Street of Chance (1942)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Jack Hively

Writers:

Garrett Fort (writer)
Cornell Woolrich (novel)

Release Date:

3 October 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir

Plot Keywords:

Amnesia | Based On Novel

Cast

Burgess Meredith	...	Frank Thompson aka Danny Nearing
Claire Trevor	...	Ruth Dillon
Louise Platt	...	Virginia Thompson
Sheldon Leonard	...	Detective Joe Marruci
Frieda Inescort	...	Alma Diedrich
Jerome Cowan	...	Bill Diedrich
Adeline De Walt Reynolds	...	Grandma Diedrich
Arthur Loft	...	Sheriff Lew Stebbins
Clancy Cooper	...	Burke
Paul Phillips	...	Schoeder
Keith Richards	...	Intern
Ann Doran	...	Miss Stillwell
Cliff Clark	...	Policeman Ryan
Edwin Maxwell	...	Stillwell, the District Attorney

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Movie Connections:

Version of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Black Curtain (#1.9)" (1962)

early noir with amnesia angle

Paramount's "Street of Chance" is an early, and certainly not full-fledged, entry in the film noir canon. It qualifies mainly for being based on a work by that master of paranoia and cruel fate, Cornell Woolrich -- using the familiar amnesia premise to trigger the protagonist's alienation -- and by its oppressively moody low-key lighting. The first few reels offer a true noir milieu of urban angst and displacement -- the hero, injured by falling construction material, discovers a year-long lapse in his life -- and worse, he's suspected of murder and has a completely unremembered lover in addition to his puzzled wife. As the film progresses and he narrows in on the truth, it resolves itself into something closer to Gothic melodrama, with a more traditional view of human transgression and frailty. The blending of the two genres is reminiscent of the studio's "Among the Living" from the previous year rather than the out-and-out noirs "This Gun For Hire" and "The Glass Key" of its own release year.

Paramount's B-picture unit offered a higher degree of professionalism than most, reflected by the fine level of performance and technical achievement here. Burgess Meredith's lead character is far too benign to be a true Woolrichian anti-hero, but Claire Trevor shows underlying tinges of femme-fatalité which would serve her well later in her career. Lower-rank director Jack Hively contributes a few visual cachets, particularly the unexpected discovery of a pivotal character lurking in the background, and an over-the-transom tracking shot to end the picture that is almost Antonioniesque. Unfortunately, he doesn't milk the character conflict for much intensity, and the denouement is disappointingly soft.