The Crooked Way (1949)

Powerful

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Lightweight musical comedy star, John Payne, re-invented himself for this gripping film noir, in which he delivers a solidly convincing performance as an amnesiac who is bent on discovering – or rather uncovering – his criminal past. He is aided by vicious criminal, Sonny Tufts (also brilliantly cast against type), and Ellen Drew. (Whatever happened to her? Her career was going strong until 1951 and then she suddenly disappeared. Maybe IMDb can solve this mystery? Ah! She sold herself to TV. We didn't have TV in my neck of the woods until 1955 and it was very slow to catch on. Instead, they were still building and opening new movie theaters until well into the nineteen eighties). Also soon switching to TV, but with an enormous amount of success, Percy Helton has one of his best roles here as Petey. Another actor I'd like to draw attention to is Welsh actor, Rhys Williams who plays the police lieutenant, Joe Williams, most successfully. One of my favorite directors, Robert Florey, who always had a penchant for atmosphere, is absolutely right on target with this venture, but was soon to accept numerous offers on TV. And also making one of his best and most moody movies with this entry, is acclaimed photographer, John Alton. All together, The Crooked Way is a superior noir in all departments – script, acting, direction and photography. (Available on an excellent Geneon DVD).

With all the past notoriety in the Los Angeles papers and the officials couldn't figure out who amnesiac John Payne (Eddie Rice- Riccardi) was? That I found to be somewhat hard to digest.Nonetheless, this is a nicely paced action thriller where an amnesiac returns to where he had originally enlisted only to find that he has some criminal past and that a guy who was guilty when he was freed is out to get him.Ellen Drew does a nice job as Eddie's wife, now working for the ruthless Sonny Tufts. To add more to this, the Tufts character frames Eddie for the murder of a police officer and therefore the majority of the film becomes centered around Eddie trying to prove his innocence while eluding the police.

....But the picture is 90 minutes long. "The Crooked Way" was cruising along with an unusually good storyline, some workmanlike acting performances and with the great John Alton's incomparable photography (Alton is a must for this genre and he never disappoints). John Payne reinvented himself in the late 40's, making the transition from musicals to noir just as Dick Powell did before him. Here he gives one of his best acting jobs as an amnesiac war vet who was a mob figure before enlisting. Sonny Tufts is cast against type as the mob boss and is remarkably good. They are ably supported by such stalwarts as Rhys Williams, John Doucette and weaselly Percy Helton. Ellen Drew is the love interest but is too refined in a part which called for someone like Claire Trevor, who could play trash in her sleep.Then about 10 minutes from the end the picture starts to unravel, with glaring illogic and several unanswered questions and non-sequiturs. For instance; why does Payne seek out Petey (whose part in the story is murky) to hide him out, why if he is the Boss does Tufts go in person to trap Payne - isn't that what his gunmen are for? and what was the point of trying to shoot it out alone with a squadron of heavily-armed police when he was cornered and without cover? Such questions would make you lower your rating on a first-rate picture. So I did.

In the series of tough crime melodramas he made during the late 1940's and early 1950's John Payne invariably seems to be looking for something. In Kansas City Confidential (1952) it was the stolen loot from a robbery. In 99 River Street (1953) it was the thug who framed him for murder. In The Crooked Way (1949) it was something much more basic -- his very identity.Payne plays Eddie Rice, a WW II veteran recovered from the physical effects of a head wound but suffering a complete and permanent amnesia. He has no memory of his life before regaining consciousness in a hospital. All he knows about himself is what the Army has told him, that he enlisted in Los Angeles. When discharged from the hospital, he takes a train to L. A. to try and find out who he is. What he finds is more than he really wanted to know! That he was a hoodlum named Eddie Riccardi. That he has a wife (Ellen Drew), but she now hates his guts. That his former gangster partner, played with evil oozing from every pore by Sonny Tufts, is bent on beating him up, framing him for murder, and even more nasty things.How Eddie muddles though this dark nightmare of a past coming back to haunt him and how it is presented by director Robery Florey and cinematographer John Alton adds up to a classic forgotten gem of a noir thriller. The Crooked Way exhibits the classic elements of film noir -- a morally ambiguous protagonist, a femme fa-tale, a grim, brutal story, and the most starkly shadowed and obliquely angled cinematography found in any movie. Most of the scenes are at night, and Alton's camera throws a tenebrist gloom over every shot with only the speaker's face lighted. Sometimes all figures are silhouettes, then the face gradually comes to light. A tall man looks down at a short man, and the view is as from a second story window. All this dark, oblique cinematography is not only arty and thrilling on its on to noir groupies, but it works perfectly to portray the dream-like state Eddie is experiencing. The story moves along briskly under Florey's direction and Frank Sullivan's editing. The action is explosively sharp and brutal.John Payne was perfectly cast in the part of Eddie, maintaining a blank, confused expression you would expect from an amnesiac, even when getting tough. Getting tough was an item that John Payne, an ex-boxer and a WWII veteran in real life, was good at in spite of his mild, laid back manner. He was at this point starting to mature as a tough guy actor after abandoning his original song and dance career at least in part because he got too weathered and muscled up. Payne seems to be an acquired taste amongst present day lovers of classic movies, but I've acquired it and am now looking for all of his pictures.The Crooked Way, while a cut below Kansas City Confidential and 99 River Street, is one of John Payne's best.