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If Humphrey Bogart had ever decided to film one of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer thrillers, it would have turned out something like 1947's DEAD RECKONING. Although it's not actually based on a book, John Cromwell's tautly-directed film noir owes more than a little of its plotting and characterization to earlier classic crime novels-turned-classic Bogart movies. Indeed, when my husband Vin entered the room while the film was on, he began watching it with me and soon asked, "Is this THE BIG SLEEP, or THE MALTESE FALCON?" However, DEAD RECKONING is steeped in the kind of bitter post-war viciousness that distinguished Mickey Spillane's writing -- not that there's anything wrong with that! :-) Bogart commands the screen as Rip Murdock, a former Army paratrooper (lots of colorful references to parachutes and jumping here) and one of the most misogynistic good guys he ever played (not that you can blame Rip, after the wringer he's put through in this film). Captain Rip starts out trying to find out why his Sergeant and pal Johnny Drake (William Prince) has a Yale pin with the name "John Joseph Preston" on it, and more importantly, why Johnny bolts rather than accept the Congressional Medal of Honor for his wartime heroism. Rip's investigation leads him to Gulf City, Tropical Paradise of the South (don't take my word for it, check out the neon sign in the upper right-hand corner of the screen in the opening establishing shot :-), where he's quickly sucked into a whirlpool of secrets, double-crossing, murder, and such inventive mayhem as tossing napalm-powered Molotov cocktails at sinister smoothie Morris Carnovsky and his psycho henchman Marvin (THE MILLIONAIRE) Miller to make them talk. Standing in for quintessential Bogart leading lady Lauren Bacall (and original leading lady Rita Hayworth, who was hung up making THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI) is Lizabeth Scott as mysterious chanteuse Coral Chandler, the kind of dame guys go gaga for against their better judgment (she's got so many pet names from her various beaus that the first time I saw the film, I wasn't quite sure if her name was "Coral," "Dusty," or, of all things, "Mike"!). While Scott's no Bacall (don't get me wrong, Scott fans, I like her, but to my ears, her husky voice always sounds more phlegmy than sultry. Every time Scott speaks, I half-expect someone to offer her a cough drop!), she's certainly chock full of luminous blonde beauty, plus Scott has an air of wounded vulnerability that makes me empathize with her in spite of myself. Sometimes the film is gloriously, deliriously nutzoid. For instance, Bogart's speech to Scott early on about how men should be able to reduce women to pocket-size when necessary, and Scott's interpretation of this theory, must be heard to be believed. But when DEAD RECKONING works, it's dynamite (literally, when Bogart and Scott join forces with safecracker/explosives expert Wallace Ford)! Even when things get ugly, this movie is always gorgeous to look at, thanks to the stunning use of shadows and light in Leo Tover's black-and-white photography. If you love Bogart and you like your film noir grim yet glamorous and over-the-top at times, DEAD RECKONING is well worth a look.

So, why does war hero Johnny Drake (William Prince) take a fast train away from the nation's highest military honor. It's an intriguing premise and the next 90 minutes tells us why. The movie's got noir icons like Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, and Morris Carnovski, plus a mysterious past, a smoky night club, and a barbecued corpse. In short, this ought to be classic noir, but in my little book it's not.

I've got two basic gripes. First, Scott may look the part, but she's no Jane Greer (Out of the Past. 1947). Above all, noir's spider women have to be good actresses so that we never know their true feelings. That trickiness means we can get suckered along with the hero. But it also means we get suckered against our better judgement because we and the hero suspect their sincerity all along. Scott's performance lacks that crucial element of trickiness-- hers is essentially a one note performance with no hint of a gap between how she feels and how she behaves. Thus, there's no real revelation at the end because she looks and acts the same as before. As a result, the betrayal is all in the script and crucially not where it belongs-- in the performance.

Speaking of the script-- the banter is too cute by-half. Practically every line out of Bogart's mouth shouts clever writer's device, whether it's baseball metaphors (strike one, strike two, etc), car metaphors, or the various other false rhetorical notes. For me, it gets tiresome, Bogart or no Bogart. Then too, Carnovski's queasy racketeer is made to enunciate his lines with perfectly parsed diction. Of course, that makes him a more interesting character and criminal mastermind. But, this again amounts to a device that calls attention to the words being said instead of to who is saying them or how the plot is helped along. It seems to me that a good script carries a story without competing with it.

These are my two main gripes. There are other reasons I think the movie doesn't get beyond second-rate noir, such as uninspired direction (whether Cromwell's name is elevated above the title or not), overly long love scenes (after the point has been made), and menacing figures who don't really menace (Carnovski & Miller). Together these undercut the strong points, such as the train scenes (how Prince & Bogart have bonded) or certain good story points (the unidentifiable corpse, the poignant last scene).

