D.O.A. (1950)

 

This film is hardly unknown to any film buff, and there are countless reviews of its groundbreaking premise. It is one of the great films in cinema, regardless of the budget. I have elected to focus only on some memorable elements that stand out. Few movies ever opened with this level of intrigue. First up is the captivating opening sequence under opening credits. The innovative behind-the-back view of Edmond O'Brien—under a driving Dimitri Tiomkin score—as the viewer follows his brisk walking down the hallway of a police station—is always on pace with O'Brien's gait. If a director is saddled with a routine script, just hire Tiomkin to better the film. To his surprise, the police have been trying to locate him. To their surprise, O'Brien is there to report his own murder. If there was ever a film needing a big flashback, this is it.

The story and screenplay, written by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, of intertwining characters, need the moviegoer's full attention. Probably a tad long at eighty-four minutes, it is directed by Rudolph Maté and produced by Leo C. Popkin. The cinematography by Ernest Laszlo is as powerful as Tiomkin's score. This "mystery murder" has indeed become a classic.

O'Brien's performances are rarely subtle. Here, he possesses all the pent-up rage of an accountant and notary public who is not dead yet. His backstory ramps up while on vacation. The director includes a laughable and silly slide whistle sound effect numerous times whenever O'Brien spots a female, which would seem to indicate his main reason for a vacation. A noisy sales convention party in the adjoining suite gets his attention. The salesman and their locally acquired female companions want to paint the town, and the accountant is invited. It is a bad omen for O'Brien, whose drink is unknowingly switched at the bar. 

Later, feeling ill, he visits a hospital that sets up a second powerful sequence about the physicality of O'Brien. After getting the doctor's diagnosis from swallowing a deadly luminous toxin, he bolts from the office in wide-eyed panic. I have always been impressed with actors of this era running full bore in Florsheim dress shoes on pavement. Forrest Gump has nothing on Frank Bigelow. The thirty-five-year-old fluidly descends down the hospital's long set of outdoor steps—feet are two blurs. I like to assume this was done in one take. He sprints down crowded sidewalks and across mid-town traffic, setting a new notary speed record with pedestrians unaware that a film is in progress. At the point of exhaustion, he momentarily pauses in front of a newsstand beside a display of LIFE magazines. He then begins a slow walk, gradually picking up determination as Tiomkin's score accelerates with O'Brien's pace. His anger propels him to solve his murder in under forty-eight hours. His secretary, Pamela Britton—hopelessly in love with her boss—is frustrated with his vague answers over the phone. He spares her the bad news, but has no time to chat. The film then settles into a rather routine and somewhat confusing mystery of characters disconnected from the viewer.

Britton provides an early lead about a bill of sale for the toxin, something her boss notarized. In the pursuit of truth, the accountant discovers others have died under mysterious circumstances, all continually intersecting with characters under police investigation. They all filter down to the guy who knows too much, O'Brien. The final confrontation between the murderer and the murdered ends the flashback. O'Brien, in one final laugh-out-loud moment, leans over to speak Paula's name to the police chief, the ever-present Roy Engle, then quickly pushes himself sideways and instantly disappears behind the desk.

Note: There is an indelible performance by Neville “Chester” Brand, the ever-so psychopathic henchman hired to kill O'Brien more rapidly. Before ushering him into a waiting sedan, Brand pokes his gun hard into O'Brien's stomach, who doubles over in pain. Delighted by the pain inflicted, the smirking Brand informs him, “You're soft in the belly!” Chester's expressions and crazed, side-eye views of O'Brien while "driving" the studio car are priceless.

MAN IN THE DARK (1953)

Edmond O’Brien is offered (under duress) immediate parole if he is willing to undergo experimental brain surgery in the hope it will remove his criminal impulses. It will also remove his memory. After moving up the surgery a few days, O’Brien is impulsively set on punching the male nurse in the jaw before a sedation injection.  After surgery, the angry criminal finds serendipity in hedge-trimming and painting, though ballet could not be worked into his rehab schedule. An insurance investigator, needing to recover the stolen money from a robbery, thinks O’Brien is faking and tracks his every move. Likewise, Ted de Corsia is not buying his former partner's amnesia story. Stereo-typically, under his angled fedora, he is his usual gangster self, grumbling and angrily threatening to beat the truth out of him or burn an eye out with the lit end of a cigar. The latter used as a gruesome 3D stinger, one of several 3D moments.

Later, trying to refresh O'Brien's memory in the first of three flashbacks, gang member Nick Dennis retells exactly, second by second, what happened during the robbery. If it were possible, one could accept this if it were O’Brien’s flashback. How Dennis knew O’Brien’s every step, including an attempted call at a phone booth without being present, is positively clairvoyant. What follows is a pursuit by two officers because O’Brien looks pretty guilty running down the sidewalk. In his early films, O'Brien was quite the runner. Really laying those dress shoes down. His stunt double climbs up a three-story fire escape, followed by a silly implausibility: O’Brien drops a potted plant down in the officer’s vicinity in Merry Melodies cartoon fashion. A big clue as to his location. A clichéd chase on rooftops ensues as the frantic music score backs up the action. O’Brien is not only exhausted but also arrested on a painter’s scaffolding.

Audrey Totter is O’Brien’s girl, but he does not know it. However, his two dreams, aka flashbacks, suggest she may be more than a stranger. One dream concerns a Santa Monica amusement park with a creepy seven-foot-tall laughing animatronic charwoman that is hard for O'Brien to forget. Me too. The following may answer why it is laughing so hard. The most unintentionally humorous scene, and no doubt a highlight of the 3D processing, has O’Brien getting on The Whip ride, where individual pods rotate around an oval hub. The cars never stay in one position for any length of time, yet five police officers slip into their own car and “chase” O’Brien around the oval, never getting any closer. The officers shoot at him as their pod randomly twirls around. It is lucky a fellow officer was not wounded, or a patron failed to dodge the stray bullets at the popcorn stand. The officer’s training never included this! Understandably, they cannot hit the broadside of a barn. The ride stops, and all six orderly get out of their pods. 

O’Brien’s dreams come to life as he and Totter return to the amusement park. He knows where the money is hidden and, with a dose of returning greed, stuffs the cash inside his suit coat pockets. Perhaps that brain surgery did not work. Her disappointment shows, and she assumes he has reverted to his old ways. They go their separate ways. Later, the oft-used rear projection roller coaster ride is used with actors pretending their necks are being snapped back and forth. I imagine a real buzz in 3D. O’Brien gets off the coaster as it creeps to the top and climbs down the wooden structure, only to encounter de Corsia, who stands up at the wrong end of the speeding coaster. Dennis takes a final bow off the scaffolding after an officer’s bullet rings true. Give the officer a stuffed animal! Never far away, the insurance investigator arrives after bodies stop hitting the pavement and gets back the company’s one hundred thirty grand from O’Brien. He and Totter kiss as their roller-coaster relationship levels out.

Note: Directed by Lew Landers and produced by Wallace MacDonald, this was the first Columbia Pictures film released in 3D, all in glorious black and white. It is a remake of the 1936 film, The Man Who Lived Twice, with a premise that has been overused since. This seventy-minute B-movie offers up good pacing, but the amnesia angle is pretty stale aside from the brain surgery concept. Decidedly more fantastic than John Payne’s war injury in the 1949 film, The Crooked Way.

SHIELD FOR MURDER (1954)

This United Artists release is a standard film noir, and there is hardly a dull moment, starting with an attention-grabbing opening. Directed by Edmond O’Brien and Howard Koch, the latter may have obliged the star to take top credit. The music score by Paul Dunlap is used sparingly and only when effective. Much like an episode of television’s Columbo, there is no surprise who is guilty of murder after the opening scene. What is unknown is how O’Brien, a sixteen-year police detective with a volatile nature, is finally brought to justice. Do not be too surprised by O'Brien's occasional overacting. It sometimes reflects badly on an otherwise versatile actor. His character may raise a viewer's blood pressure.

O'Brien covers up his deed, suggesting it was a justified but errant shooting. No one bothered to check his revolver's chamber. It would have indicated he shot three bullets, not the two, heard by passersby. Never bothered to check the distance the fatal bullet entered the deceased, either. But I digress. His false scenario could almost be legit, but for his lifting of twenty-five grand from a well-known bookie’s coat. The money hounds him throughout the film. In between the hounding, Hollywood once again portrays a male being tempted to do whatever it takes to make his girl and himself happy. Marla English is the girl employed at a nightclub. A job O'Brien loathes as she's being ogled by male patrons nightly. The loot may be his ticket to “untrue” happiness. In hopes of buying a particular home under construction for the two of them, he buries the bag of cash in his personal “dirt vault” near the foundation.

A seasoned police reporter, Herbert Butterfield, hangs around the squad room in hopes of a Pulitzer on O'Brien. He was quite pessimistic about that opening scene. O’Brien’s young partner, John Agar, refuses to believe it. O’Brien is something of a hero to him, helping turn his own wayward youth in the right direction. However, building a new house on a policeman’s salary sets off an internal siren.

Notorious bookmaker boss, Hugh Sanders wants his twenty-five grand “investment money” back and hires two private detective goons to tail O'Brien. The script gives private detectives some bad press as these two usually beat the truth out of a suspect. O'Brien is one recipient. This police hatred for private investigators was no help to Jim Rockford twenty years later. Their final shootout in a crowded indoor swimming pool set several lap records for some swimmers. Bullets flying between them—both lousy shots—with little regard for the patrons. One swimmer, prostrate on a high dive, hesitates, then decides to dive in between bullets. And they call it a health club!

Though no surprise to the viewer, there was a witness in that opening scene. What is a surprise is that the screenplay cleverly makes the witness unable to hear or speak, demanding he write down what he saw. O’Brien is the first to read the small note. Bummer. Later, he pays the old gentleman a visit to confirm the note's assertions and close a loose end. Unknown to him, the man left a master copy of his police note in his notebook. Agar finds it and plans to arrest his partner, who nearly pulls the trigger on Agar. It is at this point the viewer has confirmation that O’Brien needs serious psychological counseling. He maniacally attempts to retrieve the cash from his dirt vault after the usual high-speed night chase. He turns around with his bag of loot to face a row of headlights. Losing all reasoning, O’Brien opens fire. What he receives in return is undeniably over-the-top.

Note: As Hollywood's typical lonely woman at a bar counter, Carolyn Jones has a couple of scenes with O’Brien, though he is not good company. She could not care less. At least he is company. After they kiss, he notices an obvious large bruise on her upper right arm. He asks her where she got it. “From somebody, I guess,” she says unconcerned. “Besides, it doesn't hurt.”

THE TURNING POINT (1952)

This eighty-five-minute Paramount Pictures release grabs you from the start with escort sirens blaring as district attorney, Edmond O’Brien, arrives in court with breaking news about inroads to bring down a crime syndicate, run by Ed Begley. Not as optimistic is a news reporter and his childhood friend, William Holden, who is skeptical of O’Brien’s approach. Begley has half of San Francisco in his pocket and Holden can confirm it. Caught between Holden and O’Brien is the latter’s assistant and possible girl, Alexis Smith. Holden and Smith get off to a rocky start but it is clear her future could result in better-looking children than with O’Brien. The film's well-worn screenplay by Warren Duff is enhanced by William Dieterle's direction making for an excellent, believable, and fast-paced movie.

When O’Brien’s father, career cop Tom Tully, is selected as lead investigator, he balks at first. We quickly learn why as cynical Holden decides to tail him to meetings with Begley and crew. Meanwhile, O’Brien is grilling Begley in a hearing and the situation looks bleak for Begley. The DA reveals his shadow company, on the ground floor of multi-purpose apartments. Begley’s books are located there. With the DA aligning the facts and soon connecting the dots, just burning the books is an obvious option. Begley makes the snap decision to blow up the entire building. Everyone will blame it on a recent report that the building had faulty gas lines. But even his henchmen, Ted de Corsia for one, is appalled he would do such a thing. In a ruthless, selfish, and terrorist act, the entire building is set ablaze with surviving men, women, and children moaning and crying in the explosion’s aftermath. This alone is justification for the film receiving an advisory in some advertisements.

O’Brien soon arrives and becomes a pivotal scene for him and places an otherwise standard script to the top. He feels his pressure on Begley is responsible for the carnage and he is ready to throw away all his hard work. Holden challenges him not to give up and in a huge blow of truth, reveals his father’s involvement and his demise was planned by Begley, not a random robbery shooting. A turning point. Enter Neville Brand, in his usual early psychotic hitman role, hired to take out their most dangerous foe, Holden, in the midst of a boxing arena. Good luck. The match ends early in a knockout, leaving Holden obscured by the exiting crowd.

Note: Stellar performances by A-list actors is the main reason this film might be outside the B-movie category. O’Brien especially reigns in his acting skills to a perfect level. Unsurprisingly, Ray Teal is in this film as he seemingly was in every other film for over forty years. Finally, Carolyn Jones made her motion picture debut in the film.

STOPOVER TOKYO (1957)

I have read that Robert Wagner was not pleased with this film. It shows. His low-energy delivery makes you wonder if he understands his role: an intelligence agent. Mumbling his lines seemingly without moving his lips. Rarely more than a blank face. Though he had some diverse mid-century roles as career highlights, he is generally not known for standout performances. Never mind. His good looks, wit, and charm turned him into a first-rate celebrity who could do no wrong.

In this unexciting tale of Communist espionage, mundane conversation, and the attempt to stop an assassination plot, is Wagner’s equal-billed co-star, Joan Collins. She’s an airline travel receptionist who cannot understand why Wagner is secretive and aloof. Neither are they that interested in one another any more than the audience is interested in finding out what happens next. Somehow, after only three days and as many conversations, she confesses her love for Wagner. Happens all the time to RJ. I expected Wagner to say, “Terrific” at least once. His favorite word in his television series, It Takes A Thief, some eleven years later.

Reiko Oyama, in her only screen role, is cute as the daughter of Wagner’s Japanese contact. He finds it difficult to tell her that her father will be gone for a long time. He starts a bedtime story that in a subtle way, may help explain her father’s murder. He never finishes the story. She falls asleep. Wagner is that boring.

Edmond O’Brien, as he often does, delivers an over-the-top performance. It is pretty embarrassing to watch his character, which never develops into anything threatening. He is nearly a buffoon in one particular scene. Buffoons are rarely on the CIA’s most-wanted list.

Note: Filmed in CinemaScope, this one-hundred-minute film was directed by Richard Breen, in his only directing assignment, and produced by Walter Reisch for 20th Century Fox. Perhaps because of its beautiful cinematography of Japan and its two attractive co-stars, the film did make a small profit. This final, thinly disguised Mr. Moto novel by John P. Marquand, might be one to remember for the aforementioned attributes but Mr. Moto's character was completely dropped from the script. Probably for the best. Peter Lorre never got a phone call.