I Became a Criminal (1947) User Reviews

THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947) ***1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 8/10 · 17 November 2006]

This is a relatively rare example of a British film noir, but one which can hold its own alongside the more celebrated American variety. Director Cavalcanti's background in documentaries certainly served him in good stead here, bringing complete authenticity to the situations and settings. Still, thanks to Otto Heller's outstanding camera-work and lighting, he manages a number of strikingly cinematic visuals (for instance, the scene where heroine Sally Gray is beaten up by chief villain Griffith Jones).

It features a splendid cast, all of whom deliver excellent performances: Trevor Howard is an unusual hero-type but totally credible; lovely leading lady Sally Gray may come off a bit too good to be true (she initially commits herself to the framed Howard merely because her gangster boyfriend has jilted her for the latter's own fiancée!) but she elicits all the petite sex appeal of a Veronica Lake (meanwhile her love/hate banter with Howard evokes memories of the Robert Donat/Madeleine Carroll pairing from Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS [1935]); Griffith Jones is a suave yet ruthless leader of a black-market ring (but who gets his just desserts in particularly gruesome fashion); Mary Merrall is Jones' elderly associate, whose level-headedness and experience keeps the violent gangster in check; a young Ballard Berkeley is a sympathetic Scotland Yard man, but who doesn't think twice about using Howard as bait to capture the entire gang; Peter Bull turns up for a bit as a police informer.

The general gloominess (a mainstay of thrillers emanating from the post-war era) is leavened somewhat by its constant flurry of hard-boiled dialogue courtesy of screenwriter Noel Langley. The terrific climax is set inside the gang's 'business' office - a funeral parlor, amusingly named "The Valhalla Undertaking Co.". Still, perhaps my favorite scene in the entire film is Howard's surreal encounter with the zombie-like Vida Hope - in whose household he stumbles while on the run; she turns out to be deranged, and even tries to talk our hero into murdering her alcoholic husband (Maurice Denham)!

As is typical of old films released on DVD by Kino, the quality of the print and transfer leave a lot to be desired - but one has to be grateful still, because otherwise gems such as this one would remain unavailable indefinitely...

Gritty British noir

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 8 September 2009]

Cavalcanti directed this excellent British film noir, "They Made Me a Fugitive," with the then new star, Trevor Howard, as well as Sally Gray, Griffith Jones, and Mary Merrall. Howard plays Clem Morgan, a war hero who joins a black market ring, headed by Narcy (Jones) that does business out of Narcy's funeral business, the contraband entering in coffins. Clem, however, draws the line when he sees them dealing in drugs. He winds up being framed for a killing of a bobby, deserted while he's unconscious in a car. The ex-girlfriend (Gray) of Narcy, the chief criminal, comes to see him in prison, sure he's not guilty. Clem escapes and goes on the run, and reconnects with Gray. She tries to find the witness who can clear him.

Very ahead of its time in its graphic violence, which includes violence toward women. Also, the lead is not a hero, having turned to crime. The ending is also unexpected. My only complaint would be the hitting the audience over the head with the RIP letters on the roof, and also the phrase "It's later than you think," which was possibly the inspiration for its appearance in "Midnight Cowboy." The performances are very good, with Howard, Gray, and Griffith all in top form, and Merrall creates an interesting character. The camera-work is very good also, quite stunning.

Highly recommended - it's nothing like you'd expect.

Ripping Good

[Piafredux · 8/10 · 25 March 2007]

Fine cast, crackling dialogue, sure-handed direction, and some lovely camera work make 'They Made Me A Fugitive' a splendid viewing experience, but the film's ripping, breathless pacing most impressed me. From the outset I just felt immersed into a cesspool of criminality, through which the pacing just dunked me again and again, deeper and deeper into the depravity of the characters. The police seem to exist in another England - the one of "bright, sunlit uplands" - while the film shoves you and binds you amid hoodlums, spivs, black marketeers, and sadistic enforcers who inhabit a claustrophobic, treacherous underworld in which violence to body and soul lurks in every shadow.

At the remove of six decades some of the dialogue and action seems clichéd (although - spoiler coming here - the sequence of the fall-from-power fate of the gang leader, Narcy, socked me in my gut: it's a clever, artful, uncompromising bit of camera work); but on the whole the film still punches and lands hard blows. And, oh boy, the one character, Narcy's chief muscle-enforcer, still chills me to the bone whenever, in deliberate or unbidden recall, he lurks in and lunges from the chiaroscuro brandishing his menacing, meaty bulk, punishment-keen fists, charmless, cold, piggish face, vicious, predatory eyes, and glinting knife blade. Gives me the creeps! See 'They Made Me A Fugitive' and be swept, panting, through ninety-six minutes that seem to be counted in thunderous heartbeats that, in the underworld of this tale, may - or may not - get to go on pounding behind the thin, warm, vulnerable flesh of your chest. This one's as good as noir ever got to be.

