Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

No doubt Virginia Mayo is a classy, beautiful dramatic actress. In this film she plays a young woman named Carla North. Ms. North is attempting to make a living working the nightclub circuit going to where the jobs paid sufficiently to provide her food and shelter. By a series of of unfortunate but not related incidents the owner of a large freight company named Johnny Torno (played by George Raft) is trying to solve the mystery of a missing motel bible that his recently murdered brother while taking his last dying breath alludes to will solve who murdered him in that motel room. Johnny Torno then finds Carla North who happened to be in that same room shortly after his brothers murder. After eliminating Carla North as a suspect he engages her to work with him in finding out the current location of the other motel room customers who may have stolen the motel room bible that his brother said provides the only clue to his murder.So big brother Johnny ignores his freight company responsibilities and with the help of the motel bellhop and the beautiful Carla North finds out who subsequently rented that same motel room over the next week in an effort to find out who took that bible that is the key to solving his brothers mysterious death and murder.I am sure you noticed that I rated this film a dismal 3 out of 10. The 3 points are all attributed to the classy Virginia Mayo who plays Carla North, as well as to actor Raymond Burr who plays the recently released convict Nick Cherney. Cherney served his time in prison for fudging Johnny Torno's books and embezzling funds from the Torno Freight company. So the big burly bad convict Nick Cherney sought vengeance from Johnny Torno for putting him behind bars and what better way to seek vengeance than to have Johnny Torno's little priest brother whacked by his cellmate Rocky (Harry Morgan aka Dragnet's detective Bill Gannon) who was being released from prison before he was.This film noir is an okay time waster except for the fact that the so called male star of this film, Johnny Torno, played by the cardboard acting emotionless little George Raft kept sinking the film every time he opened his mouth and/or moved across the black and white screen with his hands stiffly held next to his hips as if he was a robot. Johnny Torno (George Raft) in my view was unable to portray on the screen the heartbroken older brother of a hero priest who survived five (5) years overseas serving in the war, only to be murdered and leaving his brother Johnny with a task to find his murderer and get even. There is one scene in a public washroom where Johnny Torno confronts the recently released convict Nick Cherney and commences to put a beating on him. Let's be real folks, George Raft stands a mere 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighs maybe a generous 135 pounds. The convict that Johhny Torno is supposed to be laying a beating on Nick Cherney, is played by the burly Raymond Burr who at the time, stood at least 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. This is just another example of how poorly cast George Raft was in the leading role of Johnny Torno.The Red Light title was merely used as a result of the very recent huge success that was ALL Virgina Mayo's for starring in the earlier 1949 release of another film noir titled "White Heat" which starred a real action/drama star in James Cagney. As of my writing this review, the 1949 Red Light film received an average IMDB rating of 6.4 by only 610 IMDB users. As for the much more critically acclaimed and earlier 1949 film release "White Heat" has received a much higher average IMDB rating of 8.2 . The key here is that this higher 8.2 rating of "White Heat" is attributed to a whopping average of 22,696 IMDB viewers, compared to only 610 IMDB user ratings for red Light.A title can help a film but it is the stars who will actually make a movie great as was the case with White Heat and compartively mediocre (at best) as is the case with this film noir Red Light. It is unfortunate that the attractive and good performance of Virginia Mayo was assigned to work with one of the worst actors of the time period, that being the short cardboard acting of George Raft.Sorry, but I call them like I see them. I give this film a 3 out of 10 rating.

Bert Glennon's noirish photography is a stand-out in this one, a very interesting melodrama directed by Roy Del Ruth, who no doubt relied on Glennon to supply the movie's exciting visual flair. Alas, where the movie falls down is in George Callahan's none-too-credible screenplay which really writes itself out of the game with that preposterous denouement with the projectionist character played by Henry "Harry" Morgan. Oddly, we know we are in United Artists territory from the very first when the opening titles display an elaborate credit for D. Ross Lederman's second unit direction and his photographer, James Van Trees. Credits like these are usually buried in the small print of major studio titles or not supplied at all. Happily, all this second unit material is very hard to spot because it's so well integrated into the movie as a whole by editor, Richard Heermance. The credits also tell us that the assistant director on the 2nd unit was none other than Robert Aldrich. As if that were not enough in giving the screenplay an aura of credibility, the movie also features Ken Murray playing himself, plus a pretend National Movie News which gains further authenticity by being prepared by Ray Mercer himself and narrated by none other than Knox Manning! All this superb attention to detail was made possible by Roy Del Ruth, who not only directed but also produced for his own company, namely Roy Del Ruth Productions. It's a shame that despite all this careful attention to realistic detail, the screenplay adapted from the novel, "That Guy Gideon" by Donald Barry, just misses the bus. But all things considered, I'd still give it an "8".

Red Light is an independent production released by United Artists and starring George Raft as a man on a mission. Raft plays the self made successful head of a trucking operation who is used to taking care of business himself. But when his younger brother who is a priest and an army chaplain from the late war played by Arthur Franz is shot in a hotel room, Raft is going to deal with killers himself and not let it be handled by the police in the persons of Barton MacLane and Bill Phipps.Before checking out of this mortal coil, Franz said he wrote something in the hotel Gideon Bible for Raft. But the book from that particular room has been stolen and Raft spends most of the film trying to locate it with the help of Virginia Mayo.There's not much suspense in this film mainly because Raymond Burr who was a former employee sent to prison for embezzlement is acting so guilty. He does have an ironclad alibi however, but you know it will be broken. Whatever suspense is in the how.The other suspenseful component of this sub par noir film is what will Raft do when he does learn the truth. What he gets from the bible are some eternal truths, but what he seeks comes out in its own way.Besides the players mentioned such folks as Gene Lockhart, Stanley Clements, William Frawley, Harry Morgan, and Arthur Shields are all in Red Light. The film had the potential to be a lot more, but Raft just doesn't carry it off right.

Meticulously groomed George Raft was a notoriously one-note actor, but his monotone worked harmoniously in the flattened acoustic of film noir. In Roy Del Ruth's Red Light -- an unusual "religioso" thriller -- he owns a trucking empire; his brother, a priest and army chaplain, has just been gunned down in a hotel room. The clue to the assassin's identity is supposedly scrawled in the room's Gideon Bible, which has gone missing. Raft enlists the aid of Virginia Mayo to track down both Bible and killer. But when they succeed, Raft's plans for revenge are thwarted by the Deity, in the form of a huge electrical sign during a pelting rainstorm, underscoring the movie's moral: "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Raft's quest is jam-packed with every cinematic device that makes the noir cycle such delectable (if forbidden) fruit: flicked-away cigarette butts, rain-streaked windowpanes, grotesquely lit close-ups, San Francisco at its sleaziest. The film's heavies, Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan, win no congeniality awards; Burr's performance here may well be the nastiest in his impressive portfolio of thugs. Despite Dmitri Tiomkin's pietistic score, which lurches from the "Dies Irae" to the "Ave Maria" and back again, the spiritual side of the story seems clumsily overlaid, a late addition to the film's hard-core noir structure. And the title remains a puzzle. Is it meant as an injunction to "Stop" the cycle of bloodshed? A reference to the votive candle whose flame indicates that the Blessed Sacrament is in residence? Or to the electrocuting signage which ends the movie? No matter; it does little to dispel the deep, and deeply satisfying, thematic gloom.