The Dark Corner (1946)
 
"There goes my last lead. I feel all dead inside. I'm backed up in a dark corner, and I don't know who's hitting me." Bradford Galt

This is a highly interesting crime drama starring Lucille Ball in her pre - I Love Lucy days.  Lucy was a fugitive from MGM which used her in the 1930s musicals as a dancer.  When she protested against the shallow roles she was getting, MGM lent her to Fox (as punishment) to make this crime thriller.  She reportedly hated this movie but you can't tell it from her performance.  She is really solid as a wisecracking classy dame that proves to be the redeeming factor for the protagonist, Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens).  

Like a lot of films noir recently released by Fox, it can be argued that The Dark Corner is not film noir because it has a happy ending but I think in this case it has enough film noir elements to skew it over onto the stack of films noir I keep in the top rack of my video cabinet. 

If you consider the term film noir did not exist when these movies were made in the 40s and 50s but rather was named on the genre when the French observed the common elements: dark cinematography; detective; crime; attempting to make crime pay; downbeat story; femme fatale; and unhappy ending; these are still the parameters I generally use to judge.  But the term film noir did not get into the American mainstream consciousness until the 1980s, so we are about 30 years behind the times but the name is still a useful classification covering the low dollar high bang for the buck crime films that were made during those two decades.

The Dark Corner has a good story that runs most of the way through and then begins to run out of gas as the ideas, which have all been laid on the table already, wait patiently while the remaining time runs out.  Mark Stevens is a hard boiled detective who we learn was recently released from prison.  He has a sharp looking secretary with a ready wit and nice gams, Lucy, of course.  Stevens is psychologically wounded and Lucy becomes the perfect medicine to carry him through the story.

This was directed by journeyman director Henry Hathaway (True Grit) from screenplay by a number of writers and I liked playing spot the parallel as I watched The Dark Corner. The film noir clichés flow thick and fast but are well done and somebody coming newly into the genre will probably think it excellent, but there are lots of derivative ideas and scenes.

I could seen the idea of the "super secretary" (Lucy) emotionally carrying the wounded dick might have come from Phantom Lady, a movie more should see;  The effete snob played by Clifton Webb came from Laura, also with Clifton Webb.  This was supposed to catch some of the lightning that had previously struck Laura earlier that year which also starred Clifton Webb playing a very similar character. The jazz club scene, incessant cigarette smoking, and heavy drinking by the protagonist are also staples of film noir.

We learn that Stevens was framed by his business partner Jardine (Kurt Krueger) who is now hooked up with Clifton Webb, a smarmy San Francisco art dealer, just like the character he specialized in playing after he created it in Laura.  Webb turns out to be at the bottom of a whole lot of bad stuff aimed at Stevens who just seems a convenient fall guy.  There are more frame-ups as the picture unwinds, all pointing to our hero. I'll let you see how the rest of it plays out for yourself. 

The Fox DVD is presented in full screen black and white with great B&W cinematography by experienced noir photographer Joe MacDonald (14 Hours, The Sand Pebbles).  The movie runs 99 minutes and looks as good as when it was released in 1946. There are several extras, including a full length commentary by Alain Silver and James Ursini.  These two film historians give a good grounding for the viewer's understanding of the era and the factors that were driving some of the decisions that made movies the way they were in those days. The film trailer and subtitles are also included as extras.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV