User Reviews

VIOLENCE (1947) is an offbeat crime film about a Los Angeles veterans organization, United Defenders, which is a front for racketeers and murderers.

Entertaining Noir ... films coming out of Hollywood that would later be dubbed film noir by French critics (and 1947 was a prime year for film noir).

Violence is a B-movie programmer . The film is a curious melding of postwar angst, mob drama, and amnesia.

It's almost a little too much plot for a 72-minute film. It's interesting enough and I enjoyed it, yet one senses the movie could have been better if the film was a bit more coherent .

A vague chronicle of a group run by ex-cons attempting to fleece veterans who at the time the film was made were having a difficult time readjusting to postwar US society. Violence, a movie that attempts to cash in on the fears and the tumult of a country trying to get back to work, and hoping to recover from too many years of war and depression.

Nancy Coleman stars as photojournalist Ann Dwire using the alias of Ann Mason, working undercover as a secretary to the organization's boss True Dawson (Emory Parnell) who reminds me a little of tough guy thespian Broderick Crawford.

Adorable Nancy Coleman (1912-2000) stars as an undercover reporter looking into a veteran's organization that promotes violence. She was active in the 40s and then switched to TV.

Coleman (HER SISTER'S SECRET) is an interesting actress and makes the film worth watching she is very wholesome and charming. VIOLENCE (1947) It's a delightfully noirish and a very obscure 1940's film . Dispite not being a top tier noir I recommend this one ! It is of great interest as an expression of murky political turmoil in the early US Cold War years. 7/10.

The film is about a group which calls itself "The United Defenders". It's a pseudo-political group that has very vague goals and agenda for achieving it apart from mob violence. The group is run by some cynical men with no real political beliefs...just the belief that they can lead stupid veterans into creating a fascist-like organization in order to make the leaders rich. Ann works for the group but really is a reporter there to get the dirt on this hateful group.

So far, I liked the film. However, when Ann heads to Chicago to meet with her publisher, the movie gets a bit dumb. She's in an accident and has amnesia!!! I hate the amnesia bit...it's way overused in films and would make sense if Ann suffered a massive head injury...which she didn't! No head bandage...no obvious trauma of any kind...just movie amnesia!!! Despite this bad plot device, the film did remain interesting...mostly because the villains (led by Sheldon Leonard) were enjoyable to watch. But at heart, the film misses the mark despite being quite entertaining at times.

(1947) Violence CRIME DRAMA

Co-produced and directed by Jack Bernhard that has two men beating up a guy name Joe Donahue (Jimmy Clark) for some information before he is killed and murdered. All this ruckus was happening down inside a basement, and it appears that Fred Stalk (Sheldon Leonard) gives out orders while the person who does all the beatings his name is "Joker'(Peter Whitney), both of them are working for a wannabe politician, True Dawson (Emory Parnell) as he has just finished speaking on front of a group of war veterans. As they are interacting with the secretary, Ann Mason (Nancy Coleman) before True Dawson come out and takes him into a private office. We then find out that the guy both Fred and Joker had just murdered, Troy Donahue apparently used to work for the True Dawson campaign until he did some investigating of his own. And that Tony was able to uncover some incriminating dirt on the candidate True Dawson, the reason why he was murdered so that this info cannot get out. And during them discussing matters, is when Ann the secretary walks in to discuss her departure to visit friends in Chicago. We find out later by the time we see her at her apartment that she too is also investigating True Dawson's shady past for a magazine called "View" for an editor, Ralph Borden (Pierre Watkin).

Things takes a turn for the worse as soon as Ann comes off from the Chicago airport and she notices someone following her and she asks the driver to lose him. And gets into an accident that causes her to lose her memory wondering her purpose to visit Chicago in the first place. We are then introduced to another person, claiming to be her fiance who happens to be a war veteran himself, Steve Fuller (Michael O'Shea). And upon Ann return back to LA with Steve at her side, she very slowly begins to recount what happened as well as her purpose including her role as a secretary. And it is not long, Steve is doing some sleuthing himself, he does this by discovering a letter addressed with Joe Donahue's name on it. And of course, he also associates himself with Fred and his brute Joker after working for the True Dawson campaign called the "United Defenders". It becomes complicated when Joe Donahue's wife, Sally Donahue (Cay Forester) shows up looking for her husband and Ann gets involves her self in her husband's disappearance.

With a short running time of an hour and 12 minutes, this movie is not bad if not for the predictable scenes their is a happy ending.

