PICKUP ALLEY. Columbia Pictures, 1957. Victor Mature, Anita Ekberg, Trevor Howard, Bonar Colleano. Directed by John Gilling.

   Victor Mature portrays Charles Sturgis, a federal narcotics agent tasked with bringing down the enigmatic Frank McNally (Trevor Howard), a man also responsible for the death of his sister. Sturgis travels widely – there are a lot of shots of planes taking off and landing – in order to bring McNally to heel.

   There are a couple of subplots, but essentially the gist of the film is about a federal agent seeking to bring a devious international criminal to justice. Sounds compelling enough, right?

   Let me be blunt. For an international thriller, Pickup Alley aka Interpol is remarkably unadventurous. Dull, even. Part of this is Mature’s fault. But the script doesn’t help, either. Sure, you have the on location shots of Lisbon, Rome, Athens, and other cities.

   And then you’ve also got Anita Ekberg as a drug courier tasked with moving heroin from city to city. That must count for something too, right? Sadly, no.

   When all is said and done, this British crime film punches well below its weight and remains a case of ‘what might have been’ had the producers used the locations more to their benefit.

   Overall assessment: a structurally sound film with a not particularly captivating story about the international narcotics trade.

FINGER MAN. Allied Artists, 1955. Frank Lovejoy, Forrest Tucker, Peggie Castle, Timothy Carey. Director: Harold D. Schuster.

   Frank Lovejoy stars in Finger Man, a decidedly average 1950s crime film, about a career criminal who gets a chance to go straight – with a catch. After getting nabbed by law enforcement, Casey Martin (Lovejoy) is given a choice: either serve life in prison or collaborate with the Treasury Department to nail bootlegger and syndicate leader Dutch Becker (Forrest Tucker). After seeing what Becker’s goods — presumably heroin — have done to his very own sister, Casey decides that he’ll take the deal and work to bring down Dutch.

   Unfortunately, the movie is slow to get going. It takes a while for the premise of the film to come clearly into focus. Fortunately, however, things do get moving with the introduction of Peggy Castle as Gladys Baker, a former “employee” of Dutch’s who is now Casey’s love interest and Timothy Carey as Lou Terpe, Dutch’s sadistic enforcer. Both characters play a pivotal role in the plot. After the sociopathic Terpe (Carey) kills Gladys (Castle) at the behest of Dutch, all bets are off. Casey no longer wants to bring down Dutch for the cops. He is out for blood.

   As far as the cinematography, there’s nothing especially noir about it. In fact, this black and white movie often feels visually flat. Surely some more style could have been injected into the film to give it more of a shadowy look?

   All told, Finger Man is a gritty little crime film that tells a fairly basic story about a man at the crossroads of his life. It’s got some good parts and solid acting, but it’s not a “must see” by any means. There’s nothing particularly new under the sun here.
   

NO GOOD DEED. Screen Gems, 2014. Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Leslie Bibb, Kate del Castillo, Henry Simmons. Director: Sam Miller.

   Idris Elba plays against type in this suburban home invasion thriller. Elba portrays Colin, an escaped convict with narcissistic personality disorder. On a dark stormy night in Atlanta, he enters both the home and life of Terry (Taraji P. Henson), a former prosecutor and current stay-at-home mom.

   With charm and guile, Colin manages to persuade Terry that he is merely waiting for a tow truck after he wrecked his car. Little by little, and with the intervention of a friend of Terry’s, Colin’s story unravels. What begins as a good deed – inviting a stranger into one’s house to wait for a tow truck – turns into a nightmare.

   That’s the premise. What happens next is standard home invasion thriller fare. A cat and mouse game between the monster and the captive. There are some very tense moments here, which go to show most of all how talented an actor Elba is.

   There’s a moment – it’s actually quite late in No Good Deed – wherein the villain’s true motivations are finally revealed. Some might say that it comes too late. Others might rightfully consider that the reveal wasn’t presented in a manner that captures the viewer’s attention.

   Still, it’s a pivotal moment in the movie and one that makes No Good Deed a slightly more clever thriller than it might initially appear to be. Which makes one wonder why the film has only a mere 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s definitely better than that.

