Awesome Movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Extreme Noir!The only way this movie could have been any more 'noir' is if it had been filmed entirely in pitch darkness through a Venetian blind from a ladder! If anyone were to spoof this genre of movie-making they'd do well to take a close look at this. Angles and shadows are exaggerated beyond reality and the result makes this talkie hard to watch. Mind you, it's as well to point out that it probably looked a whole lot better on a big screen than it did on my TV!On the upside, the cast of actors are magnificent and make a pointless story just about watchable. Special mention to Garry Owen who plays the ambulance chasing mortician who gives Eddie a lift in the middle of the movie. There is almost no other comedy relief so his brief appearance was a welcome 'interlude'. Vera Marshe also shows up for a few seconds to steal her scene as a screwball nightclub job applicant. And there are a few others too if you care to look.Where this movie fails, though, is the story and pacing. After the war, Frank has lost his memory and he leaves a war veteran's hospital a seemingly nice chap. He heads home to Los Angeles and very quickly finds out that he was far from a nice chap and was actually mixed up in the LA underworld of gangsters and racketeers.The rest of the 90-minute run-time is spent with him confronting his past and being chased around the city by his enemies. Although John Payne suits this kind of role perfectly (he made a living from it) he doesn't really make himself much of a hero to root for or a person who can be sympathized with. Thus the whole saga of him getting beaten up and shot at falls largely on an uncaring audience.This movie is brilliant for movie buffs who like film trivia but for regular noir fans like myself, it falls flat.

An amnesiac soldier (John Payne) tries to find out who he is, and in the process, finds a ton of evidence to prove why everybody who recognizes him instantly hates him. Treated on San Francisco but moving to Los Angeles, he is snagged by police the minute he walks out of Union Station. Both the law and the lawless seem out to get him for reasons he can't remember, and even an alleged ex-wife resents him for more reasons than just am obvious unhappy marriage. This wasn't the first (or last) film noir dealing with the subject of amnesia brought on apparently by a war injury. It also wasn't the first or last where the hero seemingly had mob connections, in this case the ever uncharismatic Sonny Tufts who had the screen presence of a hair glued to the negative. At some points, it is unclear whether Payne is faking his amnesia, faking knowing who he is, or faking either his amnesiac identity or his perceived identity. Ellen Drew is the femme fatal ex-wife, while film noir regular Percy Helton adds spark as another one of his typical sludges of society. Long before he became one of T.V.'s most popular country store owners, Frank Cady was a regular in these dark dramas of the degradation of society at its smarmiest. Not really anything new by 1949 film noir standards, it still creates interest in finding out what Payne's story really is. There's plenty of intrigue, dark shadowy photography and clever dialog spoke with glaring hostility and convincing power by everybody but Tufts who was handsome on the surface, but in profile looked like something out of a Dick Tracy comic strip. What really makes this above average is the obvious fact that there is a ton of possibilities as to how this could wrap up, and the writers are intent on not taking the easy way out. The ending, involving Helton and his huge cat, is both gripping and touching. Deliciously complex, this deserves higher marks than its gotten, resulting in a nice sleeper of a film noir, highly worth remembering.

Robert Osborne introduced "The Crooked Way" on TCM as nothing special when it was first released but a particular favorite of film noir fans now. I count myself as one of those fans, but have to admit that I'm a bit perplexed as to what it is about this film that would cause it to stand out from any number of other perfectly serviceable films like it. The deep-shadow photography courtesy of John Alcott was another of the film's attributes pointed out specifically by Osborne, and it is indeed probably its best asset. As for the rest, it's standard-issue noir with John Payne in one of his tough-guy roles. Granted, standard-issue noir is fine with me, but there are countless other noirs I've liked more than this one.Grade: B

A WW2 vet (John Payne) returns to Los Angeles from a rehab hospital in San Francisco to try to recoup his past after losing his memory during the war as a result of shrapnel that is too embedded in his brain to remove. This being a film noir, his past turns out to have been mostly spent on the other side of the law but is now atoned for in the audiences' eyes as he fought bravely enough in the war to have been awarded a Silver Star. However to the authorities in LA, it's a different story. A couple of LA detectives recognize him as someone they knew from before the war as he is departing the train station as he arrives back in LA and whisk him away to headquarters where no one believes his amnesia story or his medals, giving him his first hints as to who he is and was. He goes from being ex-soldier Eddie Rice to the underworld Eddie Riccardi, and the film explores which of these two possibilities he will end up as. The Riccardi character was involved before he went away to war with crime boss Vince Alexander who is played by Sonny Tufts. Payne is decidedly better than decent but Tufts seems downright impressive, especially at the beginning when he's having someone beaten up and then killed by two of his goons. The relationship between Payne's and Tuft's characters gets revealed as well as that of the relationship with night club singer Nina Martin (Ellen Drew). Directed by Robert Florey (Danger Signal), the pace is excellent, and the photography by John Alton captures some memorable scenes of near total darkness with nothing but the characters' outlines to be made out.