Noir Sleeper

[dougdoepke · 9 September 2009]

A British noir as good as the definitive ones being turned out in the States by such consensus masters as Mann, Dassin, and Lewis, to name three. And what about that great ending that still leaves me flabbergasted. Three cheers for a British cinema that apparently was able to operate without the albatross of a Production Code and still not wreck the nation's moral fiber. Needless to say, those final few minutes would never have been allowed Stateside where the scales of justice always triumphed, no matter how the world really works.

Then too, consider the household Howard stumbles into by accident, where the zoned out housewife is only too eager to perforate her boozy hubby. One look at that demented visage and she's a lot scarier than any of the professionals. No wonder Howard flees back to the safety of London's underworld. This may also be the cheapest electricity bill on record since the brightest sound-stage bulb checks in at about 60 watts—they don't call it "noir" for nothing. And keep an ear cocked for some of the snappiest dialogue this side of Dashiel Hammett, especially from that old crone Aggie, who, I shudder to think, might actually be somebody's grandmother.

Not that everything is roses. Some of the set-ups operate only at a stretch. For example, Howard's aim with a milk bottle should have him pitching for the Yankees. And he does it with such casual flair, you'd never guess his life is on the line. Nonetheless, the movie's a real sleeper and should have been exported to our shores a lot sooner. I expect, that daring finale would have inspired our own filmmakers to greater sneaky lengths in subverting the dead hand of Hollywood censorship.

A good film, when put in context

[JamesFreeman · 7/10 · 5 August 2003]

Sadly, Leslie Howard Adams seems to know more about the history of the appearance of 'dope' in films than he actually does about the context of this post-war noir of 1947. In actual fact, it isn't marijuana which makes a brief (and arguably not that important) appearance in this film, but what appears to be 'snow' - cocaine. Furthermore, the gang which the protagonist Clem Morgan joins is involved in more than just peddling drugs, yet their activities are more mundane than Adams suggests: these are not London drug barons, but black marketeers, engaged in supplying what were then, in the post-war days of continued shortages and rationing, luxury goods: cigarettes (boxes of Gold Flake make a conspicuous appearance), alcohol, and even prime cuts of meat.

In addition, the significance of Clem Morgan's behaviour is more complex than Adams suggests. Many people in Britain at the time felt that the war, though the outcome was of course to be celebrated, had somehow changed society - the country was not as it was in the twenties and thirties (indeed, this is a sentiment expressed at some point during this film). The petty criminality of an ex-serviceman such as Morgan could then be interpreted both as surprising, in one who fought to defend his country, yet permissible: in the present day, with cross-Channel 'booze-cruisers', smuggling is still seen as a harmless crime which doesn't hurt anyone, and one could argue (as people invariably did and do) that he was merely aiming to reduce the shortages while making a tidy profit. Even the lorry driver with whom Morgan hitches a lift following his escape from prison offers to sell him some petrol coupons (coupons had to be presented at the point of sale in order to make the transaction legal - an effective way of rationing, which created an alternative market in ration allowances, with coupons being exchanged for other coupons (e.g. coupons for bread, butter, sugar, sweets, petrol, milk, etc) or money). However, the fine line is crossed when Morgan sees drugs being handled; he represents very much the old-fashioned petty criminal who refused to become involved in the drugs trade, before gangs of foreign criminals (from, for example, the Caribbean, and parts of America and Asia) moved in during the sixties and seventies.

**Warning: I'm going to discuss some details of the film which may spoil the plot if you haven't seen it already**

They Made Me A Fugitive is a fine example of post-war noir, very much continuing the trends and styles started in the thirties. However, there is much which might strike a modern-day audience as clichéd. At the start of the film, the gang is seen using an undertakers as a front for their activities, carrying the goods in coffins. There is the archetypal gangland matriarch, who sits around playing cards (it seems unlikely that she is intended as a metaphor for the Fates) and dispensing one-liners which would be cutting if they weren't so hackneyed. The gang is led by the egocentric Narcy (short for Narcissus), whose photos appear on numerous mantelpieces, and comes complete with dapper dress (admittedly, itself not a crime), as well as monogrammed handkerchief, cigarette holder, nail file, etc, etc. There are even the diametrically opposed gang members: the nervous, weak and temperamental Soapy, and the silent, bull-like murderer, Jim. The incident where Clem Morgan seeks sanctuary at a house while still on the run is so surreal as to be almost comic, especially because of the murderous wife played by Vida Hope, who speaks in a monotone with a vacant expression on her face, and demands (in a halting voice) that Clem must 'mur - der - my - hus - band!' Even the rooftop chase and struggle at the end between Clem and Narcy is on the verge of being ridiculous, as both men totter around, clinging onto the 'RIP' sign above the undertakers in an attempt to push the other to his death. As if the proximity of so many signs of death wasn't enough to tell the viewer what was about to happen, the audience is treated to several close up shots of a sign hanging inside the undertakers': 'It's later than you think'.

