Tue 23 Jun 2009
RED LIGHT. United Artists, 1949. George Raft, Virginia Mayo, Gene Lockhart, Raymond Burr, Harry Morgan, Barton MacLane, Arthur Franz. Music: Dmitri Tiomkin. Director: Roy Del Ruth.
First of all, I have little or no idea what the title of this semi- or quasi-noirish movie means. And second of all, I’m not sure that the people who made this movie had a well-conceived idea about what kind of movie they wanted to make. (Or perhaps if they did, it’s one that doesn’t square away with the kind of movie I wanted them to make, in which case the problem is mine, and not theirs.)
While I stand to be rebutted on this, I found this film to be schizophrenic to an extreme. With Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan playing two of the most utterly nasty villains ever to appear on the screen, at least at the time of its first showing, this movie also contains some of the most vividly noirish scenes (dark alleys, neon signs, rainy rooftops, grotesque close-ups) to be seen in the entire first generation of the genre.
And yet, the message of the film is a spiritual if not totally religious one, one that leaves vengeance to an all-powerful heavenly being, complete with a spirited — if not overpoweringly uplifting — musical background provided by Dmitri Tiomkin.
To me, though, the musical score was intrusively inappropriate and working dramatically (and loudly) at cross-purposes against the darker images and story being portrayed on the screen.
George Raft plays Johnny Torno in Red Light, the co-owner of a medium-to-large trucking company. Several years before he was responsible for the imprisonment of company embezzler Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr), who upon his impending release from prison hires Rocky to kill Torno’s brother, a priest just returned to the US after a stint as a wartime chaplain.
At which point the movie also becomes a “dying message” mystery, for the dying man’s last words are, “In the Bible,” initiating a hunt by Torno for the subsequent guests in his brother’s hotel room, once Torno realizes that the Gideon Bible that was in it is missing.
One of these guests is Carla North (Virginia Mayo), whose presence in the movie is needed, I suspect, only because otherwise there would be no women in it. Why Torno hires her to aid him in finding the other guests is not entirely clear, save for a jarring coincidental wartime connection between him and her through his brother.
There are other major holes in the plot, often safely ignorable, and you might even call them minor, but major or minor, sometimes holes bother you, and sometime they don’t. This time, they did, perhaps because in the best of times, I’m not a George Raft fan, and even Virgina Mayo’s role in this movie I found too bland and watered down for my tastes.
If it weren’t for Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan (at the time still called Henry Morgan) I’d have to call this film totally ordinary, or even a notch or two less. But sometimes it takes a villain or two to make a movie memorable, and in this case, that’s precisely what this perfect pair of sadistic hoodlums did.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
George is almost as famous for the roles he turned down: High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca —- usually because they had “too many lines.” Bogie supposedly said after High Sierra that if Raft turned down one more role he’d be a star. Raft turned down Sam Spade.
To see him a little better than this check out Johnny Allegro or Johnny Angel (the first based on a James Hadley Chase novel and the second a Charles G. Booth novel). He’s good in They Drive By Night and Manpower too. For his oddest role see if you can find Fritz Lang’s You And Me (1938) a musical comedy! Not bad, and while not credited Leslie Charteris supposedly worked on the screenplay by Virginia Van Upp from a Norman Krasna story.
Though not as good as the Alan Ladd version his The Glass Key isn’t bad with Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams in the William Bendix role as the sadistic Jeff.
And keep an eye out for him in Christmas Eve with Randolph Scott and Joan Blondell, one of the strangest and most bizarre holiday films ever made. Spies, gamblers, orphans, the bank foreclosing on an eccentric old lady philanthropist, and rodeo stars … you have to see it to believe it.
Oh, and the best I can tell Red Light means STOP! Don’t watch this clunker!
That said, Morgan and Burr were always good as heavies (literally in Burr’s case). Hard to watch this and realize both would carve out careers as iconic good guys on the small screen.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
David
I’m aware that George Raft had some good roles in a number of movies, some of which I’ve actually seen. But for the majority of his films, I think I’d wear out my thesaurus in trying to find new synonyms for the word “dull” in describing most of his performances.
He was obviously popular enough in his day, but unless his characters had the same rough hard edge to them that he seems to have had himself, he usually seems miscast to me. For the sake of the movies he turned down, I think he’s owed a lot of thanks.
As for calling RED LIGHT a “clunker,” I did my best to avoid doing so!
And in all fairness, some reviewers seem not to have been bothered by some of the same things that bothered me.
— Steve
June 24th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
George Raft’s appeal always seemed a bit mystifying here, too! He certainly starred in some fine films, which benefitted from great directors: Raoul Walsh for They Drive By Night and Manpower, Fritz Lang for You and Me.
His alleged appeal to women always seemed especially mysterious. In They Drive By Night, Ann Sheridan and Ida Lupino both take one look at Raft, and fall madly in love with him. Lupino is even willing to kill for him! You just have to accept this for the sake of the story…
Raft was a comepetent actor, and can play a tough working man – a type in demand during the Depression.
Roy Del Ruth made a lot of decent movies. Have never seen Red Light. His Lady Killer is especially fun – a film with enough plot for five movies. It is really fast paced.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
The truth is Raft wasn’t an actor like Cagney, Bogie, or Robinson, and he knew it. He was a hoofer and a step above a gigilo who fell into acting and lucked out that in his first major role, Scarface, he made his mark flipping that coin.
The camera loved him and he liked the money and the attention so long as he didn’t have to work too hard. I’m not a Raft fan, but I think his appeal really was to women who — at least then — liked that slicked up dangerous lady killer persona.
He never did learn to act, but he did learn to seduce the camera, and by the time everyone realized he couldn’t act, and wouldn’t learn, it didn’t matter — he was a star and a legend.
But give him this, for all his many flaws he never lied to himself about his movie career.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:33 am
Oh, and for some unintentional laughs check out Lewis Allen’s A Bullet For Joey, a Red Scare flick in which a Commie agent in Canada hire deported American gangster Raft to kidnap a nuclear scientist. Edward G. Robinson is the RCMP Inspector assigned to the case.
We are spared Robinson in the familiar Mountie uniform, but Raft wearing a turtleneck with a porkpie hat is almost as disturbing. Of course George turns on his Commie employers when he realizes what they are up to, but not before the movie has gone hopelessly awry with Edward G. obviously collecting a pay check and hoping to escape with his reputation intact.
I can only imagine everyone involved was making it only in hopes it would keep them off of any blacklists. Audrey Totter is wasted, but then getting wasted was probably the best reaction to making this film. It’s no My Son John, but the laughs are there.