Much of the team that made Monogram's Decoy of the year before such a startling little thriller re-upped for the same studio's Violence: Director Jack Bernhard, co-scripter Stanley Rubin, composer Edward J. Kay, heavy Sheldon Leonard (the second-string Raymond Burr, who, like Burr, would find his fortune in television). Lightning, alas, failed to strike twice, so Violence remains a typically flawed Poverty-Row production.

In the basement of the Los Angeles headquarters of the United Defenders – a pseudo-populist scam organization to fleece angry veterans – a young recruit who stumbled onto the truth meets his unpleasant end. (This crypto-Fascist group has affinities with The Black Legion of a decade earlier.) Upstairs, however, the forced cheeriness prevails, with the head of this personality cult (`True' Dawson, played by Emory Parnell) bidding his loyal secretary (Nancy Coleman) goodbye as she leaves for a vacation to Chicago. Little does he suspect that Coleman is an investigative reporter working undercover on an exposé of the racket, which will hit the streets as soon as she's safe in the Windy City. Leonard, one of his lieutenants, does have his suspicions about, as well as unresolved feelings for, Coleman, but can't find the evidence, so off she goes.

In Chicago en route to her magazine's offices, Coleman's cab crashes trying to elude a mysterious pursuer (Milo O'Shea). Hospitalized, Coleman wakes to find herself in a state of amnesia (of the trickiest sort: She remembers things that are convenient to advancing the story but forgets everything else). Back on the coast, she has no memory of her journalistic scoop and so thinks herself a loyal soldier for the United Defenders; she also believes she's engaged to O'Shea, because he told her so. And the plot lumbers on, with the murdered man's widow showing up to find him, and an all-powerful `Mr. X' looming darkly behind the whole operation....

Violence is riddled with holes and implausibilities (of the type that, in today's Hollywood, would all but guarantee a blockbuster). Rather transparently, it draws on themes and issues that sparked the early years of the noir cycle: The dissatisfaction of returning veterans and post-war labor strife (and might the demagogue's name `True' be an echo of then-president Harry S Truman's?). But the topical references prove no more than gimmicks for a quick-and-dirty production that has little coherence or resonance.

There's a corruption plot here, and in almost every movie with a corruption plot, it is the dogooder politician behind the corruption. I'm not giving any secrets here. This movie is markedly different for some reason. My suspicion is they either ran out of film, money or time and had to wrap it up.

With peter whitney as the joker (no it's not set in gotham city) and sheldon leonard (no, he's not telling anyone which elevator or railroad train to take), the stage is set for a great reveal at the end of mr x's identity (no it's not elon musk or pierre watkin), but then the story just ends and michael o'shea goes off with the cute muckraking reporter. Also featured in here, as a doctor, was john (no he's not telling the copyboy don't call me chief) hamilton, a star on early tv. The most important thing in this movie is it prepared us for a corrupt, much bankrupted businessman to make a lot of noise about cleaning out the swamp, so to speak, while corrupting it himself.

"Violence" is a 1947 low budget black and white film dealing with the problem of veterans adjusting to a society that seemingly doesn't provide adequately for their post-war needs. Most viewers today may not understand the topic but in 1947 this was a major topic as returning servicemen tried to adjust to society and as society tried to absorb them back into the workforce and life in general.

During the War strikes were forbidden and women took on major roles in the workforce. With millions of returning servicemen looking for jobs, businesses took the opportunity to reduce wages. So jobs were in short supply and wages were low. Many industries were scaling down from war production. Strikes began in major industries.

In the Great Strike Wave of 1945-46 Truman threatened to take over railroads if strikes persisted. Democrats lost the election in 1946 and the Republicans passed the Taft-Hartley Act limiting the ability of unions to strike.

On top of this, many veterans had mental health problems that were not being treated, promoting Truman to establish NIMH in 1946.

In the middle of this turmoil, HUAC was created in 1945 and became extremely active in 1947.

By the early 50s the Cold War was well in progress and the U.S. experienced enormous prosperity, and this transitional period between 1945 and 1950 was forgotten.

This film, as ordinary as it is, reflects some of the concerns of the times.

My favorite films about this era are "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), "Till the End of Time" (1946), "Home of the Brave" (1949), and "The Men" (1950).

The movie has veterans of WWII being recruited to be part of a group that will use violence to accomplish the goals of bigger men. A young go-getter female reporter infiltrates it. Very early plot twist: on the way back to Chicago to file her stories, she gets in a motor vehicle accident, her typed-out stories are burned up in the car fire, and she gets amnesia. Dun-dun-duhhh....

Nancy Coleman is convincing as the reporter who is distressed about her loss of memory, although she rubs her temple too many times. Steve Fuller, who surely must have got his start as Kirk Douglas's stand-in, is a convincing male lead here, but he's clearly in support of Coleman.

It's gritty, adult fare for 1947. It might not be splattered-blood Bonnie & Clyde violence but sometimes implied violence is actually more dramatic.

At one of the rallies - these are all recently released WWII vets, remember - one guy stands up and gives a highly unlikely w0kified speech right out of 2024 about how "hate and violence alone won't solve any of our problems." He is quickly ushered out.

There are some unlikely plot twists that rely on characters making very bad decisions or things that happen a bit too conveniently to keep the running time tight and the sh00ting schedule on budget.

But it's an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes just the same.

There's enough meat to this plot that good writers with a respectable budget could churn out an excellent first season of a short-run prestige-cable show. Of course, the reporter would be a bl3ck tr2ns-g3nd3r and the underground club would all wear red baseball caps.

Which brings me to Eddie Muller's presentation of this movie on April 7, 2024. He suggested that movies such as Violence might have "inspired the House Un-American Activities Committee to launch investigations into 'purported' (here he gives an ironic hand wave) communist influences in Hollywood." It's well established by now that Hollywood (and Washington) were completely infiltrated by commies, as they are today. One's credibility takes a big hit to pretend otherwise. I expect better from Muller.

Don't go w0ke, TCM. Cause you know what rhymes with w0ke.

Reporter Ann Dwire is undercover in a neo-fascist group as the secretary to the leader, True Dawson. They are recruiting disgruntled veterans returning from the war. She is ready to escape to report her findings to her Chicago newspaper but group member Fred Stalk is suspicious. Her cab is being pursued and ends up in a crash. She is left with amnesia and everything else burnt up in the fire. She recalls her fake identity Ann Mason. She returns to her fake job and speaking in support of the movement.

The premise is good but the execution is weak. There is good violent plot but it falters on execution. Lead actress Nancy Coleman is fine. It's mostly in the weak production and direction. I do like the general premise but this is not good.

This 1947 Poverty Row film noir about some racketeers organizing returning vets into strong-arm squads has an awful score of overwrought music from Edward J. Kay. Nancy Coleman is investigating the organization, but comes down with amnesia.

Since we know the set-up before she comes down with memory loss, there's no sense of noirish what-in-hell-is-going-on suspense. It all comes down to a cozy non-mystery shot on small sets with occasional bouts of rear projection, punctuated by loud, frantic musical stings. Besides Coleman, we get Sidney Sheldon, Michael O'Shea and Emory Parnell.

This is a stiff from the git-go. When Emory Parnell, who wasn't half-bad, has 4th billing, you know where it's going to go. Downhill is the only direction. Sheldon Leonard is fairly much a somnambulist, making no effort to remain awake. Michael O'Shea never got off the ground in the movies and too bad about that; this role didn't help him. Ditto Nancy Coleman. The premise isn't worth going into. I've forgotten it already (sort of a weak sister's version of mob violence (the weakest mob I've ever portrayed) promoting a populist vision of how the country should be. (A distant relative of the current scene in this country.) All in all, nothing about it is very good but the worst piece of business is the horrible soundtrack. If I could have turned down the music, I would've. But then I'd have heard none of the dialogue. Not a bad idea a that. My 2 cents: it's worthless.

Somewhat misplaced title since the main violence in this film is the furious scraping sound of the bottom of the Noir Alley barrel. In other words, "Violence" is so bad that even Eddie's intro and outro sucked. And speaking of the Noir Alley host, he warned us in the intro that the movie was odoriferous but that we might find it of interest as an anti domestic Fascist commentary. Which is a bit like saying that a 1948 Treasury Department press conference is a prescient anti inflation indicator. There's really nothing about it that rises above the trash can lid level other than, perhaps, Peter Whitney's study in sadistic arrested development (strange that Eddie, who is usually good at picking the few good bits in a dull candy box, fails to mention Whitney's performance). The rest of the acting runs the gamut from amusingly cliche (Sheldon Leonard's Brooklyn gunsel) to hole in the screen (Nancy Coleman's spunky but amnesiac reporter). Cinematography, directorial pacing and scene setting are non existent while the dialogue is as flat as a papadum. C minus.