Strong and Moving!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Considering what was happening on the world stage at the time this movie was made (i.e., The Berlin Airlift), it was becoming unfortunately clear that the Soviet Union was not an ally anymore and RKO probably thought this a timely subject. The cast is first rate and I found the narrative interesting. A couple of corrections from other postings: Lorraine Day was not lent out by MGM. Her contract ended in 1945 and she signed with RKO (on a non-exclusive basis)which was fortunate as it allowed her to illustrate her abilities as an actress in a much wider range of movie: "The Locket," "Tycoon," "My Dear Secretary," and this movie. The second correction is that this was not a "B" movie. It seems that a few reviewers confuse what they consider "B" content with how a movie is advertised/presented in its theater engagements; this was not a second feature. I also believe that RKO was every bit as proficient, stylish and accomplished in the movies they chose to make as was MGM. As for Robert Ryan, what can one say about this great actor that has not been said before.

Just when we thought such nonsense was all over, no less than ten Russian 'sleeper' spies in America have been exposed and exchanged in a spy swap with the Ruskies. One of them was even a glamour gal, just to keep the Hollywood touch to the story. So dusty old films like this one are now surprisingly and perhaps acutely relevant again. This is a powerful and highly tense drama with the towering Robert Ryan playing a man who was, and still is (because you can never quit) a card-carrying Communist Party member in the USA who has tried to go straight. But Thomas Gomez, the ruthless and terrifying leader of the Russian spy ring in San Francisco isn't having it. He is going to make Ryan follow orders or else. Into this mix comes one of Hollywood's most sizzling femme fatale actresses of the 1940s, Janis Carter. She was truly something-plus. And in this film she brings all the temptation and the allure, as Ryan's wife played by Laraine Day is rather a tepid good gal who does not raise anybody's temperature or heart rate. Janis and Ryan has been an item earlier on in the good old days when they were both Commies together, but while Ryan has lost his interest in spying for the Party, she remains a dedicated Party agent. It all gets very very intense. The film has some superb snappy dialogue and is extremely well directed by the highly talented Robert Stevenson (1905-1986, of English birth), famous for TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS (1940), JANE EYRE (1943) with Orson Welles, DISHONORED LADY (1947, see my review) and MY FORBIDDEN PAST (1951, also featuring Janis Carter), not to mention one of my favourite films, OWD BOB (1938, see my rave review) the fascinating early aviation epic NON-STOP NEW YORK (1937, see my review), and KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1937). Willian Talman does a scary job of playing a smoothie amoral hit-man who will bump anybody off for the spy ring for a thousand bucks and dresses nattily on the proceeds. The film is full of intrigue, blackmail, double-cross, threats, murder, and the relentless pressure of the Party which will not allow anyone out of its clutches and will do anything to get what it wants. Can Ryan escape the trap in which he is caught? Will his respectable and rich wife find out? Will his old chums in the trade unions realize that he made the dock strike go ahead because he was blackmailed into it? Can anyone escape unscathed from this web of conspiracy and betrayal? This film fit right into the McCarthy Era and, alas, it seems that it is not as dead an issue as we had all assumed.

I Married a Communist Oooohhh, Hollywood movies from the 50s (well, late 40s)... This was produced by Howard Hughes to test filmmaker loyalty to capitalism, and several famous directors refused to do it. The interesting thing about it is that it's really a great movie, especially from the time. It's a story about a man who has moved on from his sordid, gang-related past to move up in the world and become a vice president of wide respect and admiration to a major shipping corporation, marry a woman he loves (though suddenly), and generally be considered an all-around good guy until the gang reenters his life and with blackmail, threats, and distortion, force him into subverting everything that he has done and made well by. Except that "the gang" is communists talking eternally about the vastly all-powerful seeing eye of Saur--I mean, The Party. Honestly, except for the fact that the image of communists as murderous industrial saboteurs operating out of factories and refusing to show emotion while killing anyone who does is completely ridiculous, if you imagine them as any other boogeyman secret society like the all-popular conspiracy theorist target The Skulls or anything else you can come up with, this is still a very gripping and thrilling movie. Specific the the free market and the American way! theme, though, is some wonderful lines such as, "You capitalists, always trying to be martyrs!" (and succeeding!) and the constant statement that this is what politics is all about--because, you know, it's that important, if you get led astray by those commies they'll beat the life out of you and make you pay for it.It's somehow an incredibly campy and ridiculous concept that doesn't survive past the Cold War and an engaging industrial thriller of immaculate structure and suspense building at the same time. The characters especially are great, all of them are believable as long as you stretch your imagination to accommodate the head honcho of the dirty commie underworld, who is every image of villainy condensed into one. The wife also is a surprisingly intelligent and capable character herself, rare in movies of the genre, especially in that era, where smart and self-accomplished women were basically the femme fatales.Honestly, despite the fact that this movie is very well made noir through and through, I can see why it's never been released on DVD, or why it eventually gained the alternate title "The Woman on Pier 13." The movie is good, but the concept is somewhat embarrassing, made all the more so by how seriously it is presented.--PolarisDiB

I MARRIED A COMMUNIST (aka THE WOMAN ON PIER 13) is a thoroughly reprehensible noir, wherein the "Communist menace" is depicted as a well-organized cabal of murderous agitators on the San Francisco waterfront, headed up by Thomas Gomez. The always-solid Robert Ryan stoops just as low as Gomez does by playing a "reformed" Commie who gets sucked back into the Party in order to do dirty deeds at the docks.One has to wonder just how much power Howard Hughes, who reputedly would "test" RKO contract players' loyalty by trying to get them to make this film, really held over his charges. After all, Ryan surely cringed his way through the production considering he was running roughshod over his own strong political views, and Gomez had only a year earlier brilliantly portrayed a small-time mobster with a conscience in Polonsky's FORCE OF EVIL.But the film holds sway over the viewer in large part due to the brilliant Nicholas Musaraca cinematography, filled with inky black shadows and harsh angles, and a crackling pace which almost makes you forget what tripe you are listening to. And as noted above, at least the Commies are depicted as intellectuals who throw interesting parties (and have Cubist art on the walls), even while they're faking suicides and throwing tied up people into the San Francisco Bay.