Under the Radar: The Unseen Side of Film Noir – Part 1

Dennis O’Keefe and Marsha Hunt in Anthony Mann’s Raw Deal 1948.

While iconic film noirs grab our attention, films like Out of the Past, where Jeff Bailey’s (Robert Mitchum) past catches up with him lured by the complex and dangerous Kathie Moffet (Jane Greer), and while there’s nothing hotter than the steamy affair between Frank and Cora (Garfield and Turner) in The Postman Always Rings Twice, or watching Walter Neff’s (Fred MacMurray) descent into murder and deception lured by the wiley Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity. It’s no wonder these masterpieces have rightfully earned their place in cinematic history, yet there’s a whole alleyway of shadows, both literally and figuratively, that have flown under the radar. Well worth watching, these lesser-known noir gems are waiting to be discovered.

Films like The Sniper (1952), Raw Deal (1948), and Act of Violence (1948) offer gritty and challenging narratives and are begging for a bit of attention. These overlooked classics showcase the genre’s versatility, exploring themes of psychological torment, moral ambiguity, and the consequences of violence. The Sniper delves into the twisted psyche of a disturbed war veteran turned killer. Raw Deal presents a gritty tale of escaping the past, desire in flux, and redemption.  Act of Violence examines the lasting impact of wartime choices on civilian life. These underappreciated noirs prove that the genre’s shadowy allure extends far beyond its most celebrated titles. I wanted to celebrate Noirvember by peering into the more obscure corners of the genre!

SPOILER ALERT ?

1-The Sniper 1952

The Sniper is a dark psychological film noir that explores the troubling story of Eddie Miller, a disturbed delivery man with a deep-seated hatred of women. Directed by Edward Dmytryk and shot on location in San Francisco, particularly in the Telegraph Hill area, the film was written by Harry Brown and based on a story by Edna and Edward Anhalt. The cast features Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, and one of noir’s finest femme fatales – Marie Windsor, who Eddie thinks played him for a poor sucker.

The Sniper unfolds like a fever dream in the burning, daylit streets, and shadowy streets of 1950s San Francisco. It is a haunting exploration of a fractured psyche teetering on the edge of madness and the manhunt that ensues.

Arthur Franz plays the unbalanced Eddie Miller, who feels compelled to kill women. When he tries to get help for himself, he is met with a lack of interest and sent back out into the world. Miller is a man whose inner demons have twisted his view of women and, evidently, a mother who is hinted at as someone he despises so severely that he finally breaks down and begins a killing spree, targeting them from rooftops throughout the city.

Adolph Menjou plays Lt. Kafka, a gruff and unmerciful policeman who is assigned to the case. As he investigates the killings, Lt. Kafka begins to see the full picture as he tracks down the troubled Miller, figuring out that the murders are not just sexually motivated but stem from a profound psychological fracture and a desperate cry from a mind splintering under the weight of unresolved trauma. Finally, cornering Miller in a cheap hotel, the cops close in. They force their way into his lightly barricaded room and find him surrounded by a small arsenal of weapons. The look on his face shows that he’s relieved it’s finally over. Dmytryck shows his visual flare reminiscent of his earlier noirs, including Murder My Sweet 1944, Cornered 1945, and Crossfire 1947.

Edward Dmytryk’s obscure noir masterpiece plunges us into the tortured world of veteran Miller, who harbors a darkness that threatens to consume him. His voyeuristic gaze, windows to a soul in turmoil, flickers with barely contained rage when he glimpses couples in intimate moments It’s as if their happiness is a personal affront; each romantic glance is itself a gunshot wound to his fragile ego. He perceives every woman he comes in contact with as being untrustworthy and brash.

In a moment of anguished self-awareness, Miller presses his hand to an electric stove, a desperate attempt to cauterize the emotional wounds that fester within and keep himself from projecting his rage outward. But the pain of other’s apathy only fuels his descent into madness, and soon, the city trembles under the shadow of his M1 carbine. As bodies fall and panic grips the streets, Miller’s twisted game of cat-and-mouse with his anonymous notes sent to the police takes on a surreal quality as he begs to be caught before he commits more murders, aware of his sins but powerless to stop himself.

Dmytryk, fresh from his own battles with the Hollywood blacklist, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, infuses the film with a palpable sense of paranoia and urban alienation.

