Just so...so bad

From my favorite movies..

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An early Anthony Mann-directed movie before he hooked up with James Stewart for some fine Westerns in the early 50's, this is a fine noir thriller with a twist or three along the way. Other posters here have commented on the usual device of a voice-over by a female rather than male character and yes, that "Twilight Zone"-type soundtrack does take a bit of getting used to, I kept expecting some flying saucer or other to fall out of the sky any minute.Mind you the sky certainly falls in on main character escaped con Joe Cameron, played by Dennis O'Keefe, not only double-crossed into jail by his onetime partner played by Raymond Burr, but then deliberately sprung by the latter in the hope he'll get gunned down in the attempt. Of course that doesn't happen and so he finds himself on the run with two vying women in tow, the first, his long-standing, long-suffering girl-friend played by Claire Trevor, the second, his lawyer's clean-living secretary, Ann, played by Marsha Hunt whom he inveigles into his getaway against her will, but who falls for him anyway as things play out.It all ends on a dark, misty night (naturally) with O'Keefe confronting Burr and a fiery, violent and naturally pessimistic ending, with nobody winning, in true noir style. Gloomy and cynical as you'd expect, it's firstly a treat for the eyes, almost every scene shot in dull light, with unusual camera perspectives employed for the interiors and the device of shooting Burr from below to accentuate his bulk and menace. There's sharp dialogue too and some nice in-plotting, particularly Burr's relationship with his lippy almost insubordinate henchman Fantail, played by John Ireland. There are individual memorable scenes too, most notably Burr throwing a flambé straight at the camera to ruthlessly maim an innocent girl who accidentally bumps into him after he's received some bad news and his later demise, suitably in flames, backwards out of a window, but there are other gems strewn about too, for instance Trevor's face superimposed on an anxiously watched clock and her full-profile, veil-covered face when she answers a telephone in the foreground delivering, wouldn't you know it, some bad news.The only mistake really is when another movie about a runaway wife-killer gate-crashes the narrative, but after that it settles down again onto its relentless course to its fiery finish. The acting is fine by all, O'Keefe's lack of star status helping his "ordinary Joe" persona, Trevor is very good as the self-deluding girlfriend and Burr too as the heavyweight gangster still twitchy about O'Keefe catching up with him.This is a fine noir-thriller which can be enjoyed as sheer entertainment or as a fine study of the genre in microcosm.

Dennis O'Keefe stars in this crackerjack noir film directed by Anthony Mann. O'Keefe plays a man who took a rap for gangster kingpin Raymond Burr and now he's thinking he's gotten the bad end of a Raw Deal. He wants out of prison and Burr arranges an escape hoping he'll be killed in the attempted breakout.If you recognize the plot think back to Angels With Dirty Faces where James Cagney takes the rap for Humphrey Bogart and George Bancroft and now wants back in on the rackets they've built up and the other two don't want to cut him in. As dark as that classic was, Raw Deal is a good deal darker as O'Keefe's world is getting smaller and smaller due to the bad choices he made in life.With cops and Burr looking for him, Dennis also has himself involved with two women, steady streetwise Claire Trevor and the secretary of his lawyer Marsha Hunt. Both are carrying a big torch for O'Keefe, but Trevor is the jealous sort. Watching Raw Deal reminded me of a Eugene O'Neill play Strange Interlude where the characters voice over narration tells you their real feelings. That device is used for O'Keefe, Trevor, and Hunt as they express their emotions in the narration. And like any classic O'Neill play there is an inevitability about these people especially O'Keefe.Before Anthony Mann moved on to westerns and bigger budgets he did some good noir work in the Forties and Raw Deal is a fine example.

Joe Sullivan is in jail having taken the rap for criminal Rick, who owes him $50,000 for it. Knowing he is looking to escape, Rick greases some wheels to help Joe's girlfriend Pat to organize an escape – all with the knowledge that once he is out he will be certainly caught in the resulting police dragnet and either killed or sent back to prison for even longer; either way he'll be out of Rick's hair.I have watched a few noirs recently and the last couple in particular were a lot slower than I would have liked, so part of the appeal of Raw Deal was the short running time, which suggested that it wouldn't be taking too long over anything. This didn't mean it would be good of course, but it was a sign I wouldn't have the problems I'd had with the last few. As it turned out, although not as engaging as I had hoped, this is a solidly enjoyable crime thriller with a tough edge and a good pace to it that means the toughness has an urgency to it. The plot does have love interest within it but rather than be the distraction it can be, it provides a duality to the character of Joe since the two women he is traveling with sort of represent either side of his character and the battle between them.O'Keefe does a good job in the lead, tough but not inhuman and is likable. Burr is not quite as good as the villain but I think this is more to do with me than him since I always struggle to see him outside of the Perry Mason roles. Both Hunt and Trevor play their roles well and there is a nice tension between them throughout the film. Direction is good – it is fluid and makes the most of each scene, never once being stagey or stiff as some of the recent films from the period I have seen have been.Overall Raw Deal is not a brilliant film but it is a very effective one. It is short, punchy and has an enjoyably tough edge to all of it. The duality of the lead character is well played out and the violence is nicely stated.

The pulp fictions of the late 1940s and early 1950s always had a limited shelf life: the best survived as B-movie classics while the others, like this stale crime potboiler, simply grew old and disappeared. The highlight here is a scene showing pyromaniac villain Raymond Burr losing his cool and thrusting a flaming shish-kebob into the face of a careless associate, providing an all-too brief moment of startling color in an otherwise routine and predictable melodrama. The script should have devoted more attention to Burr's menacing character, instead of to the foreground story of an escaped convict and his moll, who kidnap an innocent, wholesome social worker and "take it on the lam". Whatever novelty the film once might have had is pretty much dated by now.