Some have called this film the best of all noirs, and there are many reasons for it. Edmond O'Brien, who usually played seconds, is here the lead, feeling bad on a small vacation trip and learning he has been poisoned and having only few days left to live - and he can't understand why, since there is no reason. He starts pulling loose ends, which throw him into a maze of complications of what was originally only a minor intrigue, perhaps even only a mistake.The most impressing element of the film though is its composition. It starts very merrily with an extremely happy party with many lovely girls and charming women, leading eventually to a joint where the party continues, and where a strange man puts something into his drink. You only see his collar. There it begins. The collar will only reappear in the end.The race for him to find out what has happened continues throughout the film at a constantly higher gear, and there are some very nasty villains involved too, and many doubtful ladies. This film actually has everything associated with a noir and to the brim, and the conclusion is, mildly speaking, deadly.You leave the film shaken and very much disturbed, while perhaps the most rewarding lesson of the film is the insight into the fact that it is in death that you discover life. I would give 11 if it were possible.

Copyright 21 April 1950 (in notice: 1949) by Cardinal Pictures Inc. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Criterion: 30 April 1950. U.S. release: 21 April 1950. U.K. release (on the lower half of a double bill): 29 May 1950. Australian release: 4 August 1950. 7,518 feet. 83 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A vacationing accountant spends his remaining days searching for his murderer after poison is slipped into his drink at a San Francisco nightclub. NOTES: Re-made in 1969 as Color Me Dead, and then re-made again (this time under its original title) in 1988.COMMENT: Edge-of-the-seat excitement delivered by a novel, intriguing and for the most part ultra-taut (the final scene between O'Brien and Britton would have been twice as effective at half the length) script; imaginative shooting in the actual streets, buildings (including the famous Bradbury Building) and transport of Los Angeles and San Francisco; driving direction by Rudolph Mate - the best of his career - as he stunningly forces the camera to track madly along the roadways; and vividly realistic acting by the leads and the entire cast down to the smallest bit player. Superlatively moody cinematography should be added to the ledger. And I liked Tiomkin's score, though many critics complained it was too Mickey Mouse and/or intrusive. I thought it perfect. An emotional romantic theme coupled with suitable mood "pointers" puts the drama across with a vitality that matches the powerful camerawork.OTHER VIEWS: All producer Harry M. Popkin's films are must viewing for connoisseurs. This one is no exception, despite the typically very slow beginning. Edmond O'Brien is not quite able to manage all the dialogue, while Pamela Britton is a bit of a drawback as his lady love, but Ernest Laszlo's camera, brilliantly filming on location in San Francisco is actual buses and sub-ways and warehouses and jazz dives, along with Rudolph Maté's surprisingly vigorous direction (I would certainly rank this as his most powerful film) of Rouse and Greene's riveting script, all adds up to superlatively thrilling entertainment. - JHR writing as Charles Freeman.

D.O.A. has arguably one of the greatest opening scenes in the history of films noir: Edmond O'Brien stumbles into a police station and says he wants to report a murder- his own. In mere moments, we're hooked. He then proceeds to tell his tale. It's here that the movie loses its full-speed-ahead momentum, but it's justifiable: the groundwork must be laid before the monument can be built. There are a couple of odd moments, though, along the way- in particular, the wolf whistles that we hear every time a "dame" appears on screen. Once our hero gets the bad news from a doctor that he's been poisoned (which occurs in a bar scene that's oddly shot), things really pick up. O'Brien manages to convey a sense of life-or-death urgency as he runs all over the country trying to track down his killer. Along the way he encounters Neville Brand as a particularly nasty psychopathic killer (the kind of guy who might even give Richard Widmark a moment's pause) before the final but inevitable scene. It's a classic for a reason (or three).

It was not uncommon for films noir to begin with narration by a dead or dying man; think of William Holden's voice over narration as we see him floating dead in a swimming pool at the start of "Sunset Boulevard," or Fred MacMurray's confession while nursing a bullet wound in "Double Indemnity." But "D.O.A" is the only noir I've seen about a dying man solving the mystery of his own murder.That dying man is played by Edmond O'Brien in a marvelously sweaty performance. His character takes a break from the small legal services business he runs to spend a couple of days in San Francisco, enjoying some extra-curricular female activity out of sight of the girlfriend back home who's pressuring him to marry her. While in that most noirish of noir cities, he's poisoned one night in a jazz club, collateral damage in a tangled criminal plot that finds the plot's mastermind doing away with anyone who could serve as a witness. I spent some time trying to unravel the plot itself, but quickly gave up. As with most movies like this, the specifics don't much matter. All you need to know is that some really bad guys are up to no good, and O'Brien's character is caught up in their misdeeds through a dumb twist of fate -- he notarized some bills of sale that could link the criminal to his activities. You might think that the film would be about O'Brien racing the clock to find his killer, discovering in the last minutes that there's an antidote that can save him and give us a happy ending. But you'd be wrong. This is a dark, cynical noir -- O'Brien is dead from the moment he ingests the poison, and his actions for the rest of the movie are those of a drowning man frantically trying to save himself because he doesn't know what else to do with his final moments on Earth."D.O.A." looks like it was made for about five bucks, but it nevertheless managed to line up some formidable talent behind the screen. The director was five time Oscar nominated cinematographer Rudolph Mate, while the actual cinematography was provided by Ernest Laszlo, who would go on years later to win an Oscar himself. Dimitri Tiomkin provided the musical score, and while the music has been criticized for being at odds with the film's tone, I thought its at times jaunty incongruity added to the off-kilter mood of the film.Grade: A-