Been waiting a year to get this one after I saw a preview on TCM; it's finally been released on DVD in a beautiful restoration. Best thing: LA back when it was a wooden town, with a lot of balconied buildings with stairways running this way and that out of them. Great B-W cinematography beautifully brought back to life, with crisp focus, scenes that are naturalistic in content but stylized in angle, superb night lighting, and, of course, fabulous hats and smoking. The performances are first rate too, with Powell's whip-fast smart guy comebacks and, of course, here they are, Rhonda Fleming. (Something about the lingerie of the '50s turned the gal's boobs into nosecones under those ultra tight sweaters.) Plot is good, not great: Powell, after five years in slammer for crime he didn't commit, goes on a hunt for the real criminals and a missing 100K. He's assisted by a drunken, one-legged marine hero, his imprisoned buddy's wife (La Fleming) while being tailed by a hardnose cop named Gus. Bad guy is William Cannon behind a dippy mustache. Some pretty tough violence, but one oddity: no money scene. SPOILER Bogart confronted his femme fatales memorably in both MALTESE F. and DEAD RECKONING. Yet the final face-off between Powell and Fleming never occurs; he walks out of the picture and it's over, implying her arrest. No, no, no: We've got to SEE the look on her face when she realizes Rocky saw through her I-love-you act. Better still, she should pull a gat on him and eat hot lead from his righteous .45. But this one just goes wan and tepid when it should be hot and hard.

Your average run of the mill film-noir with Dick Powell starring as a recently released prisoner, who comes home to try to prove that he was not involved in a robbery that killed someone and sent him up the river.Rhonda Fleming plays the almost-innocent wife of the guy who went to prison along with the Powell character. However, she isn't as innocent as she appears.As stated, the film is routine and there really isn't that much excitement involving the main characters, except that they escape death when another couple take the bullets intended for them.The ending is where Powell walks into the sunset as the police go to arrest Fleming.

Cry Danger (1951)Humphrey Bogart smiles. Robert Mitchum smiles. Lots of tough film noir types also show a grin or manage a laugh. But not Dick Powell. Forever grim and determined, he is a the archetype of an unhappy man, and usually, as in "Cry Danger," he's out to fix some problem.This is a Dick Powell movie all the way, and a really good one. There are some great secondary characters, especially the mob leader William Conrad and a suspicious and wise-cracking Marine sidekick played by Richard Erdman. And the plot is good, if twisting slightly and improbable at times. It's also a somewhat cheaply made affair, with a car crash that won't convince a child, and some sets that show their seams. But hey, who cares? It barrels along and stern stiff unflappable Powell (his name is Rocky Mulloy in the movie) won't be stopped, even by love, even by duplicity. And certainly not by cops who should have arrested him several times for his liberties while on parole.This is director Robert Parrish's first film, and he didn't really direct much later of note except, in 1966, a couple scenes in "Casino Royale." Between the two he did a bunch of so-so westerns. William Conrad, who is thirty at the time of filming here, went on to be television's "Cannon" and "Jake and the Fat Man," but he appeared in a bunch of these B-list noirs and is good every time. The leading woman is a simple type, and good enough at it, but her most memorable role is in "Spiral Staircase," a couple years earlier (definitely see that one). She, too, like half of Hollywood, drifted to t.v. by 1960. Powell's career is interesting, and his last big role before moving to television himself was in "The Bad and the Beautiful," just a year later. He is never quite a distinctive leading man, and I'm guessing he thought of this as just bread and butter work, but he gives it his usual steely best, and holds the movie together. The other leading character has to be 1950 L.A., without the glamour. Every scene is gritty and real, night and day, and it's yet another sign of end of the studio system and the rise of t.v., with all the location shooting. A fast, fun one, well filmed.

Seen at the SF Film Noir Festival January 2007. Eddie Muller, the host of the affair, interviewed Richard Erdman between films. Erdman is viciously funny and a great raconteur. You'd recognize his face anywhere, he's done so many bit parts in movies over the years. His role in Cry Danger is one of his favorites and served as a kind of break through for his career. The scene where he has sworn off booze and is putting together a hamburger and pouring himself a glass of milk shows a man who makes himself promises and keeps none of them. He tosses the burger, pours out the milk and fills the glass with whiskey. Noir films from this era made no apologies. A drunk was a drunk. Nobody went to rehab. Cigarettes are lit like Roman candles and nobody complained about second hand smoke. Babes in low cut gowns make it obvious what they're after. Powell's character is focused and relentless. Rhonda Fleming is a gorgeous red herring (to match her red hair?) The print came up from the UCLA film vaults after the 35 mm print sent out from Cambridge proved technically unwatchable. Muller says there will never be a DVD of this film. The master is shot and the 16 mm version shown at the Castro Theater was murky and grey. Still, the film is worth watching if for no other reason than to hear Bill Bowers' sharp dialogue. His family was in the audience including his widow for a touching tribute to this master Noir scripter.