Miller’s crimes reflect the moral ambiguity of a society grappling with hidden threats. The Sniper  delves into the murky waters of criminal psychology, pioneering profiling techniques that would become staples of the genre. Yet it’s the film’s unconventional ending that truly subverts expectations with the after-the impact of its structured violence and ends with the non-violent denouement of Miller’s surrender and society maintaining the status quo. More than just a thriller, The Sniper stands as a chilling indictment of a society ill-equipped to deal with mental illness, its streets teeming with walking wounded like Miller, in the shadows of post-war America in the 1950s.

“The characters found in The Sniper exist in a netherworld that permits humanitarian speculation to surface through scenes of humiliation and angst.” – (from Film Noir an Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style edited by Silver & Ward)

Los Angeles was experiencing their own version of a lone male ‘phantom sniper’ Evan Charles Thomas, stalking female victims, targeting them at random from a sniper’s vantage point the previous summer.

This must have heightened audiences’ fears when watching an eerily similar serial killer-themed film noir. While The Sniper was not directly inspired by the Thomas case, its release coincided with a real-life sniper incident in Los Angeles, creating an eerie parallel. The film’s story had been acquired by Stanley Kramer Productions from writers Edna and Edward Anhalt several months before Thomas began his shooting spree. Interestingly, Arthur Franz was cast as the sniper on August 27, 1951, the same day as Thomas’s first shooting. Despite the film’s independent origin, its producers recognized the potential to leverage the public’s interest in the ongoing sniper case. They capitalized on this coincidence in their marketing efforts, emphasizing the film’s relevance to recent events.

This strategy, aimed at drawing audiences by highlighting the film’s timeliness and apparent realism, was too close for comfort even though its conception predated the actual crimes.

“L.A. saw it happen!” the local ad for the film blared. Chief of Police Bill Parker was said to have signed a letter praising the film’s realism in its “handling of intensive methods” to track down the killer. In his review, Scheuer noted, “The parallel is too close for comfort, but even without the similarity between Eddie Miller and an alleged local “sniper” the picture would be distasteful.” (Source J.H.Graham)

E.R. doctor: Were you ever in a mental hospital?
Edward Miller: Only when I was in prison.

 

Police Lt. Frank Kafka: All I have to do is catch him.
Dr. James G. Kent: You’ll catch ’em, and they’ll kill ’em, and everyone will forget about it. . . that is until the next one comes along. Then it will start all over again.

2-Raw Deal 1948

“ I believe in the nobility of the human spirit. It is that for which I look in a subject I am to direct. I do not believe that everybody is bad, that the whole world is wrong. The greatness of Shakespeare’s plays is the nobility of the human spirit, even though he may destroy the character.”  —Anthony Mann, 1964 (The Crime Films of Anthony Mann)

” Corkscrew Alley is a crushing habitat for nobility of the human spirit. It’s great shorthand for the corrupt world so many noir characters desperately try to escape. It’s just that most of its denizens have had the aspiration knocked out of them by brutality and poverty, and their spirits are in moth-eaten tatters. Even when they act on an impulse toward decency, they get it in the neck and are knocked back into crime.” -(from Leslie Gaspar for Second Sight Cinema: Crashing Out of Corkscrew Alley)

For director Anthony Mann, still navigating the early stages of his Hollywood career, Raw Deal was essentially a strategic continuation of his previous year’s success with T-Men – and yet another collaboration featuring the charismatic Dennis O’Keefe and prolific cinematographer John Alton. Read my review of T-Men here:

Four Favorite Noirs Blogathon May 16, 2022

Raw Deal, released in 1948, with a screenplay by Leopold Atlas and John C. Higgens, is a gripping film noir that tells the story of frequent flyer criminal, escaped convict, and film noir anti-hero Joe Sullivan (Dennis O’Keefe), who breaks out of prison with the help of his fiercely loyal girlfriend, Pat Regan (Claire Trevor) and gangster Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr). Coyle has set it up, hoping the police will shoot to kill Joe during the break so he doesn’t have to pay him the money he’s owed for taking the rap on a bank robbery.

Joe is the guy who never got the chance to make it out of his own personal prison, “If you want to know what happened to that kid with the medal, he hocked it at sixteen. He got hungry.”

Raymond Burr is perfectly menacing as the ruthless crime boss, a repulsively captivating villain whose sadistic tendencies and pyromania elevate him beyond the typical noir heavy. This criminal mastermind’s determination to eliminate Joe from the picture has a certain demon poetry to it, thanks to Burr’s imposing presence. Burr’s dressing gown is a silk Sulka, the most expensive, and he smokes with a solid gold Cartier holder that would fetch $2-3k today. {IMDb trivia}

John Ireland as Fantail possesses a laid-back type of thuggish noir cool as Rick Coyle’s sidekick. Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt are both personal favorites of mine. They form the ‘eternal triangle’ that inhabits Joe’s orbit.

Perhaps one of Trevor’s finest performances was in Key Largo (1949), playing Gaye Dawn, Edgar G. Robinson’s beaten-down, alcoholic moll trapped in a cycle of despair.

Joe yearns for an escape, much like Roy Earle, the weary gangster portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra (1941). He dreams of a life free from the relentless pressures of the law and the looming threats from his crime boss, Coyle, longing instead for the simplicity and normalcy that ordinary people experience.

Pat, Joe’s girlfriend, is so worn down by life in Corkscrew Alley that she takes all the jabs and put-downs without a second thought because, for her, there is no life beyond Joe Sullivan.

As the film opens, Joe is in prison, sent up because he agrees to take the rap for Coyle, with the understanding that Coyle would get him out and pay him $50,000 for the favor.

Joe and Pat’s plans take an unexpected turn when they inadvertently involve his idealistic legal caseworker, Ann Martin (Marsha Hunt). After taking refuge at her home (she had been visiting Joe in prison partially due to her infatuation with him), they force her to escape with them while the police surround her apartment.“She practically sat in your lap all through the trial,” Pat makes an astute observation.

Ann becomes their unwitting hostage, forced to tag along on the lam throughout highways and back roads. Pat’s ghostly voice-over drives the film’s unique narrative, centering on the love triangle that emerges. This is one of only a few noir films narrated by a woman—in this case, Claire Trevor, who has been called the “Grand Dame” of film noir.

Pat’s narrative offers a rare female perspective in noir cinema, and Mann has given the film psychosexual dimensions of noir that possess a feminine point of view, accompanied by composer Paul Sawtell’s moody theremin. The theremin, the predecessor to the synthesizer used on this film noir soundtrack, is an instrument that would eventually go on to be popularly associated with 50s sci-fi and horror movies, where it was frequently used because of its eerie, wavering, haunting, “other-worldly” sound. However, the distinctive instrument’s use in drama, crime movies, or film noir titles was extremely rare, especially as early as 1948.

” This is the day. This is the day. The last time I shall drive up to these gates, these iron bars that keep the man I love locked away from me. Tonight, he breaks out of these walls. It’s all set.”

{walking down the corridor of the prison} ” I don’t know which sounds louder; my heals or my heart.”

“ Waiting…waiting… All my life, it seems as if I’ve been waiting for Joe.”

Pat walks towards the State Prison entrance. Mann shifts the camera from an objective view to a subjective perspective, showing the scene through Pat’s eyes. The camera then returns to an objective viewpoint. This subtle, slick visual technique mirrors the film’s narrative structure, which alternates between the main plot and Pat’s voiceover narration.

Cut to Pat, her silhouette stark against the blinding exterior light. As she walks away, the prison hallway stretches before her, a gauntlet of long, barred shadows. These ominous stripes seem to reach out, grasping at her as if the prison itself is trying to hold her back. The interplay of harsh light and deep shadow not only mirrors Pat’s conflicted emotions, but not only does the prison’s influence linger but also foreshadows the grim path that lies ahead.

She must wait to see her Joe, he’s got another visitor. The smitten social worker, Ann, also wants Joe out of prison but on parole. As Ann leaves, Joe tells her not to wear that perfume, ” doesn’t help a guy’s good behavior.” There’s a wonderful close-up of Marsha Hunt’s face where a defiant spark of light shines in the corner of her eye. When Pat enters the dark visitors’ room, a similar flicker of light casts a spell in her eye, too. This evocative signal of light will also tie together the love triangle narrative, and its visual cue sets up a subtle feminine symbolism echoing the film’s emotional undercurrents. Joe will kidnap Ann as a way to crash through the roadblocks, but there are sexual undercurrents at play.

The scene shifts to Corkscrew Alley, revealing the dimly lit lair of mobster Rick Coyle. Rick has bribed the guards to help Joe’s prison escape despite the overwhelming odds against success. When one of his henchmen expresses doubt about the plan, Rick reveals his sadistic nature and obsession with fire by using his cigarette lighter to sear the guy’s ear.

Coyle learns, while celebrating his birthday that Joe has beaten the odds and managed to escape prison. At first, dazzled by the waiter setting ablaze his dessert, the knowledge that he’ll have to now meet Joe in Crescent City with $50,000 sets up one of the most shocking acts of violence, rare even for film noir. He hurls the flaming dessert at his girlfriend’s face. Mann intensifies the impact by staging this brutal moment off-screen to amplify the horror.

Coyle sends Fantail (John Ireland) to kill Joe. In Crescent City, Joe and Ann arrive at Grimshaw’s place, a seaside fishing and hunting supply store. There, he expects to collect his share of the loot.

Joe attempts to collect the $50,000 owed to him by Coyle, who was responsible for the frame-up, and now plans to have him killed by Fantail, Coyle’s vicious henchman. After Joe’s prison escape, he anticipates meeting Coyle to collect his promised $50,000 but realizes he’s been lured into a dangerous trap, and Coyle has sent Fantail to kill him.

In the dreary, shadowy backroom, Fantail is surrounded by a macabre menagerie of stuffed wildlife. Antlers jut from the walls like nature’s accusatory fingers while a towering black bear looms silently, forever frozen in a predatory stance. Amidst this eerie tableau of human nature’s morbid fascination with dead animals as trophies, Fantail reveals his double-cross. With a cruel smirk, he turns to Catskinner Grimshaw and asks how much it’ll cost to mount Joe’s head – adding it to the grisly collection. Fantail is as sadistic as his boss.

Joe confronts both Fantail and Grimshaw and finds himself locked in a lengthy struggle. Mann and Alton capture this confrontation with visceral intensity, positioning the camera at low angles to heighten the sense of desperation. The scene unfolds in a chiaroscuro of deep shadows cast by window frame bars that slice through the air like prison cells. Nets hanging from the ceiling create a maze-like effect, their intricate patterns filtering the scant light and adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere. Joe lunges at Fantail, aiming to skewer him on a set of antlers, but Fantail starts swinging a heavy iron bar, ready to bash his brains in. But Ann, in a pivotal moment in the film, makes the fateful decision to shoot Fantail but not fatally, yet it seals her descent into the primal realm of survival, mirroring the brutality of her male counterparts. She did this for Joe.

Ann runs off down toward the beach with Joe running after her. The two embrace as she confesses her love. It’s a subversion of the classic femme fatale trope, as she has been seduced by the allure of the homme fatale.

Joe sends her away from his dangerous world, but she is kidnapped by Coyle. When Coyle’s henchman telephones with the news about Ann’s dire situation, Pat doesn’t tell Joe so that they can sail away to South America.

Now, on the freighter enveloped in fog, Joe seizes the moment and proposes to Pat, while Mann artfully captures her reflection in the clock’s face, symbolizing the fleeting nature of time and their uncertain future together.

Once again, Pat’s ghostly voice-over intrudes, revealing her inner conflict. ” the lyrics were his alright, but the music… Ann’s. Suddenly, I saw that every time he kissed me, he’d be kissing Ann.” Pat instinctively cries out Ann’s name before revealing that Coyle has taken her captive.

In the climactic showdown in Corkscrew Alley, Joe fights his way through an ambush. Meanwhile, Coyle, convinced that his plan has worked, indulges his potent fetish, his twisted fascination with fire, by lighting three candles. As he ignites the third candle—Joe bursts in and demands, “Where’s Ann?”  Coyle’s answer — he shoots Joe, who gets in two shots of his own. The ensuing chaos causes Coyle to topple the candelabra, igniting the curtains in a fiery blaze. Coyle attempts to force Joe into the blazing art piece, but Joe shoves him through the circle of flames surrounding the window, where he falls to his death.

