mark.waltz Allegedly involved in a payroll heist, hard-boiled Dick Powell has just gotten out of prison early on a life sentence after his alibi checked out. His return to society strikes fear in the minds of people involved, and suspicion in the minds of the detectives who have been trying to figure out this case ever since Powell went up the river. This is a quintessential film noir, brilliantly written and filled with surprises. All sorts of shady characters pop in and out of the action, including the apparent mastermind behind the heist William Conrad, who continues to set Powell up to take the fall. Richard Eardman is excellent as Powell's sardonic pal who also got an early release, and becomes the scapegoat in the efforts to pin the crime on someone other than the perpetrators. Eardman tosses off acidic remarks as if he was flipping pancakes as a chef in a greasy spoon. Even though his character has a female love interest, the way he says his lines indicates that his character is more a Clifton Webb type then the straight tough guy he claims to be. mixing alcohol with his snarky comments, he notes "The way I drink, you have to start early."The gorgeous Rhonda Fleming has the leading female role of the girlfriend of someone still in prison for being involved in the heist, making a play for Powell even though she is supposedly still in love with this man. Fleming has a beauty that cries for color in movies, and since this is in black and white, that aspect of her stunning appearance is unfortunately missing. Regis Toomey, a veteran character actor from the silent days, is excellently cast as the detective who has his own motivations for continuously going after Powell. Every move in this film noir is nicely set up, so with each little plot twist, more surprises are revealed and the result is a sleeper of film noir in an era where the abundance of the darkness at dawn films made many of them indistinguishable. Having seen this years ago, and giving it a good, if not excellent rating, made me thrilled to find out that it was much better than I remembered. As for Powell, he took advantage of his aging and moved gracefully from musicals and frivolous comedies into westerns and chilling crime dramas. You won't be thinking of him breaking into song when you see how he acts here, and that makes his performance all the more remarkable. Conrad, later a hero as a character actor on prime-time TV, would be alternately cast in film noir if Raymond Burr was not available.he makes it wonderful smarmy villain, and it is fun to watch Powell play cat and mouse with him, making his potential take-down all the more delightful.

zardoz-13 Former Academy Award winning editor Robert Parrish cut his teeth as a director on this gritty, hard-broiled, black & white, Dick Powell urban thriller. Powell plays a hard-luck guy fresh out of prison after serving five years of a life term for a $100-thousand dollar robbery. No sooner has Rocky (Dick Powell of "Murder, My Sweet") gotten out of stir courtesy of a lame Marine, Delong (Richard Erdman of "Objective: Burma"), who has provided an alibi about clearing Rocky of a crime that our hero didn't commit. Meantime, a Los Angeles Police Lieutenant, Gus Cobb (Regis Toomey of "The Big Sleep"), tells Rocky that he plans to maintain tabs on him twenty-four/seven until he recovers the stolen loot. Rocky checks in with a shady bookie, Louie Castro (William Conrad of "The Killers"), who gives him $500 to place a bet on a horse that he claims will pay off 18-to-1. Naturally, Rocky demands more money to make up for the $100-thousand that he lost because he went to jail and couldn't hold down his $20-thousand dollar a year job. Everything goes smoothly for Rocky and Castro's long-shot horse pays off. Rocky picks up five grand from another bookie (Hy Averback), but he learns to his chagrin that he was paid off with dough from the robbery. Cobb pulls Rocky in, and Rocky cannot prove where he got the race horse money. As it turns out, Cobb has been following Rocky so he knows that Castro is lying when Castro tells him that he hasn't seen Rocky. Rocky hooks up with a friend's wife, Mrs. Nancy Morgan (Rhonda Fleming of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral"), whose husband Danny is up for parole. The villains shoot up a car that they believe is being driven by Rocky, but he isn't behind the wheel when the bullets blast holes in an innocent bystander, Delong's part-time model girlfriend Darlene (Jean Porter of "Bathing Beauty"). Delong winds up in the hospital, and Rocky packs a pistol and goes after Castro. He plays an interesting game of Russian roulette with Castro and convinces him to spill his guts to Cobb. When Castro calls the police, he is actually calling his own henchmen. Rocky calls Castro's bluff and forces him to ring up the police. The cops show up just as Castro's gunsels are coming to his rescue."Cry Danger" isn't the best movie that Powell ever made, but this atmospheric RKO release holds its own until the final revelations. Conrad makes a sturdy villain. This complicated movie qualifies as a film noir because the heroine isn't on the level and the heroine is treacherous. She has been lying all-along to our soft-touch protagonist. Of course, Rocky gets away without having to go back to jail, and Cobb collects the loot. Powell and Fleming never generate sparks. Nevertheless, "Cry Danger" has some strong moments, and the Los Angeles setting is terrific. Interestingly enough, future James Bond credits creator Maurice Binder served as an assistant to the producer.

