moonspinner55 Engaging, compact crime meller has Dick Powell in excellent form as Rocky Mulloy, framed for a robbery and out of jail on parole after serving five years; he's being tailed by a Los Angeles police lieutenant, who thinks Rocky knows the whereabouts of the loot never retrieved from the heist. Powell is nearly upstaged by William Conrad as a slick, slimy bookie, the boss behind the job that sent both Rocky and a pal up the river. Supporting cast is pretty solid; only Rhonda Fleming misses the mark as Rocky's former-flame who married his partner (Fleming's general nature is too sweet for this scenario, and she looks too coiffed and glamorous to be living in a seedy neighborhood trailer park). Lots of delicious, overripe tough talk and an exciting finale, though it's a shame Rocky never gets to expose the bookmaker's flunkies, who pull a fast one on him with some hot racehorse dough. **1/2 from ****

TM_Rezzek Terrific film debut from director Robert Parrish, who shows what he learned from working in the cutting-room with John Ford. The cast is good, the dialogue snappy, and the tension cranks appropriately. The characters aren't given much development, but with a 79-minute running time, that's forgivable. The best thing about 'Cry Danger' is how Robert Parrish ignores the low-budget restrictions and mostly shoots the whole thing on location in trailer parks, city streets, and dingy storefronts. Highly recommended for the film noir enthusiast.

Hunt2546 Been waiting a year to get this one after I saw a preview on TCM; it's finally been released on DVD in a beautiful restoration. Best thing: LA back when it was a wooden town, with a lot of balconied buildings with stairways running this way and that out of them. Great B-W cinematography beautifully brought back to life, with crisp focus, scenes that are naturalistic in content but stylized in angle, superb night lighting, and, of course, fabulous hats and smoking. The performances are first rate too, with Powell's whip-fast smart guy comebacks and, of course, here they are, Rhonda Fleming. (Something about the lingerie of the '50s turned the gal's boobs into nosecones under those ultra tight sweaters.) Plot is good, not great: Powell, after five years in slammer for crime he didn't commit, goes on a hunt for the real criminals and a missing 100K. He's assisted by a drunken, one-legged marine hero, his imprisoned buddy's wife (La Fleming) while being tailed by a hardnose cop named Gus. Bad guy is William Cannon behind a dippy mustache. Some pretty tough violence, but one oddity: no money scene. SPOILER Bogart confronted his femme fatales memorably in both MALTESE F. and DEAD RECKONING. Yet the final face-off between Powell and Fleming never occurs; he walks out of the picture and it's over, implying her arrest. No, no, no: We've got to SEE the look on her face when she realizes Rocky saw through her I-love-you act. Better still, she should pull a gat on him and eat hot lead from his righteous .45. But this one just goes wan and tepid when it should be hot and hard.

secondtake Cry Danger (1951)Humphrey Bogart smiles. Robert Mitchum smiles. Lots of tough film noir types also show a grin or manage a laugh. But not Dick Powell. Forever grim and determined, he is a the archetype of an unhappy man, and usually, as in "Cry Danger," he's out to fix some problem.This is a Dick Powell movie all the way, and a really good one. There are some great secondary characters, especially the mob leader William Conrad and a suspicious and wise-cracking Marine sidekick played by Richard Erdman. And the plot is good, if twisting slightly and improbable at times. It's also a somewhat cheaply made affair, with a car crash that won't convince a child, and some sets that show their seams. But hey, who cares? It barrels along and stern stiff unflappable Powell (his name is Rocky Mulloy in the movie) won't be stopped, even by love, even by duplicity. And certainly not by cops who should have arrested him several times for his liberties while on parole.This is director Robert Parrish's first film, and he didn't really direct much later of note except, in 1966, a couple scenes in "Casino Royale." Between the two he did a bunch of so-so westerns. William Conrad, who is thirty at the time of filming here, went on to be television's "Cannon" and "Jake and the Fat Man," but he appeared in a bunch of these B-list noirs and is good every time. The leading woman is a simple type, and good enough at it, but her most memorable role is in "Spiral Staircase," a couple years earlier (definitely see that one). She, too, like half of Hollywood, drifted to t.v. by 1960. Powell's career is interesting, and his last big role before moving to television himself was in "The Bad and the Beautiful," just a year later. He is never quite a distinctive leading man, and I'm guessing he thought of this as just bread and butter work, but he gives it his usual steely best, and holds the movie together. The other leading character has to be 1950 L.A., without the glamour. Every scene is gritty and real, night and day, and it's yet another sign of end of the studio system and the rise of t.v., with all the location shooting. A fast, fun one, well filmed.