Ernest Hemingway once described the only proper way to do business with Hollywood. You drive up to the California border and stop before you cross it. The producers show up on the other side. You throw them the contract. They throw you the money and you catch it and run away.
Nice typical fifteen-minute noir opening informed by Hemingway's brand of ambiguity. There's a small town in New Jersey. Two malicious-looking mean-talking guys enter the diner and insinuate themselves into a position of command in a few minutes, making an occasional wisecrack. They announce that they've come to town to kill a Swede. After they leave, one of the customers runs to warn the Swede, but the Swede lies there in bed and says, thanks for coming, but there's nothing I can do. End of story.
The rest of the movie owes nothing to Hemingway and has to stand on its own. And it's not bad. Edmond O'Brien enters the story as an insurance investigator determined to find out why the Swede (Lancaster) left his $2500 life insurance to a elderly chambermaid in Atlantic City, whom he'd met six years ago and known for only two days. One tip leads to an implausible other tip and before you know it -- well, within a week anyway -- O'Brien has the case solved and the bad guys all dead and the femme fatale (Ava Gardner) sent to the slams.
If it's above average -- and it is -- it's because it is supertypical, almost an "ideal type" out of Max Weber. Lots of low-key lighting, mostly night shooting, Miklos Roza's ominous score (including a leitmotiv for the two killers that sounds exactly like the theme from "Dragnet"). Everybody double crosses everybody else. Of two childhood pals, one grows up to be a cop and the other a gangster. A beautiful and dangerous woman lies to a gullible but fundamentally decent guy but chooses to follow the money, casting her perils before swains. Sam Levene has a haircut that looks like the prototype for Don King's. A nightclub called the Green Kitty Cat or something, whose piano player launches into a nerve-rattling boogie tune when the two killers come down the stairs looking for O'Brien.
Towards the end it gets a little confusing. Let's see. A quarter of a million dollars is stolen from the Prentiss Hat Factory in Hackensack. At the end, O'Brien seems to have recovered the money -- but I don't know how.
There are some niggling flaws. Lancaster and his cell mate are in stir examining the stars through the bars. The cell mate (Vincent Barnett) has been studying stars for years. So how come he mispronounces "Orion"? And how come he says Orion is also known as The Big Bear? And how come he says Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the heavens? Now that I think about it, this is not a niggling flaw at all. It's deeply disturbing. And I'd feel even worse if I were Orion or Sirius.
The writer did his homework in other ways though. Yes, Chestnut is a prominent street in Philadelphia. And Newark at the time was filled with insurance companies, a poor man's Hartford. And MArket was a real telephone exchange in Newark. The Ledger was the most prominent local paper, and still is, though it's now the Star-Ledger. I'll have to check on those hats in Hackensack.
Final note: It's interesting how Hemingway, through his prose and dialog, almost created his own universe which, once immersed, the viewer comes to take for granted as natural. But Big Ernie's dialog doesn't translate too well to the screen, nor does his writing style. (Name a very good movie made from a Hemingway story.) What looks pungent on the page comes out arch on the screen. Of course there's not a heck of a lot of Hemingway in this movie anyway -- only the opening scene, up to the point at which the Swede dies with grace.
Nice typical fifteen-minute noir opening informed by Hemingway's brand of ambiguity. There's a small town in New Jersey. Two malicious-looking mean-talking guys enter the diner and insinuate themselves into a position of command in a few minutes, making an occasional wisecrack. They announce that they've come to town to kill a Swede. After they leave, one of the customers runs to warn the Swede, but the Swede lies there in bed and says, thanks for coming, but there's nothing I can do. End of story.
The rest of the movie owes nothing to Hemingway and has to stand on its own. And it's not bad. Edmond O'Brien enters the story as an insurance investigator determined to find out why the Swede (Lancaster) left his $2500 life insurance to a elderly chambermaid in Atlantic City, whom he'd met six years ago and known for only two days. One tip leads to an implausible other tip and before you know it -- well, within a week anyway -- O'Brien has the case solved and the bad guys all dead and the femme fatale (Ava Gardner) sent to the slams.
If it's above average -- and it is -- it's because it is supertypical, almost an "ideal type" out of Max Weber. Lots of low-key lighting, mostly night shooting, Miklos Roza's ominous score (including a leitmotiv for the two killers that sounds exactly like the theme from "Dragnet"). Everybody double crosses everybody else. Of two childhood pals, one grows up to be a cop and the other a gangster. A beautiful and dangerous woman lies to a gullible but fundamentally decent guy but chooses to follow the money, casting her perils before swains. Sam Levene has a haircut that looks like the prototype for Don King's. A nightclub called the Green Kitty Cat or something, whose piano player launches into a nerve-rattling boogie tune when the two killers come down the stairs looking for O'Brien.
Towards the end it gets a little confusing. Let's see. A quarter of a million dollars is stolen from the Prentiss Hat Factory in Hackensack. At the end, O'Brien seems to have recovered the money -- but I don't know how.
There are some niggling flaws. Lancaster and his cell mate are in stir examining the stars through the bars. The cell mate (Vincent Barnett) has been studying stars for years. So how come he mispronounces "Orion"? And how come he says Orion is also known as The Big Bear? And how come he says Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the heavens? Now that I think about it, this is not a niggling flaw at all. It's deeply disturbing. And I'd feel even worse if I were Orion or Sirius.
The writer did his homework in other ways though. Yes, Chestnut is a prominent street in Philadelphia. And Newark at the time was filled with insurance companies, a poor man's Hartford. And MArket was a real telephone exchange in Newark. The Ledger was the most prominent local paper, and still is, though it's now the Star-Ledger. I'll have to check on those hats in Hackensack.
Final note: It's interesting how Hemingway, through his prose and dialog, almost created his own universe which, once immersed, the viewer comes to take for granted as natural. But Big Ernie's dialog doesn't translate too well to the screen, nor does his writing style. (Name a very good movie made from a Hemingway story.) What looks pungent on the page comes out arch on the screen. Of course there's not a heck of a lot of Hemingway in this movie anyway -- only the opening scene, up to the point at which the Swede dies with grace.