As Joe and Ann finally escape into the darkness outside, Pat arrives, handcuffed to a cop. Joe collapses down the steps and dies in Ann’s arms—not Pat’s. The haunting music returns as Pat’s voice-over reflects her acceptance of a life marked by solitude, a life without Joe. The gloomy street is only lit by the flames raging in the window and the lonely light of a solitary street lamp.

Raw Dealings:

Joe, who has a harder time accepting Pat’s love, who, like him, is from Corkscrew Alley, is strangely drawn to Ann because she is an outsider and isn’t part of that life. And Ann wants to be corrupted by Joe.

Joe Sullivan: What do you know about anything? You probably had your bread buttered on both sides since the day you were born. Safe. Safe on first, second, third, and home.

Ann Martin [blamed for not understanding life in Corkscrew Alley]: That’s what you think? Just because I own a car and a tailored suit and my nails are clean, you think I’ve never had to fight? I got an education, sure. I suppose that means I was born with a silver spoon, doesn’t it? My father was a schoolteacher. He died in the war of The Depression. Only he didn’t get any medals. Or any bands. Or any bonus. He left three children. You think *you* had to fight? The only way you know how to fight is that stupid way with a gun. Well, there’s another way you probably never even heard of. It’s the daily fight that everyone has. To get food and an education, to land a job and keep it. And some self-respect. ‘Safe’? I never asked for anything safe. All I want is… just a little decency, that’s all.

Pat’s complex emotions emerge as she watches Joe and Ann fall in love. Claire Trevor gives one of her stand-out performances amongst many as the tragically faithful lover who sees Joe slipping away.

Revenge is not the primary driving force of Raw Deal’s plot. It’s the internal strife born from a heart divided between two possibilities and the emotional calculus of future intimacy. It is the conflict that is forged out of loving two women.

While in a San Francisco hotel room, Joe tells Pat he intends to kill Coyle for trying to have him murdered. Pat pleads with Joe to forget about the money and stay with her, but her jealousy of Ann surfaces.  “If Ann asked you, I bet you’d do it.” Joe slaps her, and when she walks out, she struggles with the thought of turning him in to the cops.

After the heated argument, she comes back, and Joe, knowing it’s his fault, is still unable to express himself –  “You’ve forgiven me a thousand times before without my asking.”

Until Joe finds out that Coyle has taken Ann, he ultimately decides to abandon his plan for revenge and leave with Pat on the ship bound for South America. This reveals that the central conflict is not about Coyle or money but the complex relationship between Joe, Pat, and Ann.

“Joe Sullivan…enchants Ann so much that she kills for him.” (Bruce Crowther, Film Noir, Columbus Books Limited, 1988, 118)

“Do-gooder Ann Martin is kidnapped by Joe Sullivan and eventually kills Fantail to protect him.” (Alain Silver & Jim Ursini, Film Noir, Taschen, 93)

“Ann takes Pat’s place in Joe’s affection, but Joe sends her back to her own world. This is beautifully realized in a scene in which Joe and Ann [after they’ve spent the night together] drive up to meet Pat on a flat stretch of deserted road along the costal highway. Joe stops his car at frame right, a goodly distance from Pat in her car at frame left. A long shot stresses the distance between the two cars, the isolation of all three characters, the hopeless, fatalistic sense of their situation, and the relationship of the two women vis-à-vis Joe. After Joe pushes Ann out of the car, another long shot shows the two women walking silently past each other as they change positions. Pat’s voice on the track says, ‘I suppose I should feel some kind of victory, but I don’t. Walking past her this way…She, too, is just a dame in love with Joe.’ The image of the two women passing without speaking, set against the loneliness of the barren highway, is the equivalent of a bleak modern poem. Years before the alienated European films of the 1960s, Mann captured the same feeling in a cheapie for Eagle-Lion.” (Basinger, Anthony Mann, 42)

Although Anthony Mann is primarily celebrated for his westerns, he initially gained recognition through a series of hard-hitting film noirs. Among these, Raw Deal stands out as the sleekest entry—a dark, streamlined thriller characterized by its minimalist script.

John Alton’s striking cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. Like T-Men, he expertly blends shadows, silhouettes, light, and cluttered compositions to create a visual narrative that transforms the film’s straightforward plot—into a vibrant and fatalistic exploration of love and betrayal, making every frame a compelling work of art.