   Overall assessment: extremely watchable, but without a considerable amount of depth. If you choose to watch this one, do so for Elba’s performance and the claustrophobic atmosphere.

SHATTERED. Lionsgate, 2007. Pierce Brosnan, Maria Bello, Gerard Butler, Emma Karwandy. Director: Mike Barker.

   Shattered, released in the United Kingdom under the more dramatic title Butterfly on a Wheel, offers the viewer a solid cast, an intriguing premise, and a great deal of suspense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t capitalize on these positive aspects. Instead, the movie takes its leisurely time to finally get to the point. And when it finally does, let’s just say the big reveal is somewhat underwhelming.

   The premise and the plot are as follows. Suburban Chicago couple Neil (Gerald Butler) and Abby Randall (Maria Bello) are in what appears to be a happy, loving marriage. They have a young daughter Sophie whom they adore. While Neil works as a power broker at an advertising agency, Abby stays home to raise their child. Everything seems swell until one day a mysterious stranger with a gun (Pierce Brosnan) shows up in the back of their car and threatens their daughter’s life.

   For the next hour or so, the film revolves around Brosnan’s character putting the couple through a series of tests and ordeals. To what point and why, you might ask. That’s a good question and one the filmmakers should have thought of answering earlier in the movie than they did. Let’s just say it has something to do with Neil not being the completely upstanding husband he purports to be.

   I’ll confess that, despite its flaws, the movie kept me entertained. Or at least glued enough to the television that I wanted to know what was going to happen next. But would I watch Shattered again? Surely not. Overall assessment: intriguing premise, but an ultimate letdown. Brosnan deserved better than his thankless role.

CROSS-UP, aka TIGER BY THE TAIL. Eros Films, UK, 1954. Larry Parks, Constance Smith, Lisa Daniely, Cyril Chamberlai, Thora Hird. Screenplay by John Gilling and Willis Goldbeck, based on the novel Never Come Back, by John Mair. Directed by John Gilling.

   American reporter John Desmond (Larry Parks) meets attractive Anna Ray (Lia Daniely) soon after arriving in London and is instantly attracted to her, but no sooner than they are alone together than she argues with him, pulls a gun and tries to kill him, and in the ensuing struggle, he kills her.

   Desmond is rightfully concerned no one would believe him, and being a stranger in London, he thinks he might get away with just fading into the woodwork, but he soon discovers he didn’t go unobserved and he is being stalked not only by the police, but by a mysterious criminal organization that Ray worked for.

   Along with beautiful Jane Claymore (Constance Smith) Desmond is on the run and some of the sprightly dialogue has the snap of North by Northwest between them if nothing else comes up to that level. I don’t want to oversell it, but it is pretty good for a quota quickie, moves well, and Parks and Smith make an attractive film team.

   In fact the only real problem with Cross-Up is that until 1990 (a faithful made for television film) it was the only film version of John Mair’s early War novel Never Come Back, an innovative and entertaining thriller of the pre-War era that ended up being the only novel by a young literary writer who died shortly in an RAF accident.

   In Mair’s novel the hero is an anti-hero, if there ever was one, who seduces a young woman who becomes overly enamored of him leading him to murder her, only to discover she was tied up with a spy organization that he ends up infiltrating and destroying, recruited as a secret agent and now a hero or at least useful fellow despite of the fact he is a murderer or maybe because of it.

   Aside from the modern plot, the writing in the book is extraordinary making Mair’s loss all the more a tragedy.

   Cross-Up is an entertaining if minor variation on Mair’s novel with an attractive cast and certainly Gilling is a work horse director (Mother Reilly and the Vampire, The Pirates of Blood River) and screenwriter whose name has come up here on more than one film.

CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL. United Artists, 1957. Brian Keith, Beverly Garland, Dick Foran, Douglas Kennedy, Paul Langton, Elisha Cook Jr. Based on the book by Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer. Director: Sidney Salkow.

   This one’s for Brian Keith fans. In Chicago Confidential, Keith portrays intrepid and noble minded District Attorney Jim Fremont who is tasked with both prosecuting union leader Artie Blane (Dick Foran) and later working to prove his innocence. Pivotal to the case are a forged tape recording, the testimony of a local drunk named Candymouth Duggan (Elisha Cook Jr.), and a perjuring witness.

   The movie relies on semi-documentary filmmaking (complete with a rather unnecessary voiceover by an unseen narrator) and police procedural tropes to create a suspense-filled motion picture. The themes: unions, racketeering, and the miscarriage of justice.

   Although he’s not the movie’s prime star by a long shot, Cook’s character does play a pivotal role in how the story unfolds. His portrayal of a down and out alcoholic in Chicago Confidential reminded me how talented a character actor he truly was. There’s a harrowing scene in which he is taken by mob thugs to an overpass and is thrown to his death. It’s memorable not only for its violence, but for the manner in which Cook carries himself throughout the grim proceedings.

   Another character actor of note in the movie is Jack Lambert who portrays one of the mob enforcers. He was in a lot of movies and TV shows, often playing a tough guy. He has memorable features and there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen him in something you’ve watched.

   Final verdict: Overall, it’s not exceptional by any means, but it nevertheless works well enough for a 1950s crime film about union corruption. Recommended for those who find that sub-genre particularly compelling and, as I mentioned above, for Brian Keith fans. He’s good here.

SHOCK. 20th Century Fox, 1946. Vincent Price, Lynn Bari, Frank Latimore, Anabel Shaw, Michael Dunne, Reed Hadley. Director: Alfred L. Werker.

   Vincent Price plays a mad doctor in this one. But not a mad doctor as in a horror movie mad scientist. Rather, Dr. Cross (Price) is a seemingly mild mannered psychiatrist with a successful career. But he’s also having an affair with a nurse colleague (Lynn Bari) and has his share of anger issues.

   And when his wife threatens to spill the beans on him, he snaps and kills her with a silver candlestick holder. Little does he know that there was a witness to the crime, one Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw), who was in the same hotel as Cross while awaiting her husband’s return from a POW camp after the end of the Second World War.

   When her military officer husband finds her, Janet is in a state of shock. Apparently witnessing Cross murder his wife was too much for her mental state. And guess who gets called in to help with her mental health woes? You guessed it. The very same Dr. Cross. Yes, the doctor tasked with tending to a psychiatric patient is a murderer, she’s a witness, and no one will believe her. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the film.

   Price is in true form as a smug, calculating, and devious physician who is so corrupted by his love for his nurse that he’s willing to breach every moral code to get his way. Fortunately, an intrepid police investigator (Reed Hadley) is not so enamoured of the doctor’s charms and has his own suspicions about how and why Cross’s wife was murdered.

   Shock is a relatively short film (some 69 or 70 minutes), but packs a lot into it. Even though the movie doesn’t touch upon politics, it feels very much like a post-war paranoid thriller. Recommended.

THE ENFORCER. Warner Bros., 1951. Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted De Corsia, Everett Sloane. Directors: Bretaigne Windust, Raoul Walsh (the latter uncredited).

   I initially didn’t know exactly what to make of The Enforcer. It’s structured in such a way that a viewer could get lost in the proceedings. Not only are there flashbacks, but there are flashbacks within flashbacks and, if I am being honest, I found myself somewhat disappointed with the film by the halfway mark. But I am really glad I continued watching, because by the time this Humphrey Bogart movie wraps up, you realize that the intricate narrative structure does the story justice and then some.

   Directed by Bretaigne Windust (with the action sequences helmed by an uncredited Raoul Walsh), this picture stars Bogart as Ferguson, a crusading district attorney tasked with prosecuting Mendoza (Everett Sloane), the boss of a murder-for-hire syndicate. When his star witness, Rico (Ted De Corsia) falls to his death, he is forced to find another witness who could put Mendoza in the chair, and that’s where the aforementioned flashbacks come in.

   Ferguson begins to revisit the case and hopes to find some forgotten detail that could help him as the clock ticks down to the next day’s courtroom proceedings. As it turns out, there is one witness who can positively identify Mendoza for committing a years ago murder at an all night diner. Whether Ferguson can find and save her before the killers get to her provides the necessary suspense to keep the viewer engaged.

   One thing that irked me a little about the movie is how some of the toughest criminals in the murder-for-hire racket go completely soft as the first sign of trouble. Rico, the tough as nails ringleader of the outfit, becomes implausibly scared of Mendoza when he decides to testify against him.

The same goes for Zero Mostel’s character, Big Babe Lazick, who whimpers in police custody, and for hired killer Duke Malloy (Michael Tolan) whose teary confession to the cops is pivotal to how the investigation plays out.

   I get what the filmmakers were going for – namely, that Mendoza is such a ruthless man that even the hired killers who work for him are terrified of him – but it really doesn’t work to the film’s benefit.

   That said, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The Enforcer reminded me somewhat of The Killers (1946). It’s not quite at that level. But it’s solid movie-making and benefits immensely from Bogart’s presence. I’m not quite sure that anyone else would have been as good in the role. Final note: a lot of crime movies from this era are erroneously called film noir. For what it’s worth, this one I think fits that category well. Thumbs up.

PLUNDER ROAD. 20th Century Fox, 1957. Gene Raymond, Jeanne Cooper, Wayne Morris, Elisha Cook Jr. Director: Hubert Cornfield.

   This one is lean and mean and doesn’t take its sweet time in plunging the viewer into the action. The opening sequence, set on a dark rainy night, involves five masked men as they steal a shipment of US Mint gold from a train. This scene, as well as its immediate follow up, in which the bandits load their getaway trucks with the loot, is largely silent with very little dialogue to accompany it. It works well enough. Indeed, that much can be said for the entirety of Plunder Road. For what it is, namely a short, punchy crime film, it works well enough.

   Gene Raymond helms the cast as Eddie Harris, the ringleader of the outfit, whose cool demeanor helps him pull off an impossible heist. His cohorts are portrayed by Wayne Morris, Steven Ritch, Stafford Repp, and the always enjoyable-to-watch Elisha Cook whose character dreams of absconding to Rio with his young son.

   There’s not that much tension between the main characters, which is somewhat unusual and may contribute to a sense of the movie not quite clicking. As readers of this blog well know, more often than not films of this sort will have the criminals turning on each other. That’s not what happens here. It’s more bad luck or their own guilt that gives them away.

   What else to say? I particularly appreciated the on location shooting, be it the California highways or, in the last fifteen minutes of the film, gritty Los Angeles. Speaking of the last fifteen minutes, a new character is introduced quite close to the end of the movie. Jeanne Cooper portrays Fran, Eddie’s   girl. There’s an argument to be had that she should have been introduced earlier. Then again, this is a 72 minute film without much padding.

TWISTED. Paramount Pictures, 2004. Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, Andy García. Director: Philip Kaufman.

   Apparently people don’t like this movie very much. In fact, it currently has a 2% positive – that’s right two percent positive – rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The question then becomes: is it really that bad? My resounding answer is no. Not at all.

   Directed by Philip Kaufman, whose work I generally admire, Twisted is a paranoid thriller in which newly minted San Francisco detective Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) finds herself in a precarious position. Her lovers and one-night stands alike are turning up dead with cigarette burns on their hands.

   This is especially traumatic, given her parents’ death in a murder-suicide years ago. Luckily, she has a mentor in Police Commissioner John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson). But whom can she really trust? Her new partner (Andy Garcia), her psychiatrist (David Strathairn), and her ex-boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino) all seem like viable suspects. Eventually, Shepard (Judd) begins to doubt her own sanity and casts suspicion on herself.

   The main problem – and it’s a glaring one – with Twisted is that its resolution really doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s cheap and tawdry and strains credulity to the nth degree. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the movie is worthless. It’s an extremely watchable lowbrow sleazefest with a coterie of great character actors and a director who did his best with the deeply flawed source material.

   How’s that for a recommendation?