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Raw Deal (1948)
Mandatory for noir fans
Raw Deal (1948) is simply a great noir. The plot is nothing extraordinary, but interesting nonetheless. Jailbreak, love triangle, not-so happy ending. (As usual, my reviews are full of spoilers, be warned
) Raw Deal does not bother with details that would make it unnecessarily long. It does not specify what kind of crime got Joe (O'Keefe) in jail, and how exactly he makes his escape. It is just implied that his escape was somehow assisted by fellow gangster Rick Coyle (Burr) who owes him 50 grand for taking sole responsibility for whatever the felony was they committed together. We are briefly introduced to Rick and his henchman Fantail (Ireland) and Spider (Conway). Rick struts around in his lair in a robe that seems to have "gay, gay, gay" written all over it, and he has a disturbing interest in fire. His favorite toy is a cigarette lighter, and there's many candles burning in his headquarters on Corkscrew Alley, which is also the street where both Joe and his moll Pat (Trevor, also the narrator) grew up. Rick is convinced that Joe will be killed during his escape, so he can keep the 50.000 bucks for himself. But Joe and Pat do make it. However, the prison snipers punctured the getaway car's gas tank, so first hijack a taxi and later pay a nightly visit to Ann (Hunt), the young woman who had been visiting Joe in prison, and who seems to believe that underneath the hardened criminal there's a good soul in hiding. Joe kisses her awake, and hours later the three of them squeeze into Ann's car and continue their escape. Pat notices that Joe is attracted to Ann, and she gets very jealous of her. On Corkscrew Alley, it is Rick's birthday, and his mood is neither improved by his bad luck at card games, nor by the news that Joe made it through the police dragnet and seems to be in the clear. When a girl who fancies him (Chili "polka dot girl" Williams) accidentally spills her drink on his threads, he throws a fiery desert into her face. Rick sends out Fantail (I love that name, by the way) to a scheduled meeting with Joe in a taxidermist's shop near the ocean
to finish him off. Joe goes with Ann, leaving Pat, who sprained her ankle (probably deliberately, so Joe will carry her in his arms) back. And he walks straight into the trap. The crooked taxidermist, aptly named Grimshaw, disarms Joe, but Joe does not give up easily. He struggles with both Grimshaw and Fantail, and they use the the taxidermist's props: knives, metal rods, even a deer's antlers, in their fight. When it looks like Joe is going to be killed, Ann picks up Joe's gun and shoots Fantail. Then she runs down the beach, sobbing. Joe tries to console her, first by telling her that Fantail survived, and when it that doesn't really work, he tells her she did it to save him. Ann passionately declares her love for Joe. Joe, however, looks glum. Joe does not believe in a common future with Ann, and he sends her home
but near a gas station she is captured by Fantail, who actually did survive. Meanwhile, Joe and Pat are at a hotel, packing their suitcases, they plan to flee to South America. The phone rings, Pat picks it up, and Spider tells her that Rick has Ann, and that he will do some very bad things to her if Joe doesn't show up. Pat lies to Joe, telling him it was the desk clerk. Joe and Pat are aboard a steamer, and Joe tells a steward he wants to get married at sea. Pat is initially happy, but she soon realizes that Joe does not love her, he loves Ann, and she will only be a proxy for her. And then she blurts out the truth about the phone call. Joe does not hesitate a minute. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS, STOP READING NOW!!!
Joe turns up on Corkscrew Alley, he does away with Spider and Fantail and confronts Rick at the dinner table. Joe really seems to have mellowed out, he hesitates when Rick, tells him: "You know I never carry a gun." Except he does
he shoots Joe without retrieving the gun from his pocket, through the folds of the clothes. Joe, shoots back, the two engage in a nasty fight that causes the curtains to catch on fire. Joe pushes Rick into the flames and out of the window. Rick gives two nice screams before hitting the ground. Joe manages to get out of the burning building with Ann, but he is mortally wounded. He dies in Ann's arms, while Pat watches, handcuffed. There's no happy ending for anybody in this movie, which only adds to its appeal. It has both soft (but never sappy) and violent moments, and great acting by everybody. I liked especially Burr and Ireland, who play really vicious thugs, but O'Keefe and the two ladies are also great. Great camera work, too.