Yet perhaps I should not be so critical. For a film made in 1947, this is very exciting. Certain elements may only seem clichéd because they have been overused by many films since, and a chase of one kind or another (often, as here, between the guilty man and the man seeking revenge) has almost become a stock part of just about every film across the spectrum, whether horror, thriller or even comedy. There are parts of this film which indeed were probably quite daring. Although the audience does not witness it in graphic detail, there are several instances of violence committed against women in the film: both Sally and Cora (the latter being Soapy's wife, the former, Narcy's ex-girlfriend who falls for Clem) are beaten up and abused by Narcy. Soapy is stabbed, and his body thrown off a quayside. One policeman is viciously attacked, while another is run down in the street. These are moments in the film which would provoke shock in a 1940s audience; no matter the disruption caused to society by the war, there was still a great feeling of horror at violent crime, something to which people today have become desensitized, and it cannot be denied that this film is a gripping portrayal (whether accurate or not) of underworld criminal activities in post-war Britain.

A little known,undervalued gem of British film-noir-THE British Gangster film.

[Howl-2 · 10/10 · 21 September 1999]

Alberto Cavalcanti's THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE is, to my tastes, the great British Gangster movie and a contender for great Film-Noir as well. At the time of release it was probably overshadowed by BRIGHTON ROCK and THE THIRD MAN, both similar in look and attitude, but what sets FUGITIVE apart is its uncompromisingly bleak realism and pessimistic amorality.

Trevor Howard plays the part of a former R.A.F. pilot who is struggling to survive in the austere post-war era of rationing and comparative boredom of peacetime life.He offers his services to a Black Market racketeer, Narcy, a foppish but lethal character who deals in contraband under cover of his legitimate funeral business.

Narcy and his gang are characters who just didn't appear in British films until GET CARTER came along.They are portrayed as the typical film 'cockney sparrows' of the time but with a difference-they carry flick-knives,knuckle-dusters and even guns.They listen in to the police on a huge radio set. At one point they are seen to knock out a British bobby.-you'd have to be born and raised in Britain in the forties or fifties to realise how what a shock that would have caused at the time of the film's release.

Trevor Howard's character,though,is thoroughly bad in a different way.He is a hero gone wrong,a good chap who lets the side down.When he's in a fight to the death with Michael Brennan he resorts to dirty fighting (very un-British at the time) and even head-butts Brennan.As Howard is creeping into the funeral parlour for the final confrontation with Narcy and his thugs we see a sign with the words ITS LATER THAN YOU THINK,which I believe resurfaced in Herlihy's MIDNIGHT COWBOY.

In conclusion I would like to propose that THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE should be considered,along with Brighton Rock,Get Carter etc as a prime example of social realism in film.

Of course those Brits can do noir

[AlanSquier · 7/10 · 18 February 2007]

The truth of the matter is that they did a bang-up job in emulating American noir and gangster type films. Why not, the American stuff was going great guns on that side of the pond.

This was pretty heavy stuff for 1947. References to cocaine, brutality towards women, and such goodies are noticeable here. Also noticeable is the noir type anti-hero magnificently portrayed by Trevor Howard, and lots and I do mean lots of shadows.

A rooftop scene was undoubtedly the prototype and inspiration for later movies such as To Catch A Thief.

Don't confuse this with the earlier Hollywood movie, They Made Me A Criminal, which featured John Grfield and the Dead End Kids. There's no similarity between those two films.

Fantastic British post-war noir.

[johne23-1 · 10/10 · 15 July 2008]

Well, what have we got here?

We've got a 1946/7 London - rainy, smog- and fog-ridden - swarming with sweaty, sadistic small-time black marketeers, hag-faced toothless harridan prostitutes, rat faced squealers, slimy grasses, heart-of-gold cashmere-wearing Judys, squalid, smoky dockside boozers, and bobbies in mackintoshes and capes (told you it was raining) getting run over and bashed over the coconut.

Enter ex-RAF Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard). He wants a bit of action with a gang led by sharp, smoothie, sadistic, snooker-playing knuckle-duster wielding Narcy (Narcissus)(Griffith Jones) - but he baulks at their drug (sherbert!) dealing side. So he's framed into a cop murder - very heavy stuff in immediate post-war England. But this isn't The Blue Lamp - it's nearer Jules Dassin's famous Night and the City and precedes both.

As well as a crackling script by Noel Langley we've got a runaway fugitive we know is innocent, more bobbies, more rain, and a head-butting, knife-throwing, rooftop-climbing finale.

A great British noir sadly often overlooked. See it!

"People have got terrible dishonest since the war"

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 7/10 · 28 June 2010]

This one is a damned curious British noir (some, including myself, would generally have that as an oxymoron, but I'm comfortable with the term here, as it really is precisely tapping into post-war malaise and other very recognisable Yankee genre tropes). Nice dialogue too, "He's not even a respectable crook, he's cheap, rotten, after-the-war trash" describing baddie Narcy (short for Narcissus after the Greek myth, well played by Griffith Jones).

