Starring Robert Young, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Based on the book The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks
86 minutes
A Jewish man is found dead in his home in Washington DC. The last people seen with him were three soldiers. Captain Finley (Robert Young), of the Metropolitan Police Department investigates the case. The investigation focuses first on Corporal Mitchell, who is nowhere to be found. The focus shifts to Sergeant Montgomery (Robert Ryan) once Corporal Mitchell has been found, his story checked, and a friend of Montgomery turns up dead.
This is the first of four movies from this year’s Noir City DC Film Festival at the AFI that I watched. The theme of the 2022 festival is “They Tried to Warn Us”.
Robert Ryan was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in this movie.
I failed to see any mention of the book this movie was based on in the credits.
Samuels, the murder victim, is played by Sam Levene. I haven’t seen him in many films and nothing recently. He is also in one of the other Noir City films I am planning to see next week. His part in this movie is confined to flashbacks when first Montgomery and then Mitchell tell Captain Finley what they remember about the night that Samuels was killed.
Robert Mitchum plays the part of Sergeant Keeley, a character who doesn’t really seem to have an arc of his own. He’s in the movie but I don’t feel as if he adds very much to it. This was early in Mitchum’s career, before he became well known.
One thing that I found confusing about this movie is that the soldiers some of whom are suspects in the case are in uniform but they say that they were recently discharged. I would think that it would be illegal for them to wear the uniform if they aren’t still in the Army.
The movie gets a little heavy handed towards the end as Captain Finley explains to one of the other soldiers why he needs his help setting a trap for Montgomery. It is one of the earliest movies to address the issue of antisemitism.
I wasn’t blown away by this movie. I wasn’t sure where it was going initially. I wonder if it would have been more effective to explicitly reveal who the killer is at the beginning of the movie. I’m not sure to whom, if anyone, I would recommend this movie. It isn’t bad but I fail to see anything in it that makes it worth recommending.
No comments:
Post a Comment