Noirvember: Dead Reckoning (1947)

If you're a younger film fan, or maybe just a casual film fan, and you can't quite understand why Humphrey Bogart was such a big star for a while then, forgive me, I would have to insist that you just haven't watched a Humphrey Bogart movie. The man is riveting, and often also feels like the personification of cool, and he had the added benefit of being placed in some great features. While not at the very top of any ranked list, Dead Reckoning is a very enjoyable noir that pairs our leading man alongside the lovely Lizabeth Scott. 

Bogart is Rip Murdock, a military man who ends up on a personal quest when he finds out about the death of a fellow serviceman. Not only that, he discovers that the man may not be who he thought he was, and he was suspected of murder. His quest leads him to meet Coral Chandler (Scott) and Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky), a criminal masquerading as a legitimate businessman.

Mainly written by Oliver H. P. Garrett and Steve Fisher, with various people responsible for the main story and adaptation, and directed by John Cromwell, there's nothing here behind the cameras to mark out Dead Reckoning as an above-average noir. It looks good enough, the screenplay has some excellent lines of dialogue sprinkled throughout, and the plot is both slippery and fairly easy to predict. That doesn't make it special though.

Bogart, however, Bogart makes it special. As does Scott. The two leads work well, particularly when sizing one another up and trying to maintain a relationship that is mutually beneficial, and Bogart feels completely at ease in a role that plays to his strengths. He's confident, smart and quick enough to recognise when he's being conned, and he's willing to risk letting someone inside his exterior armour if they can prove that they're not working an angle on him. Scott plays the ambiguity of her character all the way to the end, as expected, allowing viewers to constantly wonder about her role in the murder being investigated. Carnovsky doesn't need to be ambiguous. He's very enjoyable as a charming and unflappable antagonist, and Marvin Miller is also good value as his main henchman, Krause. Others worth keeping an eye out for are William Prince (in the small, but vital, role of Johnny Drake), George Chandler, James Bell, and Charles Cane.

More of a comfort viewing than many other noirs, thanks to the charisma quotient and the perfect pacing that helps the 100-minute runtime breeze by easily enough, this may not be considered essential, but it's one I will highly recommend to those who want to spend some time in the company of some star performers shining brightly in material that seems to have been nicely tailored around them.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Mubi Monday: Of Human Bondage (1934)

A quintessentially British tale of unrequited love, Of Human Bondage starts off feeling a bit ridiculous and unbelievable before becoming easier and easier to find completely plausible. It’s odd, and may seem paradoxical, but it is easier to accept the blinkered vision of the lead character as he is treated worse and worse by the woman he has fallen in love with.

Leslie Howard plays Philip, a young man who seems destined to let his club foot affect his confidence and self-worth. He is immediately attracted to waitress Mildred (Bette Davis) when he meets her in a tearoom, but the attraction isn’t mutual. Mildred is cold and hostile, although she eventually agrees to date Philip. Things ultimately don’t work out between the pair, but Philip holds out hope that their time may come later. This one notion, this flame he keeps alight, affects Philip throughout the entire duration of Mildred’s life, making him the person she keeps turning to when she experiences yet another downturn in her fortunes.

Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham (which I haven’t read, sorry), this is a film that manages to feel both traditional, and a bit creaky in places, and yet also quite modern and depressingly timeless. It will resonate with anyone who has watched a friend get themselves into a bad situation because of who they have fallen in love with, and this has happened to both men and women throughout history. 

Adapted for the screen by Lester Cohen, with some uncredited work by Ann Coleman (apparently), and directed by John Cromwell, Of Human Bondage is a brilliant slice of well-presented misery. Viewers first meet Philip when he is being told that he will never amount to anything as an artist, for example, but the death of that dream is followed by a surprisingly easy move into the kind of education that leads to becoming a doctor.

Howard is great in his role, a typical British gentleman from this time (for better or worse), and he manages to say a hell of a lot with the briefest of expressions that occasionally belie his well-chosen words. Davis is the star though, delivering a performance full of cold spite, one that feels as if it is built around the core of every classic Davis performance, and managing to do it with a surprisingly decent cockney accent. Kay Johnson and Frances Dee are both very enjoyable, playing two other women who might make our main character happy, if he could only get Mildred out of his mind, Reginald Denny is a fairly unhelpful friend, and Reginald Owen manages to steal a couple of scenes as an elderly gentleman who is helped by Philip, and is able to do much more than just return the favour.

It might trip too easily from one major moment to the next, and it’s obviously also filtered through the morality of the 1930s, but Of Human Bondage excels throughout, largely thanks to the cast. Mildred  may be someone you want to boo and hiss at, like a pantomime villain, but she’s equally someone you can still somehow believe. There’s a harsh truth at the heart of this, one that underlines every scene with a bittersweet authenticity. We might not want to believe it, but there are so many examples in the real world around us.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews