Undertow (1949)

UNDERTOW  C+                  

USA  (71 mi)  1949  d:  William Castle 

A rarely seen film from schlockmeister William Castle, a B-movie director who spent his career making forgettable features, whose real claim to fame was his Barnum & Bailey flair for self-promotion, often appearing in the trailers revving up the fear factor in his films, psyching up the audience to expect to be scared, where his most audacious stunt was wiring selected seats in the theater with electrical buzzers and administering a mild shock during heightened moments of THE TINGLER (1959).  In addition to being an uncredited screenwriter, a second unit director, and an associate producer for Orson Welles’ THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947), perhaps his biggest claim to fame, however, and certainly his most lucrative, was buying the book rights to Ira Levin’s novel Rosemary's Baby (1968), which became a monster hit.  But in 1949, little did the director, or anyone else connected with the film, know that 60 years in the future audiences would be sitting quietly and actually paying attention to this film, which was always intended as a second reeler.  Opening in Reno, Scott Brady (Lawrence Tierney’s younger brother) as Tony Reagan has just completed his second stint in the Army and is in a celebratory mood, having recently invested his entire Army savings on a Lake Tahoe resort sitting on a pristine location, owned by the father of a fellow soldier who died in the war, but always spoke highly about this property being the most beautiful place on earth.  Having seen it and meeting with the father, Tony has to agree, thinking this would be the perfect place to make a new start in his life.  Having come from a troubled past where he had extensive trouble with the law, Tony was looking to go straight.   But he’s hit with two major coincidences before he can set foot out of town, one is meeting Danny Morgan (John Russell), an old con artist working for the casino’s, and the other is accidentally running into a beautiful woman, Peggy Dow as Ann McKnight, where they coincidentally meet again on an overnight flight to Chicago.  By her look, she has more than a passing interest in him, but he rather clumsily announces his plans to meet his future bride in Chicago and bring her back out to live in Lake Tahoe, which takes the sizzle out of their obvious chemistry. 

In Chicago, he’s met by the cops and warned to get out of town, as they’ve received news he’s planning to get revenge on Big Jim, a local mob boss, as they had plenty of run-ins together 7 years ago.  Using plenty of Chicago location shots, they arrive at Midway Airport before he takes a taxi to the Palmer House, where there’s plenty of street shots down Wabash Avenue as Tony has to shake the cop that’s following him, which he does at the Wabash/Adams el stop which looks exactly the same today as it did 60 years ago.  Tony’s in Chicago looking for his girl, Sally (Dorothy Hart), whose uncle is Big Jim, who disapproves of their impending marriage, but Tony thinks he can change his mind, especially if they’re going to be family.  But before he gets a chance, Tony is blindsided and coldcocked, where he awakes later with a gunshot wound on his hand placed in a car containing a gun that can be traced to Big Jim’s murder.  The radio announces his description as a killer on the loose, where he’s immediately on the run, trying to outrun chasing cops, leading to a shootout scene at a factory warehouse where he climbs up a gigantic storage tank, similar to James Cagney in White Heat (1949), a film released 3 months earlier that same year.  You’d think it might be the same set, but this is a Universal picture, while Cagney’s is Warner Brothers.  With police canvassing all his known friends, he has no options left and nowhere else to go except to call upon Ann, the friend he met in Reno who was coming to Chicago to be a schoolteacher.  Having heard the radio description, where he’s considered armed and dangerous, Ann is a bit suspicious, but once he announces he didn’t do it, that he’s been framed, she immediately breaks into a trusting smile and fixes him breakfast - - only in the movies.

Knowing there is no way out except to clear his name, Tony calls upon an old friend from the neighborhood now working for the police, Bruce Bennett as Detective Reckling, something of a straight shooter, in real life a silver medalist in the shot put for the 1928 Olympics under his actual name Herman Brix, holding both the indoor and outdoor world records at the time.  Due to his athleticism, he was being considered for the Tarzan role by MGM pictures, but he broke his shoulder making another film, opening the door for Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller.  Nonetheless, Bennett lived to be a hundred and did complete one Tarzan picture, completing all his own stunts, including a fall to rocky cliffs below in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, Pt’s I and II (1935), also TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS (1938), which was largely put together from previously shot footage.  Though Reckling is unable to prove Tony’s innocence, where there is a brief first time film appearance by a young Roc Hudson as a fellow detective, he does begin to believe the alleged murderer has been framed.  The film packs a punch, cramming a huge amount of story detail into the highly condensed 71 minutes, where Buckingham Fountain is used as a favorite meeting place, showing the Chicago skyline, including what was the Conrad Hilton Hotel.  Certainly a crowd pleaser moment for anyone from Chicago has to be when Ann pulls up to the fountain in her slick convertible car and parks directly in front of the fountain on Columbus Drive in what is a notorious tow zone.  Another is a secret meet with Sally outside the Adler Planetarium down a few stairs while Ann stands guard at street level, where the two women may as well be at opposite ends of his life, morally speaking, one above and one below.  There’s a stellar hallway sequence down a long corridor near the end, an unforgettable scene that is exquisitely filmed, also the interesting presence of unsung black actor Daniel Ferniel, perhaps the most unusual role in the film, a small part with major consequences, where he represents the surviving moral voice of the murdered victim, Big Jim, who interestingly is never seen onscreen.