Wild child RAF ace Clem (Trevor Howard) is too bored with civvy street after all the shoot-em-ups, Immelmans and ack-ack show. So he decides to try his arm at crookery and ends up with Narcy and his gang, Narcy needs a guy with class. Only things don't go so well so Narcy hangs a frame on Clem and takes his popsy. "What's 'e in for?" "Manslaughter - killing a cop" "That's not manslaughter, that's fumigation".

The rest of the film is the revenge story. It's all nice and dark up to a point, but gets rather too intricate for its own good and sprawls a bit, ending up feeling twenty minutes too long at 1 hr 40 mins. Due to the times there's not much scope for the violence that some scenes in this film pretty much demand according to the dictates of logic. The lack of the effect half of cause and effect makes the climactic scene absurd, and actually had almost the entire theatre at the Edinburgh Film Festival's revival screening in giggles. There's room for humour in a film like this, Hitchcock showed that well, but I think Cavalcanti over-eggs the pudding in the manner of Jon Farrow's American noir of 1951, His Kind Of Woman. The humour came in as a step change rather than equally spread in an even-toned master work. I may of course be in the position of being kind and assuming that the humour was intentional.

The dialog alone is worth a rating of 9.

[Irie212 · 9/10 · 27 September 2009]

What a tight, smart movie. The only criticism I can really level at it is that it's not as good as "The Third Man," and that's only because it doesn't have the gravitas of the unconscionable criminality of Harry Lime.

It does have Trevor Howard, as one of the bad guys this time. His riveting performance as a minor-league crook is matched by Griffith Jones's as a major-league mobster. Sally Gray turns in a strong performance too as the femme fatale who, at one point, takes a beating that she withstands stoically until a girlfriend cleans her up and, finally, gives her a cup of tea. It may be that kindness, or perhaps the hot tea on her split lip, you don't know, but Gray breaks down at last and you realize what the beating has done to her.

The pace is swift, but not rushed. Extraneous but fascinating scenes are included-scenes which lead nowhere-- particularly the homicidal lisping woman and her drunken husband who shelter fugitive Trevor Howard in their house for brief but very creepy period.

Every frame is composed with extraordinary care, especially in the climactic scene in the funeral parlor, a scene that reminded me of nothing so much as "Cabinet of Doctor Caligari." There's hardly a right angle in it. The chiaroscuro photography by Otto Heller ("Alfie," "Victim," "Peeping Tom," etc. etc.) is only enhanced by editing that's almost as whip-crack as the dialog.

And as for that superb dialog: film noir movies typically have wisecrack lines, but this Noel Langley screenplay is brilliantly terse-in league with Chandler's work. If any character had two sentences in a row, I didn't notice. It's all lickety-split exchanges, and every line adds definition or motivation to the character speaking.

A personal note: This is the only film I've ever watched which, after it finished, I immediately started it over and watched it again from the beginning. It was that rich, that engaging, and that satisfying.

Betrayal and Payback

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 3 August 2018]

In the post-war in London, the unemployed and former RAF pilot Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) is invited by his acquaintance Narcissus "Narcy" (Griffith Jones) to join his gang of smugglers and smalltime thieves that uses a funeral home as headquarter. When Clem sees drugs in a coffin, he decides to leave the gang after his last job looting a warehouse. However Narcy betrays him and activates an alarm, but Clem escapes from the warehouse and gets in Narcy´s car. When the gangster Soapy (Jack McNaughton) is driving the getaway car, Narcy orders him to hit and run a policeman on the street. The car crashes a post and Narcy also hits Clem´s head and flees with Soapy, leaving Clem unconscious in the car. Clem is arrested and convicted for manslaughter and sent to a prison in Dartmoor. When Clem receives the visit of Narcy´s girlfriend Sally Connor (Sally Gray) and learns that his girlfriend Ellie is with Narcy, he decides to escape from prison. Now he is a fugitive and seeks out Soapy to clear his name and Narcy to revenge is betrayal.

"They Made Me a Fugitive" is a good British film-noir with themes that might have impacted the audiences in 1947. There is reference to drug; torture of woman; and wife executing the alcoholic husband. The cast is excellent and the performances are top-notch. The beauty of Sally Gray is ahead of the time. The plot is well-resolved but the woman that kills her husband is forgotten. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Nas Garras da Fatalidade" ("In the Claws of the Fatality")

Don't be so reactionary, this is the century of the common man.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 22 June 2011]

They Made Me a Fugitive (AKA: I Became a Criminal) is directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, and adapted to screenplay by Noel Langley from the novel A Convict Has Escaped written by Jackson Budd. It stars Trevor Howard, Sally Gray, Griffith Jones, Rene Ray and Mary Merrall. Music is by Marius-Francois Gaillard and cinematography by Otto Heller.

Ex-RAF man Clem Morgan (Howard) finds civilian life is dull and a struggle for him to ingratiate himself into. Searching for some excitement he is tempted into joining a black market gang fronted by ruthless Narcy (Jones). But Clem and Narcy don't exactly hit it off and when disaster strikes during a getaway, Clem finds himself set up as a fall-guy. So begins a tale of murder, beatings and revenge.

