Exemplary little Warner Bros. item with cast & crew firing on all cylinders. A flip on Ambrose Bierce/OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE, the adapted flop B’way play swaps hanging for the electric chair as condemned Edward G. Robinson relives the missteps that led him there. An hour’s remembrance in the two seconds it takes the electric charge to end it all. In flashback, he’s a high-rise construction worker, living bromantically with best pal Preston Foster (sole holdover from the stage cast and still playing to the back of the house at first). Ducking out on a double date, Eddie G. chats up dime-a-dance gal Vivienne Osborne (forgotten, but excellent) winding up on a fast track to marriage . . . and misery. Speedily handled in director Mervyn LeRoy’s best hard-charging early manner; the dialogue unexpectedly literate with both men fully understanding what’s going on/what’s going wrong; the look of the film quite remarkable for a near programmer with heightened grubby reality in Anton Grot’s coarsely textured sets and Sol Polito’s perfectly lit cinematography. Plus, at the end, a theatrically stylized set piece for Robinson to plead his case & ‘lose it’ in court. An acting tour de force on the order of Peter Lorre’s big confession at the end of Fritz Lang’s M, out the previous year and a likely inspiration.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Always a bit of a shock to remember that Eddie G. not only never won a competitive Oscar®, but never got nominated! Something other overlooked actors can take comfort in.
No comments:
Post a Comment