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The titular item links crime and politics, "be careful it doesn't break off in your hand." The Maltese Falcon is a fresh memory but Stuart Heisler prefers His Girl Friday for the opening scene, rapid inserts with a tracking camera on commenters as the shady big wheel (Brian Donlevy) strides across a crowded hall. He supports the gubernatorial candidate (Moroni Olsen) after falling for his daughter (Veronica Lake), which does not sit well with the mob. "But I can't make my boys vote the reform ticket!" "Why not? Most of them come from reform school." The capo (Joseph Calleia) controls the newspaper, he finds the scandal he needs when the politican's son (Richard Denning) turns up on the curb with a cracked skull, he was dating the boss' sister (Bonita Granville). The assistant (Alan Ladd) is on the case, all while trying to resist the slumming socialite. "Still leaves us on different sides of the tracks." "Let's dynamite those tracks." The Dashiell Hammett tangle of codes and corruption, its terse noir comedy a stone's throw away from Sturges' The Great McGinty. Election time, media rackets, the hand with the pistol reaching through slatted blinds. The centerpiece has Ladd at the mercy of the lasciviously sadistic henchman (William Bendix), the battered hero escapes by torching the innards of a slashed mattress and then plunging through a skylight. (The passage is derived from Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, with consequences for Kurosawa's Yojimbo.) When they next cross paths, the goon shades chumminess into savagery: "Hey, gang! Meet the swellest guy I ever skinned a knuckle on." The jilted boss blesses the union but retrieves his engagement ring, Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends is a virtual anagram. With Margaret Hayes, Donald MacBride, Frances Gifford, Eddie Marr, Arthur Loft, and George Meader. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |