This is the film in which Lizabeth Scott probably sizzles the most, and it may be her finest performance. She plays a femme fatale who oscillates between being good and being bad with the regularity of a sine wave. One moment she is looking at Humphrey Bogart with the fragility and devotion of a child, and the next she is pulling a gun. As Bogart says in this film, he doesn't trust women, and they should just 'concentrate on being beautiful'. The direction by John Cromwell is superb, and this is one of his best films ever. The film does not have the psychological and emotional profundity of IN A LONELY PLACE (1950, see my review), which Bogart made three years later with Gloria Grahame under Nicholas Ray's direction. But then it is not that kind of story, it is more of a mystery thriller. The screenplay jointly written by Oliver H. P. Garrett and Steve Fisher is truly brilliant, with crisp and witty lines, fast-paced dialogue, and an ingenious construction whereby verbal asides and small details come back into the story meaningfully at a later stage. That script was truly worked over many times and refined like caster sugar, and it has an impeccable sheen. Morris Carnovsky and Marvin Miller between them, as the two baddies, cover just about every base in criminality. The story is one which was bound to resonate with audiences at the time, because it concerns two wartime buddies from the paratroopers returning to America to receive medals for heroism. But, as happens in all such film noir movies, they return home to trouble and a void. As they all discover quickly: 'things have changed'. Lizabeth Scott as the dream girl who kept Bogart's buddy going with memories through the War, has one reunion with him and soon he is dead. This is not looking good, and Bogart decides to investigate. He too falls for Scott, whose siren charms prove irresistible, no matter how hard he tries to remain hard-boiled. There are many twists and turns. Did she or didn't she? Is she or isn't she? Who really did what to whom and why? Where does all the guilt really lie, and what guilt is that guilt anyway? I cannot reveal the ending, but what I can say is that the final shot in the film is a true stroke of genius. They don't write 'em or make 'em like this any more.

"It is good that it was a little while back that we saw this movie, for it gave me a little bit of time to think about it," Kristl said."You changed your opinion?" Henry said."Well, I changed my point of view. I changed how I look at it.""If I recall you said it was a Maltese Falcon rip off? So, it isn't any longer?""Well.. it still is, but on the other hand there is nothing against making a movie that is similar to another. On the face of it, many stories are similar. A lot of stories have a bad evil rising and a good guy fighting and defeating it. Many stories have the idea of a discovery, usually in the form of an adventure in which the protagonist undergoes an experience and changes at the end.""Uhm OK.""The problem with Dead Reckoning isn't that it is similar to the Maltese Falcon, but that it doesn't work very well. It lacks all the great things that the Maltese Falcon makes such a great movie. The relation between Bogart and Scott has no spark, while the one between Bogart and Astor does work. Then there are no interesting side persons such as Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. In the Maltese Falcon the Falcon ties the story together and greed is the driving force, in Dead Reckoning there is nothing.""It is a rather confused story.""It is…""As far as I got it, Bogey plays a Captain who follows the tracks of one of his subordinates and close friend Sergeant Drake. He discovers that he is killed in a fire. So what next?""Well.. Bogey the captain, goes to find out. He meets some guy who works in a club and who gives him a letter from Drake and then follows some muddle with a club owner who is a mob boss. The story meanders. And somewhere we got a situation that is almost similar to the Maltese Falcon: a game played between the cynical and hard boiled bogey and the 'femme fatale' Scott. It just falls flat and it is boring.""Okay.""You don't say much yourself.""Well, it is and old movie, but a bit boring. Like many of these old movies are, unless it's an adventure movie, like one with Errol Flynn. Like eh the Adventures of Robin Hood or adventures of Don Juan. Swashbuckling movies, with a charming hero. I just don't like these dark cynical movies. Light entertainment. Make life enjoyable." Henry gave Kristl a smile."Oh.. I sort of like them..""I gather that. Seems you tend to the dark side, my lady, while I tend to the light.""That sounds very Star Wars like.""Definitely.., it is.""Well….Yoda...just sit the next ones out.. and then it is your turn.""Good.. it is."www.meritcoba.com

At this point in Humphrey Bogart's career, he was now a well enough established actor to be given free rein of his choice of director while on loan to Columbia Studios. He came up with John Cromwell who had given him his first break in the play Swifty, back in the 1920s. Cromwell decided to work with him again, but there was a problem, they had no story. According to Cromwell; they finally got this one , a noxious sort of thing , but I felt perhaps we could make something of it.' The 'noxious sort of thing' in question was Dead Reckoning, which turned out- unintentionally, it seems- to be almost a parody of The Maltese Falcon. Just like Sam Spade, Rip Murdock ( Bogart ) is trying to avenge the death of his partner; in this instance they were formerly paratrooper pals. It also borrows shamelessly from the film Double Indemnity, the same idea of a narrative voice-over commentary by Bogart. Even to the point of Fred MacMurray's repeated references to the smell of honeysuckle, in Double Indemnity, while Bogart harps on the smell of jasmine in the hair of co-star Lizabeth Scott. Sadly there is not the same friction and chemistry between Bogart/Scott as with MacMurray/Stanwyck. Bogart in this movie does not really seem interested in his sexy leading lady Scott, and it shows on film. Sadly for Lizabeth Scott, as an actress she was not lucky enough to have been taken under the wing of a brilliant Svengali-like director, which had been the main factor in setting Lauren Bacall on the road to success. But I still found her performance is exceptional under the circumstances and more interesting than Bogart's. While not near one of his best films, it is still a curiosity to see for Bogart fans and Scott fans alike. Either you'll like it or you won't, I'll let the reader decide for themselves.

"Dead Reckoning" is an entertaining movie which contains many film noir characteristics. The urban setting, dark rainy streets, a flashback narrated by the main protagonist, interesting use of shadows, a femme fatale and a twisting storyline are just some. Humphrey Bogart's performance as a guy who's both tough and worldly but also gullible is impeccable and compelling to watch.After returning from military service in France, Captain Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) are summoned to Washington DC to be awarded medals, but when Johnny realises that the ceremony is likely to be featured in the newsreels, he becomes agitated and when their train stops at Philadelphia and newspaper photographers want to take the men's pictures, he suddenly disappears. Rip is naturally shocked and decides to go after him.Rip goes to Johnny's home town, Gulf City, where he discovers that his friend had enlisted under an assumed name and is still wanted for the murder of Stuart Chandler, a wealthy local resident who was married to a cabaret singer called Coral (Lizabeth Scott). Johnny is subsequently killed in a car crash and Rip decides to do all he can to clear Johnny's name.At the "Sanctuary Club" Rip traces Louis Ord (George Chandler), who'd been a witness in the murder trial and he tells Rip that he has a letter for him from Johnny. Rip also meets Coral (the woman who Johnny had been in love with), club owner Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky) and also his sadistic henchman Krause (Marvin Miller). That night, Rip is drugged and framed for the murder of Louis Ord and this leads him into a determined pursuit of the missing letter and Chandler's murderer."Dead Reckoning" was made in an era which predated political correctness and as a result some of Bogart's utterances now seem rather anachronistic. He tells Johnny that "all females are the same with their faces washed" and also tells Coral the "women ought to come capsule size, about 4" high and when a man goes out of an evening he just puts her in his pocket........and that way he knows exactly where she is". He is then free to "swap a few lies with his pals without danger of interruption and when it comes to that time of the evening when he wants her full sized and beautiful, he just waves his hand and there she is........and if she starts to interrupt, he just shrinks her back to pocket size and puts her away". Coral's eventual positive take on these remarks would normally be regarded as astonishing but she is so duplicitous a character that nothing she says is genuinely surprising. She's cold, mysterious and remote and full of contradictions and although Rip is wary of her, he still finds her irresistible. Martinelli is also a puzzling character with his own contradictions as he's a brutal gangster who claims that "by nature I'm a gentleman, truly gentle". He also says that "brutality has always revolted me as the weapon of the witless" and seems to genuinely find seeing any violence deeply distasteful."Dead Reckoning" doesn't enjoy the status of some of Bogart's classics and is a bit narration-heavy, however, the strange complexities of its story and its characters are intriguing and make it thoroughly absorbing and enjoyable.