MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE UNDERCOVER MAN (1949)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

THE UNDERCOVER MAN (1949)

In spite of breakout success with B-pic thriller MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS/’45, star Nina Foch and director Joseph H. Lewis never did reach the A-list*, plateauing on B+ budgets like this trim film noir about Treasury Department agent Glenn Ford (and team) taking down a Big City Mob Syndicate. Split between IRS procedural efforts to nail down a paper trail for all those unpaid taxes (3 mill owed from illegal betting, protection rackets, counterfeit goods) and threatening set pieces (a humdinger kidnapping/rubout attempt at the climax), with plotting and strategy as clearly laid out & easy to follow as Ford’s classic noir GILDA/’46 was opaque. Just not as fun, not as sexy, not as exciting, not as dumbfounding . . . and missing Rita Hayworth something awful. Sense & sensibility not a necessity in these things. Still, worth a watch, with good support on both sides of the camera. If only the mob boss wasn’t nicknamed The Big Fellow. (Not exactly Scarface memorable.*) And if that sweet Italian grandmother didn’t rescue the operation with a long speech (in Italian!) about her dream of America.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Foch only hitting the A-list in supporting roles.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Something of a trial run for Lewis’s superior noir, THE BIG COMBO/’55. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-big-combo-1955.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Odd title for a film that doesn’t send anyone undercover. Maybe the guy who came up with the title also thought ‘Big Fellow’ would make a catchy mob nickname.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

THE UNDERCOVER MAN (1949)

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