert Wise keeps things moving in this brief 67-minute film.  It's playful fun that never seems especially serious, but has enough mystery to keep the audience entertained for its brief runtime.
William Lundigan is our Insurance investigator hero who is amusingly inept at times, but likeable enough that he is believable in the role and his relationship to the love interest in the case, played with wit and charm by Jacqueline White (notably of the Narrow Margin and Crossfire, and still alive today). Ersatz latin actor Ricardo Cortez is reliably suave and menacing in equal parts as the villainous club owner with the side business in stolen goods.

Race Street (1948)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040719/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

"What a coincidence."

George Raft stars as a bookie who wants to go straight.- if fate will let him.  William Bendix is the plainclothesman police lieutenant who is Raft's childhood friend, and who is the narrator introducing and wrapping the film. Marilyn Maxwell plays the girl for whom Raft has decided to go straight, but who may be more than she seems.

Henry Morgan plays a mutual friend of both Raft and Bendix, a gimpy guy who's had it rough, working the same underworld as Raft.  When he is brutally bumped off for refusing to join the organization of a big time operator who's moving in on everyone in town, Raft's plans to go straight may be on hold while he seeks the ones responsible, who are led by a gangster who is played with surprising toughness by Frank Faylen.

Gale Robbins is Raft's sister, a nightclub singer, who, in addition to spicing the film up with a couple of genuinely catchy tunes, fills the role of the REAL "good girl" character fighting to save Raft from his darker side.

The plot is full of all sorts of dramatic doublecrosses, including one spectacularly cold twist that is a particularly gutwrenching reveal to the audience and a painful blow to Raft.  The film is also peppered by moments of humor that give some nice emotional dynamics to the film,