Mysterious strangers keep popping up at just the right time to aid Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart), convicted for the murder of his wife and on the lam from San Quentin. Watching this film requires a healthy dose of detachment from reality as the situations presented all feel like contrivances to keep the story moving along. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the film as a noirish thriller, but when unbelievable elements get in the way they have to be acknowledged.
The first half of the movie is told in a first person narrative style that has the viewer looking through Parry's eyes, a device necessary to avoid showing the face we'll recognize later as Bogey's own. I've got to admit that after repeated viewings, the film's style has me subconsciously recalling Christopher Walken's turn as The Continental on 'Saturday Night Live', and with it an involuntary chuckle. The feeling reaches it's crescendo with the appearance of Dr. Coley (Houseley Stevenson), the back alley surgeon who performs Parry's transformation. Where else can you get your face changed at three in the morning, and arranged no less by a cab driver on a first name basis with the doc? Why haven't we seen Stevenson in more mad scientist films of the era, he looks perfect for the job.
Bogey's third team up with the Mrs., Lauren Bacall, is probably the one that most dramatizes the differences in their age. One almost questions what Irene Jansen sees in Parry, other than her belief in the innocence of his wife's murder; her father was framed the same way. Jansen's obsession with Parry's case has her giving him shelter during the post op. Did you wonder as I did why Bacall's character might have had a man's razor in her bathroom?
Consider if you will how inept the authorities were in tracking down their man. Parry really shouldn't have been so hard to find, like Clint Eastwood, he leaves dead bodies wherever he goes. If you pause your video player and proceed frame by frame, you'll notice how the detective who accompanies Parry out of the diner doesn't really get hit by a car, he actually jumps into the side of it as Vincent makes his getaway. I wonder why the scene was left that way, a retake or better editing job would have made it more believable.
The one superb casting decision was Agnes Moorehead as the vile scorned woman Madge, a former flame of Parry who epitomizes the description of a match made in hell. Wasn't she great? That look on her face when Vincent slowly turns the knife on his identity should be acting school required viewing. But come on, didn't she know the window was there? OK, maybe it was a suicide, but she should have needed a hammer to break it!
The movie's final curtain lowers in a café in Peru, but not the one in Indiana - Bogey and Bacall in a clinch, just the way they were meant to be. One good reason for Bogey to keep talking to himself.
The first half of the movie is told in a first person narrative style that has the viewer looking through Parry's eyes, a device necessary to avoid showing the face we'll recognize later as Bogey's own. I've got to admit that after repeated viewings, the film's style has me subconsciously recalling Christopher Walken's turn as The Continental on 'Saturday Night Live', and with it an involuntary chuckle. The feeling reaches it's crescendo with the appearance of Dr. Coley (Houseley Stevenson), the back alley surgeon who performs Parry's transformation. Where else can you get your face changed at three in the morning, and arranged no less by a cab driver on a first name basis with the doc? Why haven't we seen Stevenson in more mad scientist films of the era, he looks perfect for the job.
Bogey's third team up with the Mrs., Lauren Bacall, is probably the one that most dramatizes the differences in their age. One almost questions what Irene Jansen sees in Parry, other than her belief in the innocence of his wife's murder; her father was framed the same way. Jansen's obsession with Parry's case has her giving him shelter during the post op. Did you wonder as I did why Bacall's character might have had a man's razor in her bathroom?
Consider if you will how inept the authorities were in tracking down their man. Parry really shouldn't have been so hard to find, like Clint Eastwood, he leaves dead bodies wherever he goes. If you pause your video player and proceed frame by frame, you'll notice how the detective who accompanies Parry out of the diner doesn't really get hit by a car, he actually jumps into the side of it as Vincent makes his getaway. I wonder why the scene was left that way, a retake or better editing job would have made it more believable.
The one superb casting decision was Agnes Moorehead as the vile scorned woman Madge, a former flame of Parry who epitomizes the description of a match made in hell. Wasn't she great? That look on her face when Vincent slowly turns the knife on his identity should be acting school required viewing. But come on, didn't she know the window was there? OK, maybe it was a suicide, but she should have needed a hammer to break it!
The movie's final curtain lowers in a café in Peru, but not the one in Indiana - Bogey and Bacall in a clinch, just the way they were meant to be. One good reason for Bogey to keep talking to himself.