Mon 8 Sep 2014
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE TALL TARGET (1951).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[2] Comments
THE TALL TARGET. MGM, 1951. Dick Powell, Paula Raymond, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson, Ruby Dee, Richard Rober, Leif Erickson, Will Geer, Florence Bates. Director: Anthony Mann.
Call it Civil War noir, Confederate noir. On the other hand, maybe it’s not really noir at all, but just a very good crime film set in 1861, but one with a quasi-postwar shadowy, urban atmosphere with a protagonist who looks like he would have fit right in roaming the neon-lit streets of 1950s Manhattan.
However you describe it, Anthony Mann’s The Tall Target is a extremely well-constructed, taut thriller about a New York City policeman named John Kennedy (Dick Powell) tasked with stopping an assassination plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Nearly the entire film takes place on a night train from New York en route to Washington DC, giving it a beautifully claustrophobic sensibility.
Based on the Baltimore Plot against Lincoln, the film follows Kennedy as he tries to convince people that there really is a plot against the future President’s life. In a plot device that is necessary to the development of the story, but which comes across as clichéd and rather unbelievable, Kennedy resigns his police commission and decides that he’s going to stop the plot as a private citizen. It’s the weakest part of an overall exceptional film, one that perhaps isn’t as well known as some of Mann’s Westerns from the same time period.
Along the night journey, Kennedy has to contend with a scheming U.S. Army Colonel, (Adolphe Menjou playing it to the hilt), a brother-and-sister pair of Confederate sympathizers, and their slave, Rachel, portrayed with grace by Ruby Dee. Also aboard the Night Flyer, a woman and her son, as well an outspoken abolitionist woman who wants to interview Rachel for a book she’s allegedly writing. There’s also a stranger who boards the train in the Philadelphia darkness.
Much as in The Heroes of Telemark, which I reviewed here, Mann demonstrates extreme dexterity when it comes to filming trains. Look in particular for the shots of the train approaching the station, with its bright circular light signifying its arrival.
The train station scenes are also very well filmed, creating an atmosphere of doom and gloom in the dark, rain swept night. There’s also a couple of murders and a harrowing scene of a man thrown from a moving train.
In conclusion, Mann’s The Tall Target is worth seeking out, particularly if you haven’t seen it already. With a running time of little under eighty minutes, the movie more than enough plot twists to keep a viewer engaged with the story. Even the Pinkerton Detective Agency plays a role in this under-appreciated film.
September 9th, 2014 at 9:53 am
It was interesting to me to see that Paula Raymond was billed second in this movie. Perhaps the producers that they needed a female name on the posters, but there was almost no need for her in the movie. The three main characters, I thought, were Powell, Menjou, and Will Geer, who played the conductor and was on screen a considerable amount of time.
Ruby Dee didn’t have much screen time, but she certainly made the best of her small role.
September 9th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
This is one of a handful of historical noir films, which aren’t really noir but have many of its tropes like So EVIL MY LOVE and Mann’s THE BLACK BOOK. Like western noir it is a small sub genre and not recognized by noir critics, but it is hard to deny the term fits the few films that it covers.
This one is a small gem that builds up considerable tension despite our knowing that Lincoln was not killed. I suspect what keeps this film from being as well known as it should be is because it isn’t one thing or another in terms of genre.
Whatever you call it the film is well worth catching with good performances all around.