JohnHowardReid Robert Ryan (entrapped hero), Laraine Day (unsuspecting wife), Janis Carter (title femme fatale), John Agar (youth), Thomas Gomez (ruthless Communist), Richard Rober (Jim), William Talman (Red sadist), Paul J. Burns (another super-evil Red henchman), Paul Guilfoyle (victim), Fred Graham (Grip), Harry Cheshire (avuncular boss), Iris Adrian (waitress).Director; ROBERT STEVENSON. Screenplay: Charles Grayson, Robert Hardy Andrews. Story: George W. George, George F. Slavin. Film editor: Roland Gross. Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Art directors: Albert S. D'Agostino and Walter E. Keller. Producer: Jack J. Gross.Copyright 28 September 1949 by RKO. U.S. release: 8 Oct. 73 minutes.COMMENT: Is this movie a fantasy disguised as film noir or a film noir disguised as a fantasy? Take your pick. Me? I don't see any reason why a fantasy cannot also claim the mantle of film noir if it has a suitable atmosphere and appropriate themes. Look at "La Belle et La Bete" ("The Woman and the Beast") for instance. So to my mind, this one qualifies as both outrageous fantasy and gripping film noir. Mind you, Howard Hughes saw the film as a "melodrama" exposing members of the Communist Party as mobsters using blackmail and murder to start a West Coast shipping strike. I once had a still in which Robert Ryan (a reluctant Beast) and Laraine Day (ever a graceful Beauty) do not seem too worried about the various plot developments.

Robert J. Maxwell If you want a good movie about Commie rats in a plot to muck up the workers at the waterfront, be sure to see "Big Jim McLain" and skip this one because it's thoroughly pedestrian. The actors do a professional job but they're hobbled by their roles. Robert Ryan has turned in some exceptional performances in, say, "Dangerous Ground" or "Crossfire, but he can't do a THING here, as a former member of the Communist Party blackmailed into sabotaging talks between the union and the ship owners in San Francisco. He reluctantly keeps the arrangement sub rosa and it's driving his wife, Laraine Day, crazy because, well, "What's come OVER you?" Poor John Agar, never given to bravura acts, is seduced into holding Commie attitudes at the dock and for his sins the Commie chief, Thomas Gomez, has him run over flat on the pavement. These are the kinds of people who kill you if it advances their cause, so if you actually threaten they're cause, you're dead meat.The plot is okay but it's as if they'd dusted off some anti-Nazi screenplay from the back shelf and changed the Nazis into Commies. Robert Stevenson is the director and he must have been reading a manual on making a movie. When two characters are about to have a dramatic exchange, one of them walks towards the camera, stops, assumes a look of concern, and the other character walks up behind him and speaks to the other's back. The tactic involves all the skill of winding an old-fashioned alarm clock.Everything else about the production -- lighting, set dressing, photography, wardrobe -- lacks the slightest touch of poetry. There are some second-unit shots of San Francisco, including one of the long-gone International Settlement, which was fun in its day. But really, you're better off watching John Wayne give speeches and beat the crappola out of the subversive Commie rats in "Big Jim McClain." It's laughable, whereas this simply generates a sense of boredom and impatience.

Spikeopath The Woman on Pier 13 (AKA: I Married a Communist) is directed by Robert Stevenson and collectively written by Charles Grayson, Robert Hardy Andrews, George W. George and George F. Slavin. It stars Robert Ryan, Laraine Day, John Agar, Thomas Gomez, Janis Carter, Richard Rober and William Talman. Music is by Leigh Harline and cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca.Brad Collins (Ryan) was a one time member of the communist party. Now married and thriving in business, his world is turned upside down when the CPUSA come to seek him out for influential favours.It wasn't easy for director Stevenson, what with RKO mogul Howard Hughes interfering as he forced home his anti-communist slant, so much so the whole pic comes off as an almost there type of piece. Casting aside that it's all a bit daft these days, with its red hysteria leanings (though it serves as a most interesting social document of the era), there's a number of tight scenes and enough moody atmospherics to keep this out of basement hell.Characterisations are rich in noir traditions, a protag whose past is back to bite him, a slinky femme fatale, a dutiful wife in the dark, and villains of substance. Be it Gomez's weasel Commie boss stomping around like a malevolent tyrant or Talman's fairground working hit- man for hire, the latter with a dress code as mirthful as it is strangely unnerving, the baddies offer up some sort of balance in a screenplay that's not sure where it ideally stands. The violence hits hard, with shocking deaths, and in good dark noir style the finale holds court for the right reasons.Add in a cast who don't let anyone down and the great Musuraca showing his photographic skills (though not as much as we would like), then it's a more than decent viewing experience. But the proviso is that you do have to let the propaganda go above your head to get to those decent rewards. 6/10

dbdumonteil Like "pick up on south street" this is an anti-commies movie to the power of ten .This sinister party ,if we are to believe the screenwriters ,is responsible for three murders (plus a failed one) .The gorgeous woman represents fascism with a nice face ,thus a perfect weapon to indoctrinate green horn such as Ryan's brother -in-law (John Agar)Unlike "invasion of the body snatchers" which could also be considered a metaphorical depiction of communism ,"woman on pier 13" has not worn well ;it's impossible to take this story seriously ;a propaganda flick for conducting a witch hunt;a strange part for highly talented Ryan ,known for his liberal ideas .