It is unusual to start a film with a sequence of an American flag, flying outside a building, and have it not accompanied by the usual rah-rah-rah patriotic music but instead by a dramatic ominous, sinister cue. That's because in Violence the flags front a disturbing sort of Fascist scam called The United Defenders, trying to recruit World War II veterans who may be dissatisfied with late 1940s conditions into stirring up demonstrations of hatred which can then be used by powerful wealthy sources behind the scenes, for their own purposes. This opening further develops into a contrast between the dark basement of the building, where thugs played by Sheldon Leonard and Peter Whitney beat up (and eventually kill) a veteran who has broken with them; and the brightly lit upstairs office. Nancy Coleman, an interesting minor actress, plays the secretary who has a somewhat overplayed tic of holding her hands to her face to indicate nervousness. We learn she is really working undercover for a magazine that's about to publish an expose of this racket. In one of those plot twists which noirs are famous for, she gets amnesia in a car accident, which complicates things, but a friendly man played by Michael O'Shea who is also trying to infiltrate the group helps her. I was reminded, in one scene where a young veteran stands up to question the bullying True Dawson, leader of the group (acted in a rather loud and hammy style by Emory Parnell) of the scene in the recent film The Master where a participant in the cult presided over by Philip Seymour Hoffman dares to question their mumbo-jumbo, and what happens to him. The film culminates in a neat ending where a mysterious, darkly lit figure known as Mister X, who was going to give the United Defenders a big bankroll until one of their violent riots went astray, is trying to slip out of town on a train. We recognize him only by the signet ring he wore in an earlier scene. The scene leaves it up to our imagination if and how he will be apprehended. Violence has its crudities: an overly emphatic music score,and story points that stretch credibility, but it is of great interest as an expression of murky political turmoil in the early US Cold War years.
Review of Violence
