Dead Reckoning

By the way he talks Humphrey Bogart thinks he's still Sam Spade and that Lizabeth Scott is Mary Astor but "Dead Reckoning" is no "Maltese Falcon". Nevertheless this convoluted film-noir is still extremely enjoyable if a little hard to follow. It was directed by John Cromwell in 1947 and while Mr Cromwell was no John Huston he was no slouch either so the film moves at a fairly professional clip and is never less than entertaining.

If there's a problem it probably lies in the over-egged script and the purple prose, courtesy of no less than five writers and that includes producer Sidney Biddell who came up with the original story. Bogart is excellent as always and there's nice work from Morris Carnovsky as a bad guy but Lizabeth Scott was certainly no Mary Astor and at times you wonder if her 'bad acting' is bad acting or just 'bad acting', if you get my drift. For some reason the film isn't much seen these days which is a pity because, while no classic, it really is a lot of fun.

One can't help wondering, while watching this movie, whether one has seen it before. Not for the first time is Bogart out to avenge a friend's death. He's gone after polished, Continental Mr. Big types before, too; and Lizabeth Scott looks an awful lot like Lauren Bacall. Some of the dialogue seems to have been lifted in toto from earlier Bogart films. Yet for all this, Dead Reckoning is still entertaining. Its cliches are at least agreeably packaged, and the setting, the Gulf Coast South, is unusual. Bogart brings sublime integrity to his world-weary and life-battered persona, and however artificial and predictable the story might be, the star's authenticity is absolute. One believes what's going on because one believes Bogart.

This kind of thriller, which now falls under the general rubric of film noir, was losing a little steam by this time. For one thing, Morris Carnovksy's character of Martinelli had been done to death in the previous five years by everyone from Sydney Greenstreet to Otto Kruger. Marvin Miller's hulking, seemingly emotionally disturbed thug had become a commonplace fixture in such films; and while Miller is unique in his heavy-set, Orson Wellesian appearance, there's little that's new here, either. One can imagine script conferences of the day, with young screenwriters falling over one another trying to come up with a new psychological "complex" for the bad guy to be suffering from. Fortunately for the viewer, cliched though this movie is, it was made with extreme professionalism. Leo Tover's cinematography is understated, and nicely suggests the equatorial. John Cromwell was an old stage and movie pro by this time, though his usual magical touch with actors failed him with Miss Scott, he handles the tough guy stuff with suave authority.

Dead Reckoning appeared too early to have worn out and begun to recycle film noir's conceits and conventions, but already it has a tired, seen-it-all feel to it. Its director, the generally reliable John Cromwell (who three years later was to helm the great-grandmaw of women-behind-bars pix, Caged) works here with a by-the-numbers detachment that keeps the movie as limp and soggy as its "Gulf City" locale.

Returning vet Humphey Bogart, en route to Washington with a war buddy who's about to be awarded some Big Medal, is baffled when said buddy suddenly takes it on the lam. His investigation into what happened and why takes him to a seamy town on America's south coast where, in a morgue, he finds his friend's body, charred beyond recognition. He also meets up with Lizabeth Scott (as Coral Chandler, or "Dusty," or, even, "Mike"), a canary in a local nitery run by heavy Morris Carnovsky. It seems she and the late pal were something of an item, and she teams up with Bogart to get to the truth.

Or does she? The most problematic aspect of the film is that dealing with Scott -- game blonde or femme fatale? It's as if the scriptwriters or studio heads couldn't make up their mind about her, or as if alternative endings were contemplated, or even filmed. This doesn't help the viewer, whose empathy seems always to be out of kilter with what's happening in the plot. And this can't be written off as a teasing ambiguity -- it's a gross failure of filmmaking. So the sentimental, "redemptive" ending in the hospital ward, with high-flown talk of parachute jumps, tries to have it both ways. Well, it can't.

One of Bogart's best, a brutal Film Noir with a surprising ending, & filled with sharp, witty dialog. Lizabeth has never looked more beautiful than here, & although her acting ability is overmatched by Bogart, she would improve in her later films & she's adequate in this role. There's glimpses of the basic "Maltese Falcon" plot here: Bogey searches out & seeks revenge for his partner, even some of the dialog is similar in that respect. If you like Bogart or if you like Film Noir, you can't go wrong with this one! And by the way, this is a REAL Film Noir, not in the newer use of this phrase (recently, people have been calling any B&W crime drama made in the 1940s a "Film Noir"). This film has all the classic Film Noir elements: lots of shadows & stark contrasts (in the beginning, Bogart speaks from shadows so dark that one can hardly see his face), a spoken narrative, a "hero" who works outside the law, a murder mystery, & a heroine who may not be a heroine.

John Cromwell was a director that aimed to please, as demonstrated by the films he left behind.

"Dead Reckoning" is a film that is satisfying while one is watching it, but later on, in retrospect, we question a lot of what we have seen as the plot doesn't make sense in many ways. All the elements of the Film Noir genre can be found in it. We have a war hero Rip, who is investigating the disappearance of his buddy, who he watches running away from a train in order not to testify with him in Washington. The action takes us to a Southern coastal town, where supposedly, the escapee has gone to. Little prepares Rip to find his friend burned to death in the morgue.

Thus begins a tale of deception that has lots of interesting twists. The film benefits from its two stars, who play a game that on the surface seems to be one thing, and with a surprising twist at the end, turns out to be something else.

Humphrey Bogart excelled in movies like this. He is tough, but he has time to have a great rapport with Dusty, the former singer at the local night club. Lisabeth Scott plays the siren with an air of mystery. It comes as a big surprise what happens at the end.

Morris Carnovsky, a great theater actor of the time, is Martinelli, the crooked owner of the night club. Also a young William Prince plays the man who ran away to find a tragic fate by doing so.