The Fallen Sparrow

Lushly mounted espionage thriller that rivets the eye even when the narrative meanders. It's the great RKO artistic team of Musuraca, Silvera, and D'Agostino setting the stage for noir's post-war golden period, foreshadowed here by the rich b&w landscape. Garfield's a shattered veteran of the Spanish Civil War, tortured by the fascists and a mysterious limping man. Now he's back in New York trying to regain stability and find out who killed his best friend. Along the way, he meets up with sinister European types and the beauteous O'Hara looking like she stepped off a 1942 Vogue cover. Turns out everybody, including the limping man, is trying to get possession of a regimental battle standard whose whereabouts only Garfield knows. Needless to say, at times the storyline could use a road map to follow. But that's okay because the appeal lies elsewhere, as in the shadowy characters and photography.

Note how effectively Garfield's moments of derangement are highlighted by the musical score and the astute close-ups. Those penetrating few moments are hauntingly expressed as they reach into Kit's (Garfield) tortured "subjective" reality. The actor delivers in spades in a difficult role requiring that he be in about every scene. The movie's also an eye-full for the guys with three knockout leading ladies. However, despite her looks, I think the normally vivacious O'Hara is miscast, a little too stiff and impassive for the subtleties required by her character. On a different note, the limping man's dragging foot adds a creepy sound to the sinister atmosphere and is what I remember most from seeing the film as a kid. Anyway, the movie's an unusual thriller with a really great "look" that stands up well over the decades.

I was totally surprised by the quality of this one. The pacing of the film was perfect. I can't say enough how good John Garfield was. I recently watched and reviewed "Out of the Fog" in which he was in and was really disappointed in that one. Far and away my least favorite of his but with this one, just an excellent film.

They don't give anything up until the end of this one. You really have to pay attention to every cast member. Even half way through you'll be wondering what the heck is going on, but don't worry, wait til' the end. It's so worth it.

I can't recommend this film any higher. This is really good stuff here.

"The Fallen Sparrow" is a 1943 film starring John Garfield, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, and Patricia Morison. Directed by Richard Wallace, from the novel by Dorothy Hughes, the story concerns John McKitrick, a Spanish Civil War vet who escaped from a prison camp, where he was tortured. He's suffering from severe post-traumatic stress, but he has returned to New York to find out who killed his best friend. He has something he brought back with him from Spain, and Nazi agents are on his trail for it. McKittrick doesn't know whom he can trust, and that includes the beautiful Toni Donne (O'Hara), the mysterious wheelchair-bound refugee doctor (Walter Slezak), or even an old friend (Martha Driscoll).

Though Garfield is excellent as a former prisoner of war, and his performance is well worth seeing, the plot of "The Fallen Sparrow" is confusing; the film moves slowly and has very little action. The best thing about it is the cast - the stunning O'Hara, the glamorous Patricia Morison, and the sinister Slezak rounding it out.

Reminiscent of "The Maltese Falcon," but Warners didn't score big with this one. Nevertheless, anything John Garfield did during his short career is worth seeing.

This is an extremely powerful film noir in the guise of an espionage mystery. It contains what may well have been the finest performance by John Garfield in his brief career (he died aged only 39 of congenital heart disease in 1952, though he had by then appeared in 32 films). Garfield plays a man who had fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War but had been captured, imprisoned, and sadistically tortured by Nazis involved in supporting the Franco side. He was held for two more years in prison after that war ended because they were trying to find out from him where he had concealed something. After escaping, he made his way back to America, where he was followed, and Nazi spies continually monitor him and kill his best friend. An ambiguous femme fatale provides the love interest, played with menace and studied elegance by Maureen O'Hara. Is she a Nazi spy or is she not? She tells Garfield she loves him. It is amazing how rapidly film stars fall in love on the screen, in a matter of sentences. Very effective use of sound occurs in this film, the sound of a crippled man dragging his bad foot is continually heard at moments of Garfield's greatest stress, as it was the same sound made by the Nazi official who came once a month to Spain from Berlin to supervise Garfield's torture. Is this man now in New York? Has Garfield met him? Can he survive such a confrontation? The suspense is thick, and Garfield's portrayal of a tough idealist who is on the verge of cracking up under the strain is horrifyingly real. What actor ever twisted his face up as well as that before or since, without looking silly? But we believe Garfield, because he is so convincing and genuine about it. The film is expertly directed by Richard Wallace, a highly talented though uneven director who is insufficiently recognised today. He directed the pathos-ridden SEVEN DAYS' LEAVE (1931, see my review), the impressive THUNDER BELOW (1932) with Talullah Bankhead, Katherine Hepburn in J. M. Barrie's THE LITTLE MINISTER (1934), and the forgotten film noir PAULA (1947) with Glenn Ford and Janis Carter, which has never had a modern release, but should. (He also directed a Shirley Temple film and numerous other light-weight comedies and adventure films.) This film is particularly noted for the sinister and powerful performance by Walter Slezak as 'Dr. Christian Skaas', ostensibly a Norwegian, but as we discover, really someone and something else. He has 'a hold over' O'Hara. Is he really holding her daughter captive somewhere, or is that just a story? As Garfield sweats it out, gun in pocket, sweat on brow, he tries to find the answers, and that ain't easy.

Long before the "method" style "invaded" the acting profession, there were many equally fine performers which came before the mid-'50s "movement."

These "predecessors" didn't wear their craft-on-their-sleeve as much; in fact, many (like Tracy, Ryan, and Cagney) behaved so naturally, it was as though they were speaking their own lines. One such earlier talent was John Garfield.

A consummate performer, Garfield could seemingly do no wrong--not make one false move. In film after film, he didn't appear to be acting; rather he was just "being" the character.

Although "The Fallen Sparrow" isn't one of Garfield's greatest parts or films, he's on target in every scene. Yes, it's called "talent, star quality," and Garfield's got "it."

With a respectable "noir" script, and peopled with a solid cast of leads and supporters, "Sparrow" manages to engage the attention and create genuine interest throughout. A good looking, sharp and crisp, black-and-white production design enhances this presentation, which also features the always dependable Maureen O'Hara and Walter Slezak.