Alton’s glorious camerawork and Mann’s vision frame Joe and his two loves in confined, claustrophobic spaces. Joe has been gasping for air, having been trapped within the dirty streets of Corkscrew Alley. Right from the beginning, we are thrust into relentless sequences that confine us and the characters with the use of recurring iconography—being framed in and imprisoned by even the ordinary world of windows, behind bars, veils, and looming dark skies.

Alton and Mann craft striking imagery aboard a shadowy ship, allowing a bit of visual experimentation as with the dense oblique lines of shadow that enhance the scene.

In a striking close-up, Pat’s face emerges, partially obscured by a delicate veil, capturing a moment of vulnerability and intensity. The embrace between Joe and Pat is illuminated by the soft glow streaming through an open bulkhead door, casting them in an ethereal light. Nearby, a porthole reminiscent of the moon reflects in a mirror on the adjacent wall, enhancing the dreamlike quality of the scene. Within these confined and surreal compositions, Joe’s forced enthusiasm stands in stark contrast to the emotional weight surrounding them, revealing the depth of his inner conflict.

Mann adeptly harnesses the extraordinary performances of his female stars through these prolonged close-ups. Their nuanced expressions articulate their innate struggles and complex desires.

One of the memorable noir moments in the film is when the imposing Burr is provoked after his girlfriend accidentally spills a drink on him, further enraged to learn of Joe’s escape. He tosses a burning flambé in her face, which actually anticipates The Big Heat and the torture Gloria Grahame endures when Lee Marvin scalds her face with a pot of burning hot coffee.

By the end, Coyle, who loves to direct fire like a maniacal traffic cop, when Ann is taken hostage as leverage against Joe, tortures her with a cigarette lighter to get her to talk. Coyle’s final fate is also linked to flames.

Instead of Joe, Pat gets a phone call from Coyle saying that he is holding Ann captive. So, is Pat going to warn Joe that Ann is in danger, or will Pat stay silent and sail off to Panama with Joe? Pat chooses to do the right thing, a mix of the reality that she’ll never truly have Joe and not wanting anything bad to happen to Ann.

The climactic sequence at the end of Raw Deal draws us back to the familiar confines of Corkscrew Alley. This brings Joe full circle with his dark beginnings after he tries to send Ann away from his nightmarish world and goes to kill Coyle. It culminates in an intense ambush that escalates into a fierce clash amidst a raging inferno.

In Raw Deal, fire symbolizes humanity’s most basic and animalistic urges. Fire seems to be a visual metaphor for the primal or fundamental aspects of human nature, particularly those that are destructive or dangerous. Rick Coyle’s “masculine flames.” (source Susan White and Homer Pettey)

Joe succumbs to his noirish fate, the one he’d been searching for all his life – a way out; he reaches for it, knowing the outcome is grim.

3- Act of Violence 1948

Robert Ryan is Joe Parkson, the madly driven veteran bent on revenge, and Heflin, as Frank Enley calls him, “infernally taut.”

Hyper-Masculinity/Hidden Frailty: The Robert Ryan Aesthetic in Film Noir

The Torment of Conscience, The Delirium of Revenge:

Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man For All Seasons. Here, the Austrian emigre — who learned both of his parents were murdered in the Holocaust after World War II ended — delivers a chilling consideration of the darker side of American dreams, a concise but complex tale about the corrosion of vengeance, and an often agonizing depiction of post-traumatic stress behavior. – (from Nick Rogers article in Midwest Film Journel)

In the late 1940s, MGM faced significant financial challenges, prompting a strategic overhaul. By 1947, the studio was struggling to recover from its monetary woes, leading Nicholas Schenck to enlist Dore Schary, who ascended to the role as production chief in 1949. Alongside the legendary Louis B. Mayer, Schary aimed to pivot MGM’s focus from its traditional lavish productions to grittier, lower-budget dramas. One notable example of this new direction was Act of Violence, a stark departure from MGM’s glamorous past. This film exemplified Schary’s vision for a more realistic and socially relevant cinematic approach, reflecting a willingness to explore the darker themes of post-war America.

Act of Violence was directed by Fred Zinnemann with a script by Robert L. Richards, who adapted a story by Collier Young. The film is a thought-provoking noir that effectively delves into controversial territory, exploring the moral complexities of wartime collaboration. Released in 1948, the movie boldly tackles the taboo subject of American soldiers cooperating with enemy forces during World War II, a theme that directly challenged the patriotic sensibilities of Hollywood moguls like Louis B. Mayer. In this way, Act of Violence is set apart from the more conventional, patriotic-minded war films of its era. Act of Violence features an outstanding cast that includes Robert Ryan, who, always relentlessly striking, was able to invest his complex characters with an inherently twisting intensity.

In a quaint town located just outside Los Angeles, Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a well-liked contractor and civic-minded man with good looks and an amiable nature. He has been a key figure in developing affordable new homes, earning everyone’s respect. His lovely young wife, Edith, portrayed by Janet Leigh, deeply adores him, which reflects their strong relationship and his positive standing in the community.

But, disabled war veteran Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), a lanky guy who walks with a limp and served as Enley’s bombardier during their missions in the Air Corps over Europe, sees Enley through a different lens. He’s traveled all the way from the East Coast to inflict terror in Enley’s mind that stems from his betrayal when he got his own men slaughtered during the war. Parkson is propelled by the conviction that only Enley’s death will reestablish a sense of order and justice in the world.

The dragging foot serves as a haunting reminder of all he sacrificed in the European theater of war, effectively allowing Zinnemann and writers Robert L. Richards and Collier Young to ” infuse the right amount of Poe allegory.” (Nick Rogers) Heflin’s portrayal reveals how quickly his seemingly successful businessman is upended by the realization that Ryan is on a mission to right what has been left wrong, hinting at a dark secret lurking between them. And to make us contemplate how ” the middle-class comfort of America is to consider that someone may have been willing to strike a devil’s bargain to achieve it. What do you really know about your neighbor?” – (Nick Rogers)

Joe Parkson:  Sure, I was in the hospital, but I didn’t go crazy. I kept myself sane. You know how? I kept saying to myself: Joe, you’re the only one alive that knows what he did. You’re the one that’s got to find him, Joe. I kept remembering. I kept thinking back to that prison camp. One of them lasted to the morning. By then, you couldn’t tell his voice belonged to a man. He sounded like a dog that got hit by a truck and left him in the street.

Arriving from out of town with an unsettling intensity, Parkson fixates on Frank Enley, causing him to spiral into irrational paranoia—yet he refuses to involve the police. Parkson’s presence terrifies Edith, ultimately forcing a painful truth to surface. Before facing Parkson for a final confrontation, Enley feels compelled to share his burden with Edith, revealing that he and Parkson were both imprisoned in the same German POW camp during the war.

When their rations are cut to nearly nothing, Enley and the other prisoners face starvation. In their desperation, a group that included Parkson devised an escape plan that involved digging a tunnel. Enley urged them to give up on the idea, knowing that a similar escape attempt in the British section of the camp had resulted in the deaths of all the men. Despite his warnings, Parkson and the others were hell-bent on going ahead with the plan to escape.

Driven to save his buddies, Enley approached the camp’s SS colonel and revealed the existence of the tunnel, believing a promise that the men would not face punishment. But when Parkson and the others finally surfaced from the tunnel days later, the American men were not met with gunfire but rather by a vicious assault by German soldiers armed with bayonets and attack dogs.

While Parkson managed to survive, ten others were killed in the brutal onslaught. Enley remains haunted by the memory of the men who were slaughtered and his mental neglect, asking questions about the food offered to him by the enemy as a reward for his cooperation.

After his confession, Enley flees into the city’s urban night world. Edith, a young woman seemingly filled with the American dream and the illusion of her perfect marriage, struggles to understand her husband’s past actions and what is expected of her in this new reality.

Clearly unsettled on the back stairs of a hotel in Los Angeles where Edith has tracked him down, Enley finally sheds the facade he has been maintaining.

Ensley (miserable), I hadn’t done it just to save their lives. I talked myself into believing it, that he’d keep his word. But in my guts from the start, I think I knew he wouldn’t. Maybe I didn’t even care. They were dead and I was eating, and maybe that’s all I did it for, to save one man, me.