Call it either Brit film noir or spiv crime melodrama, they Made Me a Fugitive is a 100% potent and important movie in the cycle of British crime films that came out in the late 1940's; films that caused quite a stir upon their release. Shifting from wartime propaganda to post-war malaise and the dubious moral conditions of the cities, "Fugitive", and films of its ilk such as Brighton Rock, baited the censors at the BBFC, where although some minor tone downs were used as a compromise, Cavalcanti refused to bow down to any requests for striping the film of its violence and grim social realistic core. His standing was such that the film was passed uncut for release in the summer of 47, thus it was able to shock the contemporary British audience. Sadly American audiences were not so lucky, instead receiving a cut minus 20 minutes, that was released under the title I Became a Criminal in 1948. Suffice to say that the only version to see these days is the one that runs at just under 100 minutes in length.

Hard to believe that such a tough picture was scripted by the same guy who wrote the screenplays for the Wizard of Oz (1939) and Scrooge (1951), but that is the case. Langley's teaming with Cavalcanti and Heller proved to be a great one, ensuring that the film looked, sounded and played out as the grim tale it ultimately is. The violence, and in fact the staging of such, is of course tame when viewed nowadays, but the film has such a sense of time period it's easy to get transported into the movie and feel the unflinching nature of the beast. Besides, the violence against women and coppers used here will always carry with it a sense of nastiness. Film is also boosted by the performances of Howard (making no attempt to play Clem as likable), Jones (eloquent spiv nastiness supreme) and Gray (hot to trot). Howard was right in the middle of what would be a purple period in his career, with Brief Encounter just behind him and The Third Man on the horizon, Howard was on form. That this film warrants being mentioned in the same breath as those two movies is testament to its, and his, worth.

Perhaps a little surprising given the itchy texture of the film, there's also some dark humour within. It's not for nothing that the bad guys work out of a funeral parlour, where constant reminders of death are evident via the coffins and sarcastic advertisements on the walls. This base also acts as the back drop to the big face off during the finale, tensely played out on the roof where a huge sign grimly reads R.I.P. Where the film gets its Brit film noir tag from is due to the look provided by Heller's photography and the scenes constructed by Cavalcanti in dimly lit rooms and ramshackle alleyways. While the ending, thankfully, doesn't cop out and ensures that no film noir fan will be disappointed. All in it's a classic piece of British crime film making, taking chances by not shying away from playing the drama straight and true, while revelling in a mood of bitterness. 9/10

British film noir is taught, tense, grim and terrific...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 1 May 2011]

A good deal of British film noir style suspense is generated in I BECAME A CRIMINAL (U.S.A. title: THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE) starring TREVOR HOWARD as an ex-RAF pilot who becomes a bored civilian and falls in with a racketeering gang shortly after the end of WWII.

GRIFFITH JONES is the sinister, rough and tough leader of the gang who decides to set Howard up for the murder of a policeman during an escape from the cops. Howard spends some time in prison before breaking out and going all out for revenge by returning to London for a confrontation with Jones' gang.

While the story itself is nothing original, it's done with such style and flair for this kind of grim material, the B&W photography giving realistic glimpses of post-war London on the gritty side.

SALLY GRAY is very effective as the woman who helps Howard and believes in his innocence. The supporting players register strongly as individual characters.

The final shoot-out is a bit too frenzied for my taste, extending for quite awhile before the villains are disposed of. Despite this, the ending remains downbeat with just a glimmer of hope that some day Gray will be able to prove her man has been railroaded and is innocent of the murder charge for killing a policeman.

Well worth viewing if you like suspenseful, brisk stories of this genre with dialog that is strong and forceful. While this bears no relation to the John Garfield film, THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL, its plot outline does bear a strong resemblance to the Burt Lancaster thriller, KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS with Joan Fontaine helping Lancaster elude the pursuing authorities while on the run.

Now Make Me A Half-Decent Film

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 1 August 2010]

Not for the first time and most certainly not for the last I find I've been watching a different film to that seen by the majority of posters. The most blatant ineptness is the plotting. Consider: Having established that he is averse to peddling drugs, new gang-member, Trevor Howard is framed by gang leader Griffith Jones; here's how he does it; he goes with his gang on a robbery and waits in the car with the driver as Howard and some others enter the building. After a few minutes Jones smashes the case housing the burglar alarm whilst Howard and the others are still inside. The police arrive within minutes and Jones's driver runs one of them, a constable, down. NOW, wait for this: The VERY NEXT SCENE is in a prison where Howard, who has miraculously been captured, tried and sentenced entirely off screen, is serving a sentence for murder. That's not enough for this finely-crafted screenplay, not by a long shot (or even a close up) because the NEXT SCENE has Howard on the run having somehow contrived to escape without even planning to at least not in our presence. When writing is as sloppy as that no one has much chance of coming out of it ahead of the game. As Narcy, the gang leader Griffith Jones obviously enrolled for a term or two in the Charles Laughton School of Ham and if Trevor Howard and Sally Gray are adequate the rest of the cast wouldn't be out of place in Tod Browning's Freaks. So Dire It's Good.

It's More Influential Than You Think

[thurberdrawing · 24 May 2004]

I borrowed the Kino Video release of this from my public library today. I'd never heard of it before and, having just watched it, I can say I'm really amazed this is not a famous movie in the United States. I'm not sure if it's very well-known in England or not. Like another landmark British movie, BLOW-UP, THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE is directed by a foreigner. There is more attention to sound and camera-work than I've noticed in most British movies from the end of the war until about 1956 or so. Warner Brothers gets a huge credit at the start, and I'm wondering if that studio merely distributed it in the United States or if British audiences also saw "Warner Brothers" in huge letters on the screen. It has a lot in common with the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movies of the forties, and the screenwriter, Noel Langley, had worked in Hollywood on several movies, notably THE WIZARD OF OZ. So, it's British, but it has American and continental style. I mention Bogart. I should also mention Richard Widmark. Clem and Narcy easily could have been played by those two actors with no change in approach. There's a rooftop scene later echoed in TO CATCH A THIEF and the words "It's Later Than You Think" keep appearing, and I've seen at least two later movies which make use of that. It's scarier than the American gangster movies of the late forties.

Also, the title begs comparison to the 1939 Warner Brothers picture THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL and an early-thirties one called I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. A typical American gangster movie from the thirties had a World War One vet who sells bootleg liquor during the Great Depression and THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE makes the protagonist a World War Two vet dealing in rationed items such as cigarettes and liquor. There seems to have been a conscious effort, in the making of this movie, to capture the audience American gangster movies had had in Britain. Perhaps there was an effort to get an American audience, too. See it for good acting, wonderful production and, most importantly, unexpected realism. If it's clichéd, it's put together so well as to seem fresh almost sixty years after it was made. And seeing Peter Bull cheered me up.

Soapy Water

[AAdaSC · 6/10 · 21 October 2017]

Ex serviceman Trevor Howard (Clem) is bored now that the war is over and agrees to join a criminal gang headed up by spiv boss Griffith Jones (Narcy) who peddles whatever contraband comes in – cigarettes, meat and even sherbet. I love sherbet. It seems a funny thing to ban, though. Anyway, Howard is enraged by the fact that this sherbet is being peddled unlawfully. He obviously feels for the sweetshop traders. His stand on sherbet causes a rift with Jones. Jones has plans for Howard. Not good ones.

There are a few good things going for this film including the ending which wouldn't be allowed in Hollywood in which the dialogue as delivered by Jones is completely unexpected and standout. There is also a memorable sequence with housewife Vida Hope (Mrs Fenshaw) who wants a favour of Howard in return for sheltering him whilst he is on the run. Vida is really freaky!

The cast are a mish-mash. I didn't think any of the women convinced and I couldn't relate to any of the male cast. Trevor is OK in the lead. And what is it with the names of the gang? I thought one guy was called 'Sophie' for most of the film. And the lead gangster is just one letter away from being called 'Nancy'. But I think that falls in line with British gangsters of the time – note 'Pinkie' from "Brighton Rock" made in the same year. Of course, the famous 'nancy-boy' Kray twins popped up later in 1960s London.

The film is OK but watch out for the fake fights. The rubber milk bottles that are hurled about and bounce off people's heads contrast sharply with the sequence when Sally Gray (Sally) gets beaten up. The violence towards women in this film is disturbing and once again, the dialogue as delivered by Jones is menacing during these sequences. Overall, it's not quite up there with the best.

British noir? You bet, and really good, a must-see for noir fans.

[secondtake · 8/10 · 29 August 2013]

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

This is a vigorous British crime noir film, a counterpart to the great Warner Bros American movies from the same period (and earlier) and to American post-war film noir. (In fact, this was released by Warner Bros.) The plot is fast and twisty and the photography is bold and dramatic with a lot of night scenes. Great stuff. If you like this sort of thing normally you'll love this.

The star is one of the Howard Brothers, Trevor, playing a would-be criminal and eventually the fugitive of the title. He's mixed up with some tough criminal types (British style) and some female leads that have echoes of film noir femme fatales. There is violence, angular camera-work, even a few special effects, and a couple of sympathetic leads who eventually take the plot somewhere new.

Howard's biggest role, in the best movie of his career, came two years earlier in "Brief Encounter," and he's again complex and nuanced and someone to identify with. But he's not especially sympathetic, playing a hardened, selfish type who just happens to have a conscience unlike his cohorts. The movie follows him through several phases of his brush with crime, and with an attempt to clear his name. There is a rather long and dramatic and somewhat unconvincing fight scene near the end (the throw of the milk bottle takes first prize in this one), but the very last scene is brutally pessimistic in a way American noirs are oddly not.

If you like film noir this is a must see. If you appreciate a good movie for its action and drama, likewise. There may be no deep character development are larger social arc here, but that's true of a lot of American noirs, too. So just jump and and soak it all up.

Hard Boiled Yegg Takes Fall.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 1 May 2011]

I don't know where the comparisons to "The Third Man" come from. This movie and Carol Reed's masterpiece have little in common except the use of smuggling as a crime. This movie is a little slow at first but engages the viewer after the first ten minutes or so. Nothing much more than that.

A diverting post-war tale of a gang of British criminals led by Narcy. Something to do with smuggling and robberies. Returned and demobilized RAF hero Trevor Howard joins them out of desperation. Narcy doesn't like "amateurs" and frames Howard for a murder. Howard escapes and, aided by another "amateur", the pouty and sensual blond, Sally Grey, he spends the rest of his time trying to track the gang members down and get them to spill the beans about his innocence. They, in turn, are anxious for him to be silenced. There is a climactic brawl between Howard and the gang members in the Valhalla Casket Company. The wind up is that Narcy falls off a roof and is killed without confessing to Howard's innocence. Howard is sent off to jail again and Grey shouts that she'll wait for him.

Man, these settings are seedy and so are the people. They're cynical, greedy, totally lacking in compassion. The dialog is -- I hope -- intentionally and amusingly overblown. Cop to Narcy, referring to Narcy's bodyguard: "I see you brought Frankenstein along." Narcy: "He's working his way through college." And, later, Narcy to a sobbing young woman: "Shut your trap. There's a draft." And Howard's refrain: "I believe you; thousands wouldn't." And then there are the names, Soapy, Aggie, Curly, Fidgety Phil. It's as if the writer and director were doing a semi-serious parody of American films noir, except that when this was shot there were no such things as films noir. They may have had the earlier gangster movies in mind -- "Little Caesar" and the like -- or it may have been a case of independent invention.

I will now point out two differences between "I Became a Fugitive" and American crime dramas of the period. One -- and I find this morally offensive -- is that the British movie makes use of the word "damn" -- twice. It made my hackles rise. How would the Brits have felt if we upright, God-fearing, Americans had thrown "bloody" about in a recklessly adjectival manner, eh? "Bloody" -- now there's a silly taboo word if I ever heard one. And don't even get me started on "bum" and "bottom" and "Bristol." Here's another difference. In this dark British crime drama, hardly anybody has a gun! When the gang is together, planning to murder Howard, Narcy has to ask who's carrying a piece. You, Curly? "Nah, I always use me toothpick." (Switchblade knife.) Finally Narcy manages to locate a gun -- not even a snub-nosed .38 -- and hands it to one of the gang who, get this, refuses to promise he'll use it. The gun is fired during the climactic fight, but only once deliberately, and it misses. When Howard is holding the loaded automatic and the knife wielder is charging him, Howard flings the pistol at his assailant and it bounces from his forehead. In a good, old-fashioned, honest American movie, that climactic fight would end up with a warehouse awash in blood, with Uzis puncturing every puncturable object within miles, with dead bodies hanging from meat hooks, eyeballs rolling around on the floor like marbles.

I'm kidding about all that, but what really was something of a surprise at the end was when Scotland Yard carts Howard off to the slams and he's saying good-bye to the dewy eyed blond who loves him. Since no one has admitted that Howard was framed, he's off to serve out his original sentence -- and more. The Inspector gives only a hint that he might escape this punishment. It was surprising because, after all, Howard has killed no one, is guilty of nothing more than small-time smuggling, and has been willingly instrumental in helping the police capture the gang. On top of that, he's presumably willing to testify against them in court, which will close a few open cases. It's believable but a touch grim.

The director handles everything pretty deftly but has a tendency to have the actor stare directly into the camera when making a pronouncement. And these aren't point-of-view shots. They're just people speaking to a lens. Howard is good, Gray is bland, and Griffith Jones, who plays Narcy, is reduced to a stereotype with his gangsta talk. He always sneers, orders helpless women to be beaten with heavy belts, never says thanks, and shows no affection or unusual habits. He has no redeeming features and no interesting ones either. I don't think he was meant to play the role clownishly but that's how it comes across.

It isn't badly done but it's unjust to compare it to "The Third Man" or even noirs like "Cry of the City."

Fantastic Brit noir

[brtor222 · 10/10 · 4 March 2013]

Great rarely seen picture filmed in the style and era of American film noir. Why this film doesn't appear in the Film Noir Encyclopedia (even under its alternate title), I cannot say, but it's a great shame it was by-passed.

Everything about this film IS noir! The great cinematography, the shady characters, the excellent (and sometimes darkly funny) dialogue. Even the settings of the undertaker shop with those "empty" coffins and the eerie RIP rooftop set!! Hitchcockian effects galore.

Crisply edited and slick production never lets up for a minute and deserves repeated viewings to catch all the great photographic angle effects and evocative lighting. It belongs with the great noirs.

Guess you can tell I REALLY liked this film? Watch for yourself and I hope you'll agree. A great suspense pic for a rainy Sunday afternoon!!

It is not a terrible film

[christopher-underwood · 6/10 · 9 January 2022]

It is not a terrible film but the director, Cavalcanti is much happier on anything less nasty. With his, Went the Day Well? (1942) he is much more satisfactory and also with Dead of Night (1945) and really with documentary. Trevor Howard is not made for the tough stuff although was good enough in The Third Man (1946). He does well enough as the fugitive but is not thrilling in the role and but maybe is better suited in romance. It is also a shame that there it is really everything that could have been done in the studio.

A hard edged grimy crime picture with shocking violence

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 14 January 2023]

Violent British crime drama from Warner Brothers and director Alberto Cavalcanti. Trevor Howard stars as Clem, an ex-RAF pilot who can't find work so he joins up with a criminal gang run by Narcy (Griffith Jones). When Narcy takes a disliking to Clem, he has him set-up on a manslaughter charge and sent to prison. Clem later escapes and goes seeking revenge, with a lot of obstacles along the way.

This is one hard-edged, grimy crime picture for its day. The violence is shocking, and one brutal beating of a woman is particularly unpleasant. Griffith Jones makes for a really hissable villain, while Howard excels as the weary but resolute Clem. Top billed Sally Gray gets the big "acting" moments as Narcy's girl who takes a shine to Clem. For those who like the darker side of life (and cinema), this is worthwhile. More sensitive viewers may be repelled.

Brilliant!

[TondaCoolwal · 6/10 · 13 December 2020]

Cavalcanti's films always have a dash of spice, and this one is no exception. Set in smoky, grimy post-war London, this movie is surprisingly violent for the time, particularly towards the women in the cast. Usual Mr. Nice Guy Griffith Jones is Narcy, a spivvy black-marketeer who recruits down-on-his -luck RAF johnny Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) into his gang, which operates out of a funeral parlour! Clem doesn't mind dealing in stolen goods but, draws the line at drugs and tells Narcy he wants out. In retaliation Narcy frames Clem when a policeman is run over during a warehouse robbery. Whilst in jail Clem is visited by showgirl Sally (Sally Gray) who has been dumped by Narcy and who offers to help Clem by getting gang member Soapy to confirm his innocence. Clem declines but then escapes and goes hunting for Soapy. Narcy works out Clem's plan and looks to get Soapy out of the way, permanently. After a great deal of searching, narrow escapes, murderous mayhem and fortitous coincidences, Clem tracks down the gang and a terrific fight ensues. Amazingly, the film does not end with the expected resolution. That's Cavalcanti for you! A terrific British noir. It's not often you see characters of both sexes so bloodied and bruised in films of this era. Minor gripes are the casting of Griffith Jones and Sally Gray. Maxwell Reed would have been more convincing as Narcy, and Gray is too impossibly posh for her role.

They Made Me A Fugitive- Taut Film Noir ***

[edwagreen · 8/10 · 7 September 2009]

A year after his hit,"Brief Encounter," Trevor Howard turned to a British gangster film of the film noir genre.

Falling in with a band of crooks, Howard wants out when he sees what they're really up to. The leader of the gang, Griffith Jones, has him framed for running over a police officer and the Howard character is sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter.

The rest of the film deals with Howard breaking out of prison, after he is told that his girlfriend is now going with Griffith. Of course, Griffith's ex tells him all this.

Griffith Jones's death scene is quite similar to that of Stephen Boyd in "Ben-Hur." The only difference is that the ending is not exactly what you want.

Nevertheless, this is a taut thriller, one of the best of the film-noir genre.

Sally Gray is Griffith's ex who comes to love Howard.

Old film

[g-89622 · 7/10 · 2 November 2021]

Old film. The end of the anti-routine is a bit frustrating to watch, but it is very real. The final fight scene is wonderful.

Old film. The end of the anti-routine is a bit frustrating to watch, but it is very real. The final fight scene is wonderful.

Finale extraordinaire

[dbdumonteil · 3 November 2008]

An update of Mervyn Le Roy's "I'm a fugitive from a chain gang" ,it's the same old song of the soldier who has come home to find a country where he does not belong anymore.But the cast and the extraordinary final scenes -to rival the best of Howard Hawks ("Scarface shame of the nation" ) , Raoul Walsh ("white heat")or Jules Dassin ("Night and the city") - are worth the price of admission.

The tragedy ends in a funeral parlor,where "death is always around the corner" (it's written on the walls) or on a roof where men fight around giant R.I.P. letters.The very name of the undertaker's building ("Walhalla")already indicates it's a pagan movie;the conclusion bears it out: a Christian movie would have had Narcy clear Clem's name .His "May you rot in Hell" is very rare in films noirs and can find equivalents only in the movies I mention above or in Paul Muni's final line ("I steal" ) in Le Roy's tragedy.