dougdoepke Second-rate noir, made curiously memorable by atmospheric LA locations, a sardonic Richard Erdman, and a good look at history's ugliest car--the 1950 Nash 4-door sedan, an inverted bathtub cleverly disguised as a passenger vehicle.At the top of the list are the principal players, led by a usually capable Dick Powell who's supposed to be a hardened ex-con, but whose clean-cut looks and Brooks Brothers suit instead suggest nothing more menacing than an insurance company executive. He's got the tough guy patter down, but somebody should have spoken to wardrobe and make-up. Then there's the well-scrubbed Rhonda Fleming, the femme fatale, who nevertheless dresses and simpers with all the girlish flair and sensuality of Andy Hardy's highschool prom date. Even criminal mastermind William Conrad, with a voice resonant enough to intimidate God, spends his main screen time pancaked on the floor, looking sweatily up at Powell. Together, the three are about as convincing as a politician at election time, leaving a hole in the picture where a heartbeat ought to be.The main reason to catch this otherwise tepid concoction is Richard Erdman. Hollywood has always had its share of raw talents who, because of obvious physical limitations, are left to work the fringes. The diminutive, dough-faced Erdman is one. Here, he not only steals the show with sly expressions and cleverly delivered lines, but wraps it up and takes it home. His well-scripted byplay with chippie girlfriend Jean Porter even manages to breathe some life into the otherwise listless pairing of Powell and Fleming. Here's hoping there is that proverbial place in Hollywood heaven for unsung talents like Erdman and the other anonymous credit crawl names who boost many a film beyond the merely forgettable.Fortunately there are some nice minor touches. A seedy downtown trailer-park atop Bunker Hill furnishes an unusual backdrop and a good view of LA at mid-century. There's also Hy Averback's energized bookie, Joan Banks' mature vamping, Jay Adler's bad ukele playing, and that quietly inspired moment when alcoholic Erdman casts aside nourishing food and milk for yet one more drink and the dipso ward.Nonetheless, the loosening of classic noir standards is evidenced here by an absence of conflict between light and shadow and by a moral universe beginning to harden and stabilize, especially around Powell's unconflicted personality. Stylistically, this is a film about transitions-- the darkly volatile 1940's are giving way to the sunnier, more assured Eisenhower era. So, if you're not expecting much in the way of noir, you might take a chance on this one, despite the key drawbacks.

jimddddd Thanks to lighter, smaller film cameras developed during World War II, B-movie directors on a low budget often took their productions into the streets of Los Angeles (and elsewhere), adding a kinetic and exhilarating realism unavailable on the back lot. So-called films noir, particularly the documentary-style police procedurals, were especially enhanced by location shooting. I can name several films--"Crime Wave," "Kiss Me Deadly," "Angel's Flight" and this one, "Cry Danger," among others--that would have been far less interesting if the producers had kept them studio-bound. "Cry Danger" was shot at two locations on Bunker Hill, one at the corner of Third and Olive (the Amigos Club, where William Conrad had an upstairs office) and the other at the New Grand Hotel complex on the northwest corner of Third and Grand (where Conrad tricked Dick Powell into winning a bet with hot money from the robbery that had sent him to prison). But the most atmospheric scenes were shot several blocks away, at the top of Hill Place north of Sunset Boulevard in what is now a Chinatown neighborhood, where Powell moved into the Clover Trailer Park. (To see film stills matched with 2010 photos, check out www.electricearl.com/bh.) I recently (April 2010) saw the restored film version of "Cry Danger" at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood (where, incidentally, Rhonda Fleming and Richard Erdman were on hand to talk about the movie), and I can attest that the location scenes drew audible breaths and exclamations from the audience. Don't get me wrong; "Cry Danger" has great dialog and interesting characters, but without that wonderful personality called postwar Los Angeles it would have been much less of a movie.