(pause) There were six widows and ten men dead, and I couldn’t even stop eating. (Edith sobs) Go on, Go on home. You don’t have to say anything.

“Reasons?” Ensley shouts about his reasoning for what happened at the camp. “You can always find reasons. Even the Nazis had reasons!”

Pat (Mary Astor): Cheer up, Frankie. So, you got troubles. There’s plenty else to think about. Laughs. Kicks. So you’re unhappy. Relax. No law says you got to be happy. Look at me. I’m not happy. I get my kicks. Gee, how could anybody stand it if they didn’t get their kicks.

The story takes a detour to Skid Row in Los Angeles, introducing Enley to a range of richly symbolic characters.

Starkly contrasting his previous environment, this encounter serves as a critical commentary on societal neglect and the stark realities of urban life. Enley takes refuge with Pat (Mary Astor), whom he meets in a bar. She’s a woman with a tarnished reputation. Then Enley meets Johnny, who’s willing to kill Parkson for money. The sly thug (Berry Kroeger, who projects the same underhanded air as his W. A. Niles in Cry of the City) will take out Parkson for $10,000.

Meanwhile, Ann Sturges (Phyllis Thaxter), Parkson’s girlfriend, finds him and begs him not to go through with his plan for revenge. But he confronts Enley anyway. When the inept Johnny shows up at the train station, Enley intervenes and sacrifices himself to save Parkson.

The entire film revolves around Enley’s eventual act of redemption, yet it avoids implying any specific attitude that led to his guilt. As a result, the social themes are subtle, and the overall tone of the film remains detached, which is characteristic of Zinneman’s work.

Four moral dilemmas propel the narrative: the ethical implications of self-interest at the expense of others, the pitfalls of dishonest rationalization, the complexities surrounding revenge and its effectiveness, and the boundaries of self-forgiveness, as well as the forgiveness we extend to others. Frank’s transgressions have plunged him into a perpetual state of denial, while Parkson exists on the fringes of madness. He has become so consumed by his turmoil that he is scarcely recognizable as a man but rather as a killing machine. (source: Michael F. Keaney – Film Noir Guide)

Parkson is not so much driven by a moral question but rather the fractured mind of a man bent on mere revenge, a madness that stems from his physical and psychological wounds.

Zinnemann effectively conveys the characters’ internal unrest through deliberate framing. The characters move uneasily within confined spaces and frequently don’t engage with each other directly or face-to-face.

This stylistic choice underscores the theme of illusions that risk being dismantled if the characters engage too openly with one another. The evident physical avoidance serves to underscore the emotional walls the characters have constructed around themselves. Highlighting their struggles to confront uncomfortable truths.

The way cinematographer Robert Surtees plays with light and dark in Act of Violence is strikingly evident in the film’s early scenes, where the narrative centers on Enley’s pristine, tree-lined neighborhood. His photography radiates the sunlight’s warmth, both literally and figuratively, capturing the idyllic facade of suburban life. However, this intellectual, conceptual clarity of day is sharply disrupted when Parkson unexpectedly arrives at Edith’s doorstep on a seemingly perfect, sunny afternoon, hinting at the darker undercurrents that will soon unravel the characters’ lives.

Soon, the daylight in unthreatening surroundings will wander into an unsavory environment as Enley journeys through the bleak darkness of night. Surtees offer night-for-night exteriors and interiors bathed in atmospheric light. These sequences play out inside dimly lit rooms illuminated by a solitary light source or empty, rain-shimmering streets.

One such set piece, Enley’s frantic sprint through a deserted tunnel, “ is straight out of a Freudian nightmare.” ((Michael F. Keaney – Film Noir Guide)

The film masterfully blends noir’s existentialist approach and distinctive visual style with its provocative narrative—the torments of Enley’s conscience. Through Robert Surtees’s stark cinematography and the morally ambiguous characters, Act of Violence creates a palpable sense of unease and psychological tension by confronting the uncomfortable reality of American servicemen’s potential complicity with the enemy.  The film sets up a nuanced examination of wartime ethics and the human capacity for both heroism and betrayal. The story offers a potent blend of guilt, redemption, and the lasting psychological scars of war.

This is your EverLovin’ Joey Sayin’ —keep it shady until next time! Part 2 is coming right up!