Movie Review: The Woman In The Window (1944)

Genre: Noir Crime Drama

Director: Fritz Lang

Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Raymond Massey

Running Time: 99 minutes

Synopsis: With his family on vacation, stodgy Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) meets alluring model Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), who invites him for drinks at her place. Before long another man bursts in, a struggle ensues, and Richard kills the stranger in self defence. Fearing his life will be ruined if he calls the police, Richard plots with Alice to dump the body and tell no one. But District Attorney Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey), who is also Richard's friend from their social club, starts to assemble the clues, and the threat level rises when crooked ex-cop Heidt (Dan Duryea) shows up with blackmail on his mind.

What Works Well: Playing on classic noir themes of an innocent man who succumbs - just once - to a temptress and tumbles into a pile of trouble, director Fritz Lang and writer Nunnally Johnson accentuate the details. Richard is a studious professor of crime, and therefore attempts to carefully think his way out of his predicament. But in a study of unintended consequences, his every step and every statement expose him to self-incriminating risks. Edward G. Robinson is a perfect bourgeois in over his head, Joan Bennett sells dangerous allure, and Dan Duryea arrives in the second half with bags of oleaginous ill intent.

What Does Not Work As Well: The District Attorney is very quick to connect the dots, and while cleverly delivered, the ending chooses a safe pathway over edgier alternatives.

Conclusion: One mistake is all it takes.



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Movie Review: Action In The North Atlantic (1943)

A World War Two merchant navy war film, Action In The North Atlantic suppresses most of its propaganda tendencies to deliver a rollicking seaborne adventure.

World War Two is raging and the merchant marines are doing their best to supply the war effort in Europe. Commanding an oil tanker, Captain Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) and his first officer and friend Joe Rossi (Humphrey Bogart) tangle with a German U-boat and are sunk, their lifeboat rammed for good measure. Steve's men make it onto a raft and drift for eleven days before being rescued.

Awaiting their next assignment, Steve recuperates with his wife Sarah (Ruth Gordon) while Joe meets and marries lounge singer Pearl O'Neill (Julie Bishop). The two men are then paired up again and placed in charge of the new Liberty class SS Seawitch. They join a large multinational supply convoy on the way to the Soviet port of Murmansk via a stop in Halifax. Despite a navy escort, the journey across the North Atlantic will be perilous.

Most of Action In The North Atlantic is directed by Lloyd Bacon, although a contractual dispute meant that he did not complete the film. Byron Haskin and Raoul Walsh, both uncredited, were brought in to complete the project. At just over two hours, this is an ambitious, visually rich war adventure, and the pace never slows down. While there are a few scenes undoubtedly geared towards rallying the troops and encouraging recruitment, between them the directors create an impressive war film, with a commitment to quick pacing, tension build-up, regular doses of action and plenty of variety.

Action In The North Atlantic spends most of its running time on water, and features an assortment of engagements: stealthy sub attacks, survival in lifeboats and rafts, a battle between a sub wolfpack and a large convoy, a prolonged one-on-one chase across the high seas, and seaplane attacks. Using a combination of stock footage and models the special effects and scenes of wanton destruction on the ocean are excellent. Large ships are torpedoed, set on fire, attacked from the air, and abandoned, while subs are destroyed with depth charges, rammed and sunk.

The enemy is portrayed as committed without being dehumanized. All the scenes featuring German combatants and their commanders are in German with no subtitles, adding a welcome sense of authenticity.

The scenes on dry land are relatively few, and are used to effectively sketch in the backgrounds and love lives of the key characters. The relationship between Captain Jarvis and first officer Rossi underpins the story, and the film avoids any superfluous dramatics, complexities or buddy tendencies, with Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart delivering typically dependable performances. Jarvis and Rossi respect each other and work well together towards the same cause, and there isn't much more in their dynamic.

