T-Men (Anthony Mann, 1947)

T-Men (Anthony Mann, 1947)

Cast: Dennis O'Keefe, Alfred Ryder, Wallace Ford, Charles McGraw, Mary Meade, Jane Randolph, June Lockhart, Art Smith, Herbert Heyes, Jack Overman, John Wengraf, Jim Bannon, William Malten. Screenplay: John C. Higgins. Cinematography: John Alton. Art direction: Edward C. Jewell. Film editing: Fred Allen. Music: Paul Sawtell.

With its tough-guy cast, suspenseful screenplay, and superb noir-and-white cinematography by John Alton, T-Men is only slightly hindered by efforts to sell itself as a ripped-from-the-headlines True Story. It has a heavy-handed opener featuring the real head of the Treasury Department's investigative division, Elmer Lincoln Irey, selling us on the idea that the IRS is really our friend, and an ongoing voiceover narrative by the actor Reed Hadley that provides exposition we mostly don't need -- it could easily have been integrated into the dialogue. These flaws aside, the film has real grit as it follows T-man Dennis O'Brien (Dennis O'Keefe) and his partner Tony Genaro (Alfred Ryder) in their investigation of a counterfeiting scheme, encountering the usual menacing thugs and hard-bitten dames. Neither of the good guys has it easy, getting beat up and shot as they sleuth through the seamy side of '40s Los Angeles. Alton's camera gives us expressionistic angles and sinister shadows as it explores some well-chosen locations from Chinatown to a Turkish bath to the waterfront.

The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz, 1950)

John Garfield and Patricia Neal in The Breaking Point

Cast: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez, Wallace Ford, Edmon Ryan, Ralph Dumke, Guy Thomajan, William Campbell, Sherry Jackson, Donna Jo Boyce, Victor Sen Young. Screenplay: Ranald MacDougall, based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway. Cinematography: Ted D. McCord. Art direction: Edward Carrere. Film editing: Alan Crosland Jr. Music: Max Steiner.

If the setup, an honest fishing-boat captain forced into some intrigue he really doesn't want to get mixed up in, sounds familiar, that's because The Breaking Point was based on Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. And that had been the basis for a much looser adaptation (it mostly just kept the title) by Howard Hawks, with the aid of screenwriters Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, in 1944. But here, instead of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, we get John Garfield and Patricia Neal -- considerable actors both, but striking no sparks and teaching no one how to whistle. The New York Times's ineffable film critic Bosley Crowther much preferred The Breaking Point, calling the Hawks version a "feeble swing and a cut at Ernest Hemingway's memorable story of a tough guy" whereas director Michael Curtiz and screenwriter Ranald MacDougall "got hold of that fable and socked it into a four-base hit." Crowther's baseball metaphors aside, it's possible to admire the professionalism of Curtiz's direction and the adherence to a downer ending for Garfield's Harry Morgan, while still feeling that in their film Hawks, Furthman, Faulkner, Bogart, Bacall, et al. knew and displayed a lot more about the Hemingway virtue of grace under pressure.

Possessed (Clarence Brown, 1931)

 Possessed (Clarence Brown, 1931)

Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Wallace Ford, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Frank Conroy, Marjorie White, John Miljan, Clara Blandick. Screenplay: Lenore J. Coffee, based on a play by Edgar Selwyn. Cinematography: Oliver T. Marsh. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Costume design: Adrian. Music: Charles Maxwell.

The Informer (John Ford, 1935)

Time has not been kind to The Informer, though it was celebrated as a masterpiece at the time, and won four Academy Awards: John Ford for director, Victor McLaglen for best actor, Dudley Nichols for best screenplay, and Max Steiner for score.* Today, The Informer looks a little stiff and stagy and McLaglen's performance vastly overdone. The film invites comparison to much better manhunt films like Fritz Lang's M (1931) and especially Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947), which also takes the Irish revolution for its subject. Ford has a way of overstating things, such as the constant visions that Gypo Nolan (McLaglen) has of the "Wanted" poster that inspired him to inform against Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford). And the final scene in the church now feels impossibly mawkish: Frankie's mother (Una O'Connor), veiled and -- thanks to cinematographer Joseph H. August's lighting -- as beatific as a Raphael madonna, forgives Gypo, who then expires before a crucifix proclaiming, "Frankie! Your mother forgives me!" It has to be said, though, that The Informer is full of great energy, and some of the supporting performances, like J.M. Kerrigan's Terry, who sponges off of the newly flush Gypo, or May Boley as the madam of a Production Coded brothel, are vivid and colorful. McLaglen's performance lacks the kind of nuance that would help us see Gypo as more than just a drunken loudmouth with no moral compass, which would make the ending feel less unearned, but you can't take your eyes off of him even when you wish you could. Legend has it that Ford kept McLaglen liquored up throughout the film to get the performance he wanted, but there are many long takes and ensemble scenes that suggest to me that McLaglen was more in control of himself than the legend suggests.

*It also contributed to Oscar statistics: This was the first of Ford's record-setting Oscar wins as director. The others were for The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). (None of Ford's wins were for the genre with which is is most associated, the Western.) And Nichols became the first person to decline an Oscar: As a member of the Screen Writers Guild, Nichols was suspicious of the Academy because it had been founded in part as an attempt by the film industry to reduce the influence of unions. After the Academy began to disassociate itself from union-busting efforts, Nichols quietly accepted the award.