The film starts out with a bang with the nightmarish score full of dread playing as the familiar RKO radio tower makes its appearance. Then a crazed Pat O'Brien is inside a museum, smashing the glass in the door and wrestling a policeman who is trying to apprehend him. It is nighttime at the museum, and apparently the executive board of the museum is upstairs contemplating his fate. This situation does not make things better for him. But he is not arrested.
George Steele (O'Brien) is taken home. His claim is that he got a phone call earlier that day saying that his mother has taken ill, that he took a train from New York to the small town where his mother still lives, and in route another train crashed into his train and that he remembers nothing more until he came to at the museum. The humorless NYPD detective (Wallace Ford) tells Steele that they have investigated and that his mother is fine, and that there has been no train crash that day. His girlfriend, Terry (Claire Trevor) confirms that he did get a call. However, Ford says that call could have been from anyone. The conclusion reached is that Steele got blind drunk and went nuts in the museum - the "crack-up of the title - and thus he is finished at said museum.
So the next day Steele retraces his steps. He gets on the same train. Another train DOES approach his train, looking like they are going to crash, but then makes a right hook and begins to travel parallel to his train. He gets off at the stop where his mother lives, and from the gruff old monosyllabic man working there, finds out that he was taken off the train drunk, carried by two other men. So Steele realizes he is NOT cracking up, that somebody did all of this to discredit him with the museum, because that is where they left him. But why? Watch and find out.
Now this self vindication of Steele happens 43 minutes into the film, and there is still 50 minutes of film to go, so at this point, the plot begins to sag some, as there is simply the who and why of Steele being set up as he was. And here is where there are some cracks.. The evil Mr. Big is not Mr. Brains. Steele is left alive to easily figure out that he is not crazy, and this immediately makes him suspicious of activities at the museum. As often comes up in the 60s Batman TV show, why did the bad guys not just shoot him? And why are valuable pieces of art being shipped in a boiler room? Why does a rich man have his mansion built next to busy railroad track, like some poor schmuck living over an L train? And why does he not have a silencer for his gun?
What does this film do right? The cinematography is great as shadows of sculptures in the museum look like haunting figures. And casting the often treacherous Claire Trevor of the noirs as Steele's girl was a great idea. She plays it like she could either be for or against Steele. After all, they were apart three years during the War. I like how this film brings the war into the plot. In films made after 1945, heck, sometimes during 1945, you'll have plots that have backstory in which WWII never even seemed to have happened.
I'd recommend it because of the acting and the cinematography and just the oddity of having a film noir centered around a museum, but I was dubious when Noir Alley's Eddie Muller really didn't have much to say about it either good or bad, and now I know why.
George Steele (O'Brien) is taken home. His claim is that he got a phone call earlier that day saying that his mother has taken ill, that he took a train from New York to the small town where his mother still lives, and in route another train crashed into his train and that he remembers nothing more until he came to at the museum. The humorless NYPD detective (Wallace Ford) tells Steele that they have investigated and that his mother is fine, and that there has been no train crash that day. His girlfriend, Terry (Claire Trevor) confirms that he did get a call. However, Ford says that call could have been from anyone. The conclusion reached is that Steele got blind drunk and went nuts in the museum - the "crack-up of the title - and thus he is finished at said museum.
So the next day Steele retraces his steps. He gets on the same train. Another train DOES approach his train, looking like they are going to crash, but then makes a right hook and begins to travel parallel to his train. He gets off at the stop where his mother lives, and from the gruff old monosyllabic man working there, finds out that he was taken off the train drunk, carried by two other men. So Steele realizes he is NOT cracking up, that somebody did all of this to discredit him with the museum, because that is where they left him. But why? Watch and find out.
Now this self vindication of Steele happens 43 minutes into the film, and there is still 50 minutes of film to go, so at this point, the plot begins to sag some, as there is simply the who and why of Steele being set up as he was. And here is where there are some cracks.. The evil Mr. Big is not Mr. Brains. Steele is left alive to easily figure out that he is not crazy, and this immediately makes him suspicious of activities at the museum. As often comes up in the 60s Batman TV show, why did the bad guys not just shoot him? And why are valuable pieces of art being shipped in a boiler room? Why does a rich man have his mansion built next to busy railroad track, like some poor schmuck living over an L train? And why does he not have a silencer for his gun?
What does this film do right? The cinematography is great as shadows of sculptures in the museum look like haunting figures. And casting the often treacherous Claire Trevor of the noirs as Steele's girl was a great idea. She plays it like she could either be for or against Steele. After all, they were apart three years during the War. I like how this film brings the war into the plot. In films made after 1945, heck, sometimes during 1945, you'll have plots that have backstory in which WWII never even seemed to have happened.
I'd recommend it because of the acting and the cinematography and just the oddity of having a film noir centered around a museum, but I was dubious when Noir Alley's Eddie Muller really didn't have much to say about it either good or bad, and now I know why.