great noir

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I enjoyed it. I am not sure about "great", I would reserve that for movies like "Out of the Past" (1947), "Double Indemnity" (1944), "Night and the City" (1950), and a handful of others that you could recommend to a modern viewer as great films that can stand comparison with the best movies from any genre, not just as good noir examples.

But it is certainly a classic noir which ticks the following boxes:

1. Killer suffering mental illness, memory loss, etc, usually thorough WWII experiences or a blow to the head, but also sometimes from alcoholism (as here). And the mini-lecture from a psychiatrist to justify things to the audience, in the decade when psycho-analysis was first becoming known to the public at large.

2. Contrasting females, the total bitch (her role unfortunately curtailed here) and the (usually rather dull, as here) good girl.

3. The sinister but sophisticated owner of a ritzy night-club. Bonus points for being sexually ambivalent and with European accent.

4. The loyal sidekick who is the only one supporting the imperfect hero. (Invariably an ex-service buddy).

5. The discarded book-of-matches clue.

6. Nightclub songs inserted complete (rather than background snatches as in more recent movies). Very often the heroine is the singer, as here.

7. An expressionist sequence with "distorted" camerawork, echoing voices, etc, which proves a turning point and clarifies the hero's mind.

What else have I omitted?

What is lacking are:

A. Dumb and/or brutal cops. Captain Flood is one step ahead of our heroes and is very helpful (perhaps unrealistically so for an "open and shut" case). He was so suspiciously "nice" that I suspected a plot twist was maybe coming as to his involvement or secret agenda.

B. A powerful person (mafia boss, politician, greedy businessman or lawyer, etc) being brought down or unmasked at the finale. On the contrary, Marko is made, if anything, more sympathetic when his "secret" is revealed.

C. The hero befriends a child, animal, disabled person or racial minority to signal to the audience that he is good at heart. Often a sentimental defect even in more hard-boiled noirs than this one.



More generally, there was no cynicism or bitterness at all, and this is maybe why it is not a "great" noir, just an enjoyable one. Great noirs make us think about moral issues or are otherwise not so "comfortable" to watch.