Shakedown

SHAKEDOWN           B-                  

USA  1950  (80 mi)  d:  Joseph Pevney 

Noir City Chicago 4 ( 3rd Night)  Dan in the MW from a film noir discussion group, The Blackboard, August 19, 2012:            (excerpt) 

Thus far, the audiences have been enthusiastic and the ticket sales have been quite good overall. This is my fourth such festival and I was able to recognize many repeat customers in the audience from prior years. One of the nicest things about Noir City Chicago is that, when time permits, the Film Noir Foundation hosts have been approachable and patient in terms of answering questions and holding conversations with theater patrons. The Music Box, which opened its doors in the late Twenties, has always been a neighborhood theater, but it does have a fairly large lobby area that allows people an opportunity to do a bit of casual socializing. I am not certain that such intimacy would be possible in Los Angeles or San Francisco where the audiences are oftentimes much larger.

There is an interesting aspect to film noirs in the way they exaggerate masculinity, which is particularly noticeable in this film where Howard Duff as photographer Jack Early, in his shoulder padded suit, walks confidently into a San Francisco newspaper office looking for a job, turning women’s heads standing at every door.  Even more dramatic is the support and admiration he receives from a newspaper executive Ellen Bennett (Peggy Dow), who after a flirtatious introduction drops all moral standards and not only goes to bat for him with her editor David Glover (Bruce Bennett), but agrees to go out on a date with him, inviting him to her place for dinner.  These kinds of mixed signals are rarely received in real life, especially from an intelligent, well balanced, good looking and independent woman.  But the film’s introduction gives the audience a clearer picture of the man’s moral character, as we see him get the snot beat out of him at a vacant waterfront pier, apparently for taking a picture of a gangland beating—but he persists, using the photo to get his foot in the door at the paper, claiming he just happened to be in the neighborhood at the time, weaseling his way into a one-week trial period.  While Glover distrusts him from the outset, Bennett has other ideas and quickly turns into his love interest, despite her claim that her real love is a dentist living in Portland.  Duff is a fairly wooden actor, but he gives a maniacal performance here as a man ruthlessly driven to step over anybody to get what he wants.  Wearing his ambition on his sleeve, he’s little more than a cynical opportunist, which is particularly evident in the next two photos he provides, where he basically instructs accident victims in peril to pose for his camera, always getting the shot he wants. 

With Bennett leading the charge, Early is hired full-time as a photo editor, all but ignoring the others at the newspaper, where he’s continually driven to get an “exclusive,” quickly making a name for himself, but also boosting newspaper sales.  In something of an ironic twist, Glover decides to have a little fun at Jack’s expense, sending him to the criminal courts building to photograph a criminal, Nick Palmer (Brian Donlevy), who notoriously refuses to show his face to photographers.  The film takes on a different air when Jack strikes up a distinctly inappropriate conversation with Palmer’s wife sitting in the waiting car, Nita, Anne Vernon, easily the best thing in the film, a French actress in her only American appearance, perhaps best known as Catherine Deneuve’s mother in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964).  Not only is she gorgeous with a distinct French accent, adding a touch of class and sophistication to what is otherwise a rather crude depiction of an overzealous craving for the American Dream, but she takes no guff from the guy, showing she has the balls to stand up for herself.  After promising Palmer a positive newspaper slant if he’d stop hiding and come clean, showing he has nothing to hide, Jack surprisingly gets that exclusive photo, which is little more than a pose, where Palmer invites him to his house with a proposition.  Early often comments how Ellen’s living room, with a picture window view of the city, or Palmer’s lavishly decorated home, is exactly what he’d like, including the woman (Nita) sitting on the sofa.  She, of course, encourages his foreplay, more likely curious what kind of deep shit it will get him into.  

Palmer promises to offer tips on the criminal underworld, knowing where they will strike before it happens, where Jack can get his exclusive photos, which Palmer figures is a way to get rid of some of his rival enemies, but Jack has other ideas, playing each side against the other, as he gets his photo of men coming out of a heist, but rather than take it to the newspaper, he decides to blackmail Palmer’s ex-partner, Harry Coulting (Lawrence Tierney), who committed the department store robbery, which is a much more lucrative, though dangerously ambitious con, which nearly gets him killed, but instead they only make him sweat in a beautifully constructed scene at a bowling alley where as he cautiously exits Coulting’s office with a bag full of money, you can hear the sound of the pins explode with each strike, a suspenseful reminder of the fearful anticipation pounding in his head.  Jack’s head swells with his apparent success, turning down the regular gig at the newspaper, despite Ellen’s protestations, believing the sky’s the limit for him now that he’s made a name for himself, where as an independent photographer he can sell to the highest bidder.  While playing such a dangerous game, Jack’s amorally loathsome character comes into question, as even Ellen decides he’s a callous opportunist where it’s only a matter of time before he falls from grace.  What’s interesting is the way the war plays on Jack’s post-war noir character, as a guy who witnesses the devastation of war comes home numbed by the experience with his values altered and disoriented, where his ambition erodes any personal integrity, developing an insatiable appetite for sordid sensationalism, which brings him a quick buck, but likely an early demise, as he continually flaunts and disparages the wrong kind of people.  The finale is more comical irony, as it’s hard not to root *against* this guy.