Violence

From 1947, Violence stars Nancy Coleman, Michael O'Shea, Sheldon Leonard, and Emory Parnell.

Coleman is Ann Mason, a reporter working undercover as a secretary for United Defenders, a fascist group using veterans by taking their money and encouraging them to be violent over issues such as housing and jobs.

Veterans had problems readjusting to society after World War II, and in this and another film I saw recently, their disenfranchisement made them a target for both communist and fascist groups.

Nancy is gathering evidence for her editor in Chicago, but on a trip there, she's in a car accident and develops amnesia. She meets a man, Steve (Michael O'Shea) who claims they are engaged.

Little by little, Ann remembers she works for the Defenders but not that she's undercover. Steve returns to Los Angeles with her and goes to work for the organization.

Ann begins to believe Steve is working against the Defenders and informs her boss. Trouble follows.

Cliche-ridden noir with Coleman constantly touching her head when she's trying to remember. And we all know what brings a memory back - another hit on the head.

Well, Ann falls and hits her head. A woman staying with her, whose husband was murdered by the Defenders, puts a dry handkerchief over her forehead. Big help.

You knew that charming, lively Michael O'Shea could never be evil. Sheldon Leonard was your typical meanie.

Interesting for what was going on in the US at the time, but not great.

This 1947 Poverty Row film noir about some racketeers organizing returning vets into strong-arm squads has an awful score of overwrought music from Edward J. Kay. Nancy Coleman is investigating the organization, but comes down with amnesia.

Since we know the set-up before she comes down with memory loss, there's no sense of noirish what-in-hell-is-going-on suspense. It all comes down to a cozy non-mystery shot on small sets with occasional bouts of rear projection, punctuated by loud, frantic musical stings. Besides Coleman, we get Sidney Sheldon, Michael O'Shea and Emory Parnell.

There's a corruption plot here, and in almost every movie with a corruption plot, it is the dogooder politician behind the corruption. I'm not giving any secrets here. This movie is markedly different for some reason. My suspicion is they either ran out of film, money or time and had to wrap it up.

With peter whitney as the joker (no it's not set in gotham city) and sheldon leonard (no, he's not telling anyone which elevator or railroad train to take), the stage is set for a great reveal at the end of mr x's identity (no it's not elon musk or pierre watkin), but then the story just ends and michael o'shea goes off with the cute muckraking reporter. Also featured in here, as a doctor, was john (no he's not telling the copyboy don't call me chief) hamilton, a star on early tv. The most important thing in this movie is it prepared us for a corrupt, much bankrupted businessman to make a lot of noise about cleaning out the swamp, so to speak, while corrupting it himself.

Much of the team that made Monogram's Decoy of the year before such a startling little thriller re-upped for the same studio's Violence: Director Jack Bernhard, co-scripter Stanley Rubin, composer Edward J. Kay, heavy Sheldon Leonard (the second-string Raymond Burr, who, like Burr, would find his fortune in television). Lightning, alas, failed to strike twice, so Violence remains a typically flawed Poverty-Row production.

In the basement of the Los Angeles headquarters of the United Defenders – a pseudo-populist scam organization to fleece angry veterans – a young recruit who stumbled onto the truth meets his unpleasant end. (This crypto-Fascist group has affinities with The Black Legion of a decade earlier.) Upstairs, however, the forced cheeriness prevails, with the head of this personality cult (`True' Dawson, played by Emory Parnell) bidding his loyal secretary (Nancy Coleman) goodbye as she leaves for a vacation to Chicago. Little does he suspect that Coleman is an investigative reporter working undercover on an exposé of the racket, which will hit the streets as soon as she's safe in the Windy City. Leonard, one of his lieutenants, