Strictly average movie

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Extreme Noir!The only way this movie could have been any more 'noir' is if it had been filmed entirely in pitch darkness through a Venetian blind from a ladder! If anyone were to spoof this genre of movie-making they'd do well to take a close look at this. Angles and shadows are exaggerated beyond reality and the result makes this talkie hard to watch. Mind you, it's as well to point out that it probably looked a whole lot better on a big screen than it did on my TV!On the upside, the cast of actors are magnificent and make a pointless story just about watchable. Special mention to Garry Owen who plays the ambulance chasing mortician who gives Eddie a lift in the middle of the movie. There is almost no other comedy relief so his brief appearance was a welcome 'interlude'. Vera Marshe also shows up for a few seconds to steal her scene as a screwball nightclub job applicant. And there are a few others too if you care to look.Where this movie fails, though, is the story and pacing. After the war, Frank has lost his memory and he leaves a war veteran's hospital a seemingly nice chap. He heads home to Los Angeles and very quickly finds out that he was far from a nice chap and was actually mixed up in the LA underworld of gangsters and racketeers.The rest of the 90-minute run-time is spent with him confronting his past and being chased around the city by his enemies. Although John Payne suits this kind of role perfectly (he made a living from it) he doesn't really make himself much of a hero to root for or a person who can be sympathized with. Thus the whole saga of him getting beaten up and shot at falls largely on an uncaring audience.This movie is brilliant for movie buffs who like film trivia but for regular noir fans like myself, it falls flat.

An amnesiac soldier (John Payne) tries to find out who he is, and in the process, finds a ton of evidence to prove why everybody who recognizes him instantly hates him. Treated on San Francisco but moving to Los Angeles, he is snagged by police the minute he walks out of Union Station. Both the law and the lawless seem out to get him for reasons he can't remember, and even an alleged ex-wife resents him for more reasons than just am obvious unhappy marriage. This wasn't the first (or last) film noir dealing with the subject of amnesia brought on apparently by a war injury. It also wasn't the first or last where the hero seemingly had mob connections, in this case the ever uncharismatic Sonny Tufts who had the screen presence of a hair glued to the negative. At some points, it is unclear whether Payne is faking his amnesia, faking knowing who he is, or faking either his amnesiac identity or his perceived identity. Ellen Drew is the femme fatal ex-wife, while film noir regular Percy Helton adds spark as another one of his typical sludges of society. Long before he became one of T.V.'s most popular country store owners, Frank Cady was a regular in these dark dramas of the degradation of society at its smarmiest. Not really anything new by 1949 film noir standards, it still creates interest in finding out what Payne's story really is. There's plenty of intrigue, dark shadowy photography and clever dialog spoke with glaring hostility and convincing power by everybody but Tufts who was handsome on the surface, but in profile looked like something out of a Dick Tracy comic strip. What really makes this above average is the obvious fact that there is a ton of possibilities as to how this could wrap up, and the writers are intent on not taking the easy way out. The ending, involving Helton and his huge cat, is both gripping and touching. Deliciously complex, this deserves higher marks than its gotten, resulting in a nice sleeper of a film noir, highly worth remembering.

. . . slicing through the brain of sociopath\killer Eddie Riccardi to turn him into altruistic Silver Star-winning Boy Scout Eddie Rice, eager to work as an unpaid operative for the LAPD. Though we never find out HOW a mob hit man made it into the U.S. military during WWII, who better to go after the likes of Hitler and Hirohito? Many viewers had trouble believing that actor John Payne--who plays the two Eddies in THE CROOKED WAY--actually would settle down with Pouty sad sack Susan (Natalie Wood) for a stepdaughter at the close of MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET. Sure enough, Payne quickly ditched his law books as soon as he realized that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy would not need his rather specialized legal services, and began looking for a flashier lifestyle--one with a spunkier mate, to boot. He attains both objectives in THE CROOKED WAY, with plenty of man-style fighting and a ready-made wife in Ellen Drew. If Payne needs a touch of melancholia at the close to substitute for not having Susan, he can always adopt the late Petey's feeble feline, Sampson.

The story, about a returning war veteran with amnesia discovering his criminal past, is remarkably similar to SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT from a few years earlier. Plotwise, it's not nearly as compelling as its predecessor. The amnesia angle really isn't exploited well and what's left is a rather uninteresting gangster story with bland characters. Decent performances from Payne, Tufts and Drew, but only Percy Helton really stands out. However, this has to be one the best-looking noirs out there, thanks once again to the talents of John Alton. Incredible shocks of bright light amidst deep shadows, unusual framing, dramatic angles, gritty locations... the entire picture is simply gorgeous, textbook noir. It's a shame that such impressive visuals aren't attached to a more engaging plot, but it's still a delight to behold.