Pitfall (1948)
Goldilocks and the three jerks
Mona Stevens has beauty, wit, and a good heart. And there's not just one man in her life
no, three crave the blonde beauty's attention. The first one, Smiley, is her fiancé -- he's in jail at the beginning of the movie. The second one, Johnny, is a suburb-dwelling family man who is deadly bored with his life routine. And the third one is Mac, a private investigator. He's been hired by Johnny's insurance company to find out Smiley's ill-gotten gains, which he did. But to him, the job is not over, because he's fallen for Mona. But it's Johnny who starts an affair with her. He repossesses most of the gifts Smiley had bought Mona with his ill-gotten money, but let's her keep her speedboat after spending an afternoon with her. When Mona asks him if somebody's waiting for him to come home for dinner, he says no, effectively hiding that he's married. When Johnny is badly beaten by a jealous Mac, he calls in sick. Mona wants to visit him at home, nursing him back to health
but with perfect timing, she runs into his beautiful family. A wife and a son who did nothing bad to Johnny except being what they are: A homemaker and a young boy who, like all children, needs clothes and shoes. "Until my rich uncle dies, stop growing", Johnny snaps in the movie's first scene, quite cruel, actually.
Mona immediately backs out, and if it weren't for the persistent Mac, she would never have contacted Johnny again. Mac, who, by his own admission, isn't normally interested in women, just won't let her go. I don't like you, she bluntly says in one scene. And he calmly replies: What about my feelings? When Mac threatens to tell Johnny's wife about the affair, Johnny gives Mac a healthy beating and with pure hatred in his eyes tells him he'll kill him if he dare come near his family. And he definitely means it. Actually, Johnny reminds me of a former lover of mine here. A man who, in his own way, loved his family to the death. Speaking of death
death is already lingering in the air when Mac shifts his attention to Smiley, who soon will be released. Smiley, obviously not too bright, is fuming with jealousy. Mac has told him about Mona and Johnny and provided him with a gun. But he goes to Mona first, who calls Johnny, warning him. But it's no Johnny who will be gunned down
it's Smiley. Mac, in the meantime, shows up in Mona's place and starts filling her suitcases with everything he can find, for a short trip, or so he says. But Mona is more disturbed by the news about Smiley and Johnny. Even if she no longer loves Smiley, he didn't deserve to die. As for Johnny
she's very worried about his fate. When Mac starts comparing his success in eliminating both rivals at the same time (one dead, one guilty of murder) with gambling odds ("I'm a lucky gambler") Mona finds a gun and fires it.
No classic happy ending. Johnny will probably get away with shooting Smiley, because the D.A. accepts it as self-defense. Mona, however, will be charged with murder if Mac dies, which is quite probable. Johnny confesses his adultery to his wife, who is willing to give him, or rather their family, a second chance. But she does not seem happy at all.
The characters in this movie are all very realistic, and with the possible exception of Mac, nobody is really depraved. Unlike many other movies, it does not glamorize adultery, and it does not blame the woman for the whole mess. I like that.
Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery (1989)
Surprisingly faithful to the novel
"A Caribbean Mystery" is my favorite Miss Marple novel. It takes her to a scenery where you might expect Hercule Poirot but not our favorite English spinster. The book has many intriguing characters
and this TV movie kept many of them. You might miss Senora de Caspearo, who, in the book, gets Miss Marple on the right track with her "evil eye" superstition. But we have all necessary characters who are knitted into this mystery which is mostly about adultery, money
and murder. They dedicated much screen time to the maid, who was little more than a prop for Christie. However, befriending the maid and visiting her village, I actually think this is what Christie's Miss Marple might do. The voodoo stuff was probably inspired by other Christie novels, such as "The Pale Horse" or "Endless Night" but it used up much screen time which I would have rather dedicated to actually seeing Lucky's death. In the book, when they discover her floating corpse, they at first think it is Molly — which leads to the conclusion that the murderer might have been mistaken, too. That's why I give 9 stars out of 10.
And last but not least some hints for those who might be confused by user lossowitz' comments: The poison was not administered through pills in a bottle randomly placed into Palgrave's medicine cabinet but in another way which is not disclosed in the movie. Tim Kendall placed regular blood pressure pills there afterwards, taking advantage of the fact that many people in the hotel believed Palgrave had a heart condition. When Victoria started to tell people about the pill bottle that had not been in the cabinet before, Tim just played cool. He was still safe. Even if the police found out that Palgrave did not die of natural causes, he could have gotten away with it. But Victoria simply knew too much. She knew that the bottle belonged to Greg Dyson and that the person who placed it into Palgraves cabinet must have been either him or somebody who had access to his suite — the hotel manager, for example. Victoria confronts Dyson, who does not react to her threats because he simply didn't do it. Victoria did not enlist Miss Marple's help because she did not want the murderer brought to justice, she wanted money. She probably blackmailed Tim off-screen when he was "returning the knife". And if you watch the movie carefully, it becomes obvious that Palgrave is not just dug out because of a superfluous pill bottle but on behalf of the doctor who is Miss Marple's ally.