"How about you just let us go?" Hostage Noir

One of the first films I watched when I got into "old movies" as a a newly-minted high school graduate in 1992 was KEY LARGO. Loved all the tension and byplay between the characters as played by a Warner Bros. all-star team. Not as big a fan of the rather pat action finale, but that's a story for another blog.

As good a KEY LARGO is, its Warner A picture pedigree leaves it scrubbed of the grime and grit associated with Noir City. So, tonight, we're going to look at two crimey hostage chamber pieces from RKO Radio Pictures that, while not truly noir, have some of the characteristics of the movement and are well worth your time.

He uses that long gun in an interesting way.

THE THREAT, from 1949, finds escaped killer Red Kluger (menacing Charles McGraw) rounding up the people responsible for sending him to the stir. The cop on the case (Michael O'Shea), the district attorney who prosecuted Red (Frank Conroy), and the showgirl who testified against him (Virginia Grey) are all rounded up and bundled into a suburban house. Red has plans for all of them. Well, basically the same plan for all three, but he's got wayward loot to find, and an ex-partner to meet, first.


Movies of this stripe take place on few sets, pretty much by definition. In the case of THE THREAT, that means few sets, and few camera set-ups as well. The suburban home set, in particular, is shot from the same couple of angles throughout the movie. Director Felix Feist makes better use of the ramshackle desert house Red drags his captives to later in the picture, and there's a sequence that takes place in a truck that I found interesting and suspenseful.

The best thing about THE THREAT is Charles McGraw's lean, mean, snarling, performance as Red Kluger. I totally bought that Red could both control his goons and menace his captives as easily as he does. Or, at least, for as long as he does. I also enjoyed Michael O'Shea as the dogged cop who never stops trying to figure a way out of this mess. He may not be an even match for Red physically, but it never stops him from looking for an angle.

THE THREAT is intense, economical fun with a noir hue around Viginia Grey's dance hall damsel in distress.

I can't say 1953's SPLIT SECOND is as good as THE THREAT, but we'll get back to it in a second.

Would you watch a crime picture made by this man?

Last year, when I started exploring this blog's genres beyond their most well-known examples, I fell in love with Dick Powell after watching MURDER, MY SWEET. We'll talk more about why somewhere down the line, but, suffice to say, I now want to see every noir Powell made.

Now back to tonight's post. Later in his career, Dick Powell moved behind the camera. SPLIT SECOND was his directorial debut.

Stephen McNally plays Sam Hurley, the country's most notorious killer, who is on the lam and looking to hide in a deserted little ghost town in the middle of a Nevada desert. Some well-executed plotting leads a newspaper reporter (Keith Andes), a ahem...showgirl (Jan Sterling) and an illicit couple (Alexis Smith and Robert Paige) into the Hurley gang's clutches. There's also a drifter type played by Arthur Hunicutt who turns up and joins the captivity, but I never really understood what he was doing there apart from providing a possible avenue of escape late in the picture. Anyway, he's there with the rest of them as Sam forces the group to wait out the night.

Oh, by the way, did I mention everyone is aware the abandoned town is abandoned because it's in the middle of an atomic testing site with a bomb scheduled to go off in the morning? No?

Take that, KEY LARGO. All you had was a hurricane.

The atomic deadline is an interesting, albeit odd, wrinkle, but my main problem with SPLIT SECOND is the characters. I never thought Sam Hurley was near the menace, or physical presence, that Red Kluger was in THE THREAT. I didn't find Sterling's floosie particularly attractive or sexy at all, and nothing much is done with Keith Andes' newspaper man after the first act. As a reporter myself, I was kind of let down because it seemed initially his job was going to be integral to the plot. Turns out he was just another hostage, basically.

You can see where she'd be the best part of anything.

The only cast member who excels is Alexis Smith as the desperate, conniving, lusty femme désespéré who will do absolutely anything to get out of this alive. Her character is the only one that provides the film with an atomic spark.

Despite the characters' shortcomings, I did like the way Powell used the camera, and his establishing exterior shots are particularly well done.

Though the former is a cut above the latter, THE THREAT and SPLIT SECOND are both worth a look and would make a nice double feature on a night you're in the mood for claustrophobic tension. You can pick them up from Warner Archive here and here.

I think Alexis Smith needs to go on the list I started with Eugenia Paul...

-J

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