In passing-- this is not a gripe, but I suspect Columbia was using Bogart to build Scott into another Lauren Bacall. The two look somewhat alike, sound somewhat alike, and both built careers on appearance and attitude rather than ability. Here Bogart ends up calling Scott's character "Mike", just the sort of sidekick affection he shows for real life wife Bacall in their several movies together. Nothing obvious hangs on this, just a surmise that the movie may have been shaped for more than one purpose. However that may be, the movie amounts to okay but unmemorable noir entertainment.

"Dead Reckoning" is a good, if not very original, film noir starring Humphrey Bogart as a paratrooper investigating his buddy's death.

William Prince, who later was a more visible actor as a white-haired older man, has a small role as the buddy, who runs away when he learns he's about to receive the Medal of Honor. Later, he's found dead in his home town.

There are the usual ethnic stereotypes - the de riguer black maid, the thug of Italian descent, and the torturing thug of German descent.

The thug in this case is Marvin Miller, who later became the assistant of John Beresford Tipton on the TV show, "The Millionaire." He got to give people $1 million tax free. With prices today, they'd probably all laugh in his face.

Lizabeth Scott is the woman "Johnny" (Prince) was in love with. She's an actress I always found heavy on style and slight on substance.

Beautiful, with a warm smile, and one of the best voices in films, she never exhibited the acting range of, say, Bacall, whom she seemed groomed to follow. In this role, she's not very believable, which is great for the noir films, in which she excelled. You really didn't know how involved she was or wasn't in the crime at hand.

All in all, a very entertaining film with a solid performance by Bogart.

Regarding the film's reference to the "Geronimo" cry that paratroopers made as they jumped, I asked an actual war paratrooper about this, and he said, "We were usually so scared we couldn't make a sound."

Dead Reckoning appeared too early to have worn out and begun to recycle film noir's conceits and conventions, but already it has a tired, seen-it-all feel to it. Its director, the generally reliable John Cromwell (who three years later was to helm the great-grandmaw of women-behind-bars pix, Caged) works here with a by-the-numbers detachment that keeps the movie as limp and soggy as its "Gulf City" locale.

Returning vet Humphey Bogart, en route to Washington with a war buddy who's about to be awarded some Big Medal, is baffled when said buddy suddenly takes it on the lam. His investigation into what happened and why takes him to a seamy town on America's south coast where, in a morgue, he finds his friend's body, charred beyond recognition. He also meets up with Lizabeth Scott (as Coral Chandler, or "Dusty," or, even, "Mike"), a canary in a local nitery run by heavy Morris Carnovsky. It seems she and the late pal were something of an item, and she teams up with Bogart to get to the truth.

Or does she? The most problematic aspect of the film is that dealing with Scott -- game blonde or femme fatale? It's as if the scriptwriters or studio heads couldn't make up their mind about her, or as if alternative endings were contemplated, or even filmed. This doesn't help the viewer, whose empathy seems always to be out of kilter with what's happening in the plot. And this can't be written off as a teasing ambiguity -- it's a gross failure of filmmaking. So the sentimental, "redemptive" ending in the hospital ward, with high-flown talk of parachute jumps, tries to have it both ways. Well, it can't.

This movie, while certainly not the best film noir, certainly would be an ideal introduction to the genre, in large part because of its blatant banality. It does not even attempt to elaborate or subvert any of the genre's themes, so in that sense is ideal for someone wanting to get a feel of a film noir. All of the noir ingredients are there: man returning from war, femme fatale, flashback narrative, gambling, seedy clubs, suspicion, paranoia, etc. I've never seen Lizabeth Scott in anything else so can't really comment on her, but my goodness she seems to be trying to do her best Lauren Bacall impression. Certainly she's no Bacall, Lake, Gardner or even Turner, but is passable in her performance as the femme fatale. The plot is more complicated than someone used to contemporary movies may expect, and one certainly needs to pay a lot of attention to it. That being said, it can work in the same way as 'The Big Sleep' (a much superior film) if one disregards the plot and just soaks in the atmosphere. The city at night shots at the movie's beginning are incredible, probably the photographic highlight of the entire movie. I've read criticism about the direction and lighting in the sense that it switches between light and dark. I think that it is supposed to work in the same way that a movie such as 'Mildred Pierce' works in the sense that the juxtaposition between light and dark represents the character's state of mind. So in a scene where Bogie is content with Scott, the colors are extremely light, representing his state of mind. More suspicious scenes are thereby darker. I don't know, just a theory, and even if this was the director's intention its debatable as to whether its effectively achieved.

All in all, an enjoyable noir, certainly recommended for fans of the genre, just don't expect any originality.