Out of prison after a 14 year prohibition-era rap, Burt Lancaster meets up with ex-partner Kirk Douglas to collect on the 50/50 split they’d promised each other back in the day should just one get caught. But too much has changed in the post-WWII corporate America Lancaster now finds himself lost in for that bargain to hold, the bigtime nightclub Douglas built up no longer run out of a petty cash drawer. Lancaster tries strong-arming his way in, rounding up a depleted gang of thugs to pressure Kirk; Douglas staying one step ahead using nightclub chanteuse Lizabeth Scott to kiss and tell on Burt. Only Lizabeth falls for the lug while a third partner (Wendell Corey) has an ace up his sleeve in a secret set of tell-all accounting books on Kirk’s business interests. Plenty of narrative angles for the usual film noir tropes, but for some reason, producer Hal Wallis gave second-unit/special effects man Byron Haskin the directing reins and Haskin, in his feature debut, seems to be learning on the job. Such lumpy, bumpy work; every edit a visual jolt, and not offering a lot of help on the acting front, either! Wallis seems to know it, too, slathering a loud, overactive musical track to cover all gaffes like meat gravy on a blue-plate special. Only pulling back on the score in the third act when Haskin (or someone . . . vet cinematographer Leo Tover?) suddenly ups his game. Okay, but could have been a lot better.
DOUBLE-BILL: See this done right (and with Kirk Douglas in a very similar role) in Jacques Tourneur’s OUT OF THE PAST/’47, released about a month earlier.
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