They Made Me a Fugitive (1948)

Touches You

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Film-Noir, the Brits didn't do Many but in this Case They did it with All of the Grim Nastiness that the Genre would be Defined. The Cracking Sparring with Impolite Darkly Humored Dialog is so Non-British that it Sent Shivers Up and Down the Spines of the Critics and the Unsuspecting Public.Post-War Cynicism and the Criminal Class was Against the Grain of the Recent Allied Victory for the Stiff Upper Lips and this one was Surely a Surreal Entertainment with Creepy Violence and Creepier Characters.Trevor Howard is Uncanny in His Beaten Down Naturalness and this was a Distinct and Dismal Portrayal of the Ex-RAF Hero that Discovered that Returning Home was not much of a Glory. Falling in with some Low-Life Black Marketeers He Soon Finds Himself at Odds with Some of the Activities, Namely Drug Smuggling. "I am a criminal, but not that type of criminal.".There are Many an Unsettling Scenes of Woman Bashing and Unsavory Situations that take this One to an All New Level. An Odd and Eerie Scene of Howard Seeking Refuge in a Country Home Finding Himself in a House of Horrors, the Film not only Shows a Female Shooting Her Boozer Husband, but Unloads All Six Shots at Her Seemingly Innocent Spouse. Brutal Stuff.The Camera Angles are Extremely Expressionistic with Mirrors Reflecting a Distorted Reality and there is Hardly a Shot that is Done Straight or Typical. It is a Filmed Universe of a World Gone Nuts. The Final Confrontation Displays more Diabolical Set-Ups and the Ending Never Cops Out.

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!!

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.

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.