Mon 27 Oct 2014
Movie Review: A DANGEROUS PROFESSION (1949).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[14] Comments
A DANGEROUS PROFESSION. RKO Radio Pictures, 1949. George Raft, Ella Raines, Pat O’Brien, Bill Williams, Jim Backus, Roland Winters. Director: Ted Tetzlaff.
First of all, I have to confess that I don’t understand George Raft’s popularity as a movie star, and I assume he had to have been popular at the time, or how did he manage to be given leading roles in as many movies as he was? His demeanor is stiff and wooden, he barely breaks a smile now and then, and when his does, his eyes don’t seem to match what his mouth is trying to convey.
But I will concede that he’s better in this low budget movie than others I’ve seen him in. The first part of A Dangerous Profession is also rather interesting, so let me tell you about that before getting into what eventually does go wrong, which it does, or at least I thought so.
Raft plays Vince Kane, the lesser partner in a bail bondsman company, the other partner, the one with the money, is Pat O’Brien, who is mostly out of the picture (figuratively as well as literally) for the first part of the movie. The husband of the woman that Kane once had a brief affair with (Ella Raines) has been picked up by the police in connection with a bond security robbery, which also left a policeman dead.
Bail is therefore set high, $25,000, and the man’s wife (and Kane’s former flingmate) and her lawyer can come up with only $4000. But out of the blue another lawyer who claims to be representing her brings in another $12,000. She says she doesn’t know anything about it, but Kane chips in another $9000 of the firm’s money, thus incurring Pat O’Brien’s wrath.
It’s a neat setup for a good story, and so it seems doubly so when the husband gets bumped off, and the police in the form of Jim Backus’s character isn’t happy about that. George Raft, in the guise of Vince Kane, is caught in the middle.
But the story goes downhill from here. The crooks are are dumb as Shinola, and whoever wrote the script had no idea what to do with Pat O’Brien’s character. He’s all over the map in terms of what his role is in this movie, good, bad or indifferent, and I’m not sure the fellow who wrote the script knew either. I kind of like guys who choose sides, or whose side is chosen for him, and we know whose side he’s on, especially when the movie’s over, if not before.
Nor do I, as a brief postscript, think that Ella Raines should be happy with whoever was in charge of photographing her. Only briefly are glimpses are seen of of her in full noirish beauty.
October 27th, 2014 at 6:37 pm
Thank you for an interesting review.
Have never seen this movie. Although think I saw some of it while channel surfing.
But can help out with George Raft’s popularity.
Apparently working class men strongly identified with Raft as a working class hero.
They would turn out en masse when Raft made a film.
Similarly, Jean Gabin in France embodied the working class on screen.
This sort of “class consciousness” in audiences seems rarer in recent years.
October 27th, 2014 at 6:49 pm
Raft was also the definition of gangster cool. From SCARFACE on that flipping coin became a signature every kid and grown up knew. Women liked him because he was a dancer, men because he was tough, cool, and one of the guys.
Then too, much was made of Raft’s real life Mob connections. When SCARFACE was made they sent him to Capone to get the okay to do it.
The GEORGE RAFT STORY with Ray Danton actually gives a pretty good idea of what made him popular, plus, only having two expressions himself Danton is perfect to play the part.
October 27th, 2014 at 8:51 pm
An outstanding Raft performance in support of Robert Taylor can be found in Rogue Cop. A helluva picture. The Raft career lasted for nearly three full decades and he brought grace, strength and empathy to the table. It was, in some ways, a better career than Alan Ladd’s, and Raft in a guy, in his youth, who might have been able to bring those qualities, along with the required brutality and ruthlessness, always missing, to The Great Gatsby. I had a long talk with Matt Bruccoli about twenty years ago, and Fitzgerald wanted Clark Gable, granted there is no comparison between the two men and their respective abilities, but MGM was in the process of letting Fitzgerald walk, and despite Gable personally supporting such a project, r. Mayer explained, in no uncertain way, that this guy was hopeless, and while he agreed with Clark that it would be an interesting choice, they did not want Scott hanging around. Too bad for all concerned but understandable from Metro’s point of view. Apparently they had no trouble with Gable either, he just went on to the next thing.
October 27th, 2014 at 9:12 pm
His name on the cast list would make me avoid a film. So heavy-handed and sleazy Hollywood produced quite a few of this sort of actor.
October 27th, 2014 at 10:15 pm
I agree with Patty. As an actor, in most every role I’ve seen George Raft in, he plays a character I wouldn’t trust more than half an inch in any direction.
But I have to admit I haven’t seen all that many of his movies, including ROGUE COP, and as I said in my review, he’s almost not half bad in this one.
October 27th, 2014 at 11:36 pm
Barry
We seem to be in a minority here in appreciating Raft, and I would have loved to see him as Gatsby. He is very good in the underappreciated ROGUE COP and I thought held his own in SOME LIKE IT HOT.
He’s good in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, NOCTURNE, what’s the one where he and Robinson play linemen for the electric company, and I liked JOHNNY APPOLO. There is a really off beat one, a Christmas film of all things, where he, Randolph Scott, and George Brent are the foster sons of a wealthy woman in a financial crisis because of her charity work, I want to say it’s CHRISTMAS EVE.
Although he was very good in THE GLASS KEY as Ned Beaumont with Edward Arnold and Guinn Big Boy Williams as Jeff I still think the Ladd/Lake, Donlevy, Bendix film is better. He’s also very good in EACH DAWN I DIE.
Gable would have made an interesting Gatsby too, though I have always wanted to see the Ladd version because he is much closer to my idea of Gatsby than Redford or Leo. Alas everyone who makes Gatsby gets caught up in the glitz and glamour of the age and forgets there is a tough minded little story at the center that’s as cynical as anything in the hard boiled school.
Gatsby should have been made by Welles, Huston, or Hawks instead it always looks like it was done by Busby Berkely.
October 27th, 2014 at 11:48 pm
I’ll change the subject slightly and talk about Ella Raines for a minute. Her list of film and TV credits isn’t very long, only 29 in all, according to IMDb, but I think her best performance was one of her earliest, PHANTOM LADY, from 1944.
Jon and I watched a later one a couple of nights ago, THE WALKING HILLS, a contemporary western noir with Randolph Scott from 1949, the same year as DANGEROUS PROFESSION, and I thought she was terrific. I think Jon is going write that one up. We’ll have to wait and see what he says about her.
October 27th, 2014 at 11:52 pm
I see from IMDb that Ella Raines’ last screen appearance was in an episode of MATT HOUSTON, the TV show. This was after a gap of 28 years of not being on either TV or in the movies.
I don’t know if there’s an official release of MATT HOUSTON, but if not, I know I’ve seen the series available somewhere on c2c DVDs. I never watched the show that often when it was on, but I think I’m talking myself into seeing if I can’t track it down it again.
October 28th, 2014 at 12:17 am
David,
Manpower is the Raft-Robinson film, with Dietrich and Raul Walsh directing, and I agree with you completely in your assessments. The problem about Gatsby seems that the filmmakers see only Fitzgerald’s longing and sensitivity, but his story concerns a career criminal’s rich fantasy life. It needs a harder edge. Raft as Ned Beaumont, and of course the Ladd film is the better, conveys the character’s discomfort with most people, though not with Paul Madvig. I thought Edward Arnold great in the part, as was usually the case.
October 28th, 2014 at 12:20 am
Steve,
Re The Walking Hills — sort of Treasure of the Sierra Madre light, a better than average film, Randolph Scott and company do a fine job. I am not too interested in Ella Raines, and not at all in William Bishop. The others, John Ireland, Arthur Kennedy, Josh White and Jerome Courtland all do yeoman’s work. A smart film, beautifully shot with both hard and gentle elements that surprise.shot
October 28th, 2014 at 3:50 am
Barry,
We’re getting way off the subject here, but GATSBY should have been made in the 1950s or early-60s by Douglas Sirk or Vincente Minelli.
As for Raft, he had his moments, but he needed a director who could exploit his impassivity. MANPOWER is probably his best work, with GLASS KEY a very close second. I read Lewis Yablonsky’s bio of him, and apparently at one time or another he had sexual relations with every woman in the western hemisphere.
October 28th, 2014 at 3:13 pm
Dan
Sirk and Minelli are good choices, maybe Robert Stack as Gatsby, Rock as Nick, and Dorothy Malone as Daisy, and Jack Carson as Tom Beaumont.
Raft did seem to cut a swath through the women who came into his path.
Steve, Barry,
I look forward to THE WALKING HILLS review, a superior little film with a fine cast and tough story. It’s written by Alan Lemay of THE SEARCHERS and THE UNFORGIVEN, so that may help. It’s one of those films that deserves more attention than it got or gets today.
October 28th, 2014 at 4:00 pm
A fine Sirk cast for Gatsby. Love to see it.
October 29th, 2014 at 4:14 pm
More — on Mr. Raft
There is a charming sequence between Raft and Jerry Lewis in the Ladies Man (1961) available on youtube. On that same thread, an episode, The Trucking Story, of his television series, I’M The Law. Excellent in all departments.