Raw Deal 1948

 

Dennis O’Keefe’s 2^nd movie made for Anthony Mann was a back to back “B” with “T-Men” made a year before. Both movies can easily be described as raw in its story line but both are smooth and great looking mainly thanks to the black and white cinematography by the very important John Alton. He photographed both films along with many other “B movies” and also went on to do “A” films mainly at M.G.M. and ironically won an Oscar for his color work on “An American In Paris” in 1951. Alton was the author of an important and collectable book on cinematography “Painting With Light” published in 1949 which I’ve sold several times for nice money and is still valuable as a text on cinematography.

The story is simple but as I said raw and its themes can be seen as revenge and redemption. O’Keefe with the help of his main twist played by Claire Trevor who later that year would win herself an Oscar for playing another wounded dame in “Key Largo” plan to break Dennis out of prison for a crime he was convicted of but didn’t do. That they would even consider this loopy plan is pretty weird but they do it anyway.  O’ Keefe was the fall guy for the sick psycho Raymond Burr who sets up the escape hoping that O’ Keefe will be taken out in a hail of bullets and make his paying him the 50 Grand that he owes him from the crime moot. Burr likes to play with fire and one of his terrible crimes off camera is throwing a chafing dish of flaming cherries jubilee in the face of a doll who annoys him. Wonder if Fritz Lang saw this movie.

On the way out of the big house and on the lam, O’Keefe kidnaps Marsha Hunt his legal case worker who earlier in the film visits him in prison to lay out his time still owed to the state for his crime. Three more years if he behaves but Dennis has no interest in this offer and will later wake Marsha from a deep slumber to kidnap her and her car. She tries to convince Dennis to give it up to no avail. So off they go into the long night of noir with Mann and Alton calling the shots, the moods and the look of this deep dish little B. This three’s company also sets up a jealousy riff between Claire and Marsha which will come to a bitter end later in the movie.

The restored film looks great and you can really appreciate the images by Alton with his deep focus set ups, cramped interior car scenes, roads taken, on location footage and lots of reflections in mirrors, windows and even on the faces of clocks. It’s a cheap production to be sure, but because of the caustic casting including John Ireland (when wasn’t he great) in a somewhat small part along with a bevy of B character actors and a snarling larger than life nasty villain it’s all good. I’m not a big fan of Theremin music and Paul Sawtell who did the score uses it over the narration by Claire Trevor a little too much for my liking otherwise as I said it’s all good.