Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

What makes this a great film is that you care about the leading characters and, although at the end, a murderer is revealed, you still care about those characters - even the murderer. If that's what you look for in a film, never mind plot details, or whether it is film noir or not, just get ready for what a good film should do - take you out of your world into its world.While watching it, I couldn't but be reminded of Powell and Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale". If you liked one, see the other. The settings could hardly be more different and yet the theme - redemption of good folk in uncertain circumstances - shines through both.

A sailor gets mixed up in a woman's murder and has only a few hours to clear himself with the help of a bar girl and a cabbie.In short, the movie's a mess. The narrative simply makes little sense, relying on gaps in logic and transitions, plus an assortment of characters drifting in and out without reason. And though the principal cast does their best with poor material, their characters are more like one-dimensional types than real people (June-- the cynical cookie; Alex— the all-American innocent; Gus— the European philosopher). Following the narrative, however, is like watching pieces move on a chessboard, but without the squares. The movie suggests that screenwriter Odets clearly has a greater talent for dialog rather than for structure, but that problem may originate with novelist Woolrich who specialized in surreal nightmares. Nonetheless, this is not even a compelling nightmare.The movie is almost redeemed, however, by RKO's great visual team of Silvera, D'Agostino, and photographer Musuraca. They at least lend the limp proceedings a noirish sheen that keeps the eye interested even when the narrative falters. All in all, the 80-minutes amounts to a waste of talent, especially Hayward who fortunately went on to many bigger and better things.

The police have no qualms about knocking on someone's door just before dawn cracks in this post-war film noir which uses temporary amnesia to make a sailor (Bill Williams) wonder if he killed a nasty blackmailer (Lola Lane, far from the nice swinging on gates gal of "Four Daughters"). An exhausted taxi dancer (Susan Hayward) is perky enough after fighting off a masher to invite Williams over for corned beef, and gets more than he bargained for.It turns out that the victim was nastier than Williams thought, and with the help of a cab driver (Paul Lukas), the trio begins their own investigation, which must turn up a killer by 6 AM when Williams is scheduled to catch a bus back to his base. This fast-moving entry in the new genre of darkly lit crime dramas popular after 1944 features interesting characters, a gritty use of New York City nightlife and sleaze, but some of the details just don't seem right. Yet, there are various comments about late life in New York that seem to ring true today. All of the actors are fine, both sleazy and decent, and the film is overall a lot of fun to watch. Certain aspects of the screenplay seem far-fetched, and the conclusion also seems a bit forced, as well as predictable.

I have watched this movie recently. The movie has interesting assets: good performance by the whole cast, specially Susan Hayward and Paul Lukas; some brilliant dialogue moments (the rhyming of June and moon, the descriptions of New Yorkers and their life style or "somebody's father has to be a mortician"); surprising characters like the cabby who takes Hayward on the first ride to lamed blonde's house. Photography is excellent, really good. A special moment is the start of the movie (a fly annoying the sleepy drunk woman or the walk of Hayward and Williams in front of the police station when approaching to the murdered woman's apartment and many more)Naiveness of the characters is purposely planned, of course. However, one thing is to use it as a resource to show other concepts (honesty, frustrations, wickedness and so on) and another matter is the overuse of naiveness. Whoever appears in the film, introduces him/herself with first and second name and even profession in some cases, being a corpse in the middle. They rely all on all with not much sense.The end of the question "who killed the woman?" is unraveled in a really forced way. It's a surprise, but after putting on stage "artificially" the married couple that, intuitively was chased by Hayward. Some more effort to make a more solid plot would have been appreciated. Too much intuition for everything.The film is too naive so as to be considered an unrated film-noir. It is even too naive so as to consider it a film-noir.I insist, anyway, that it is not a bad movie at all. It's enjoyable to watch the performance and all the things I told at the start, but the script, although it has remarkable moments, makes the result unbalanced due to a lack plot consistency and too many coincidences.