Extreme Noir!The only way this movie could have been any more 'noir' is if it had been filmed entirely in pitch darkness through a Venetian blind from a ladder! If anyone were to spoof this genre of movie-making they'd do well to take a close look at this. Angles and shadows are exaggerated beyond reality and the result makes this talkie hard to watch. Mind you, it's as well to point out that it probably looked a whole lot better on a big screen than it did on my TV!On the upside, the cast of actors are magnificent and make a pointless story just about watchable. Special mention to Garry Owen who plays the ambulance chasing mortician who gives Eddie a lift in the middle of the movie. There is almost no other comedy relief so his brief appearance was a welcome 'interlude'. Vera Marshe also shows up for a few seconds to steal her scene as a screwball nightclub job applicant. And there are a few others too if you care to look.Where this movie fails, though, is the story and pacing. After the war, Frank has lost his memory and he leaves a war veteran's hospital a seemingly nice chap. He heads home to Los Angeles and very quickly finds out that he was far from a nice chap and was actually mixed up in the LA underworld of gangsters and racketeers.The rest of the 90-minute run-time is spent with him confronting his past and being chased around the city by his enemies. Although John Payne suits this kind of role perfectly (he made a living from it) he doesn't really make himself much of a hero to root for or a person who can be sympathized with. Thus the whole saga of him getting beaten up and shot at falls largely on an uncaring audience.This movie is brilliant for movie buffs who like film trivia but for regular noir fans like myself, it falls flat.

An amnesiac soldier (John Payne) tries to find out who he is, and in the process, finds a ton of evidence to prove why everybody who recognizes him instantly hates him. Treated on San Francisco but moving to Los Angeles, he is snagged by police the minute he walks out of Union Station. Both the law and the lawless seem out to get him for reasons he can't remember, and even an alleged ex-wife resents him for more reasons than just am obvious unhappy marriage. This wasn't the first (or last) film noir dealing with the subject of amnesia brought on apparently by a war injury. It also wasn't the first or last where the hero seemingly had mob connections, in this case the ever uncharismatic Sonny Tufts who had the screen presence of a hair glued to the negative. At some points, it is unclear whether Payne is faking his amnesia, faking knowing who he is, or faking either his amnesiac identity or his perceived identity. Ellen Drew is the femme fatal ex-wife, while film noir regular Percy Helton adds spark as another one of his typical sludges of society. Long before he became one of T.V.'s most popular country store owners, Frank Cady was a regular in these dark dramas of the degradation of society at its smarmiest. Not really anything new by 1949 film noir standards, it still creates interest in finding out what Payne's story really is. There's plenty of intrigue, dark shadowy photography and clever dialog spoke with glaring hostility and convincing power by everybody but Tufts who was handsome on the surface, but in profile looked like something out of a Dick Tracy comic strip. What really makes this above average is the obvious fact that there is a ton of possibilities as to how this could wrap up, and the writers are intent on not taking the easy way out. The ending, involving Helton and his huge cat, is both gripping and touching. Deliciously complex, this deserves higher marks than its gotten, resulting in a nice sleeper of a film noir, highly worth remembering.

With all the past notoriety in the Los Angeles papers and the officials couldn't figure out who amnesiac John Payne (Eddie Rice- Riccardi) was? That I found to be somewhat hard to digest.Nonetheless, this is a nicely paced action thriller where an amnesiac returns to where he had originally enlisted only to find that he has some criminal past and that a guy who was guilty when he was freed is out to get him.Ellen Drew does a nice job as Eddie's wife, now working for the ruthless Sonny Tufts. To add more to this, the Tufts character frames Eddie for the murder of a police officer and therefore the majority of the film becomes centered around Eddie trying to prove his innocence while eluding the police.

Poor old John Payne. It must have been hard working in Golden Age Hollywood with that last name, so close to that of a genuine A-list star. Of course, Payne came by his nom de screen honestly, whereas his counterpart was born Marion Morrison — so chances are JP believed he had every right to use his birth-name, damn the consequences. And, indeed, he managed to parlay his talents into a reasonably solid if unspectacular 30 year career, including the male lead in holiday favorite Miracle on 34th Street. Still, one wonders if he could have gone further with a different moniker — which brings us to The Crooked Way, a film made only two years after the aforementioned Christmas classic but already a step down from A to B-list for Payne. Directed by Robert Florey for indie La Brea Productions, the film stars Payne as Eddie Rice, a veteran suffering from amnesia. Unfortunately, Eddie's forgotten that, prior to his war service, he'd been the wise guy responsible for sending gangster Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts) up the river — and Vince is still eager for revenge. Co-starring Rhys Williams as a friendly cop and squeaky-voiced Percy Helton (who I ALWAYS get confused with John Fiedler) as a cat-loving criminal, The Crooked Way is a better than average pseudo-noir featuring astonishing cinematography by genre specialist John Alton. Even if you don't find the story engaging, you won't soon forget Alton's work.