Director Robert Siodmak adapts an Ernest Hemingway short story into a film that is as noir as noir can get, with dark shadows and pools of light in an atmosphere of foretold doom. There is much of interest here, including Burt Lancaster’s film debut as the ruined-boxer kill-ee; a very young and thin Ava Gardner as femme fatale, fresh from North Carolina and far from the voluptuous, exotic screen vixen of my earliest moviegoing memories; and Edmund O’Brien as the insurance investigator who pieces the tale together. The story is appropriately convoluted, but impossible to care about, as are the characters. But as an exercise in style and mood, this film sets the mold. (Criterion packages in a 2-disk set with Don Siegel’s 1964 remake -- which might be worth watching to see Ronald Reagan close out his career playing a mob boss -- and a host of supplemental materials.) (1946, dvd, n.) *6+*
No comments:
Post a Comment