The film invests plenty of time with secondary characters, the seamen who have to unquestioningly obey orders, endure boredom and bad food, question the likelihood of their own survival, and then jump into sudden action within seconds of the alarm sounding. Alan Hale Sr., Sam Levene and Dane Clark are among the grease-stained actors who bring the crew to life while adding some comic relief.

Action In The North Atlantic delivers what it promises, in a quality package brimming with wartime verve.

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Movie Review: Santa Fe Trail (1940)

An intriguing story of the bubbling conflicts before the Civil War, Santa Fe Trail takes the usual historical liberties but is an otherwise thought provoking examination of hatred and zealotry deployed for a just cause.

It's 1854, and at the West Point Military Academy James "Jeb" Stewart (Errol Flynn), George Custer (Ronald Reagan) and Carl Rader (Van Heflin) are about to graduate together. But Rader harbours strong sympathies for violent slavery abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey), sparking a brawl among the members of the graduating class. Rader is dishonourably discharged. Stewart and Custer are posted to the dangerous territory around Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they both fall in love with Kit Holliday (Olivia de Havilland), the daughter of a railroad tycoon.

Rader joins Brown's growing movement of fanatics in Kansas, helping slaves escape but brutally killing and pillaging any community that stands in their way. Stewart and Custer are tasked with ending Brown's reign of terror, and they eventually uncover his hideout at Shubel Morgan's ranch in Palmyra. But Brown regroups in Virginia and plans a daring raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, forcing another confrontation with the army forces.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, Santa Fe Trail is a mix of military action, politics, bonhomie, romance and history. The film takes a few liberties with the historical characters of the era to create a who's-who of American military adventurism standing shoulder to shoulder. In reality Custer and Stewart were not in the same class, but here it does not matter. This is a reality-based story about the swirling clouds before the unseen storm, with a focus on the strong military bonds that were to be soon fractured. Stewart, Custer and their colleagues are gung-ho and united in giving chase to the radicalized Brown; and they cannot begin to conceive of a near future when they will be splintered and forced to fight each other.

John Brown presents a most interesting conundrum as the central antagonist. A virulent anti-slavery warrior, his methods were hateful and destructive, as he fought against despicable and dehumanizing racism. Brown was on a private war path before there was a war and therefore had to be stopped, but the Civil War that inevitably followed was an expanded version of the conflict he started. The film portrays Brown as a wide-eyed maniac, but Raymond Massey's domineering performance also portrays a man deeply convinced that he is right, with plenty of followers willing to take up arms for his cause.

Also interesting is the film's unapologetic presentation, through Stewart's words, of the South's position that left alone, the region was moving to phase out slavery on its own. And in the hellish chaos caused by Brown, a black family expresses a rejection of Brown's version of violence-drenched freedom and a longing for the comfort of what they know - slavery. These are not easy contrarian opinions to grapple with, and Santa Fe Trail allows the plot to progress through the vagaries of a pre-war era not yet defined by winners and losers, where right and wrong clash in the fog of opinionated pragmatism.

Through it all Errol Flynn delivers a surprisingly restrained performance. His version of Jeb Stewart is charismatic, heroic and daring when he needs to be, but just as often Flynn allows Stewart to be thoughtful, reserved and respectful. With his 1940s haircut Ronald Reagan is difficult to take seriously as Custer, while de Havilland gets yet another role as little more than decoration to Flynn's daring-do. This being the seventh Flynn - de Havilland screen pairing, the love triangle between Custer, Stewart and Kit is conceded by Reagan before the opening credits.

In addition to Van Heflin as the conflicted West Point outcast torn between a cause and his economic well-being, the supporting cast includes Alan Hale and William Lundigan as Tex Bell and Bob Holliday, two rough adventurers tagging along with the army mainly to provide comic relief.

Santa Fe Trail is an interesting pathway where the dark clouds of today conceal the looming black thunderheads of tomorrow, and all that seems certain and straight proves to be unexpectedly complex.

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