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Raw Deal (1948)
Topic Started: Apr 21 2011, 08:49 AM (542 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Dennis O'Keefe busts out of prison with the help of his girlfriend, Claire Trevor, and heads for San Francisco, where he aims to meet up with old buddy Raymond Burr, who's holding the $50,000 from a robbery that O'Keefe took the rap for, and from there he 'n' Claire are going overseas. Along for the ride is hostage Marsha Hunt, a goody-goody legal assistant who'd been helping O'Keefe with his appeal. Claire wants what Denny wants, regardless of whether it's good for him; Marsha genuinely likes O'Keefe and mistakenly thinks he can be rehabilited. I don't know what Burr thinks of O'Keefe personally, but he sure the hell wants him dead before he can ask for that 50 grand. John Ireland is just the torpedo that can fulfill that request of Burr's, too, ya git me?

It's rather difficult to describe what a film noir is, but if anyone asks, just show 'em this picture, directed by Anthony Mann and shot by John Alton. You could turn the sound off and just watch and enjoy every second of its 79 minutes. I always thought that "Detour" was the best B-noir, but I now think maybe it's in second place ("Raw Deal" is a Reliance Picture released by Eagle-Lion). Darkness, fog, rain-washed streets, bitter voice-over narration, stark closeups of people in turmoil, and - if you like this sort of stuff - perhaps the most brutal fight sequences of any 1940s film I've ever seen.

I found this in a cheap bin at Dimple Records, on the Sony label, copyright 2005. The print is great, the transfer is not, not nearly crisp enough to do justice to the cinematography. And the box not only refers to Raymond Burr as a "gag boss" (either they misspelled "gang" or they thought he played Rob Petrie) but gives away the entire film - and I don't mean it gives away too much or is a spoiler, I mean it describes in detail the beginning, middle, and ending of the picture. Dumb asses.

"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Agree about Raw Deal. IMO Mann was the best noir director, period, and Burr the best villain of his day. The two together knock it right out of the park.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Laughing Gravy
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Loved the eerie use of the theremin on the soundtrack... but made me expect an alien from outer space to show up.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Inspector Carr
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Dennis O'Keefe also put in a stellar hard boiled performance as well......one of the best.....in addition the original 1 sheet is a classic pulp design
"Life is a Crapshoot however you need a pair of dice to participate"
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panzer the great & terrible
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Yeah -- some enterprising company oughta put out a Mann noir set. They're all exceptionally good, and if you included the noir westerns and the one noir historical pic, you'd have a nice collection of the best of the late 40s and early 50s. This is one hugely underrated director. He had a historical perspective that added a dimension to his movies that no other director came close to, and yes, I have heard of John Ford. The difference was, Mann printed the truth and Ford printed the legend.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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riddlerider
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RAW DEAL is a great movie, as is its predecessor (with the same director-cinematographer combo), T-MEN.

Have any youse guys seen Mann's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT, a 1944 Republic "B"? It's not exactly noir, but it's a neat little melodrama (from an original story by Philip MacDonald) that has what you might call a nouveau-Gothic flavor: a perfectly normal setting is gradually revealed to have a terrifying aspect. It's shot by serial and Western specialist Reggie Lanning, and while he does a better-than-passable job of atmospheric lighting, I can't help but wonder how this film might have looked -- and how much more effective it might have been -- had Mann been given access to Alton, who was shooting films for Republic in this period.

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