Watched: 04/10/2024
Format: TCM Noir Alley
Viewing: First
Director: Jack Bernhard
Selection: me
This was definitely a low-budget, poverty row B-movie, but:
- It felt weirdly timely in regards to the nonsense politics and politicians backed by big business, appealing to people's worst instincts to get them to work against themselves
- It has a full amnesia plot that involved getting bonked on the head to restore memories
- Star Nancy Coleman is cute as a button
- That Guy! actor Sheldon Leonard is pretty solid as the heavy behind the politician
- Perry White (John Hamilton) himself is in this for a minute as a doctor
- I think Michael O'Shea is a good actor who was terribly miscast here
- I confess to being disappointed no one texted or called to ask what I was doing while watching to the film so I could say "watching Violence".
Maybe the most interesting thing about the film is the conflict external to that of our leads, and that's the state of living soldiers were asked to return to after 4 years in the Pacific and Europe, and the expectation that they'd just slot back in like good boys (and girls). A movie doesn't need to be a message movie to convey the spirit of the moment, but movies can reflect what is going on at the time to illuminate what was taken for granted or being discussed in every day life. And certainly the desire of veterans to have a better life than what they left upon their return is something we can still understand.
I didn't hate it, but it's definitely not a slick 1940's or 50's big studio picture. But it's also not so far down in poverty row that you're worried the walls of the sets might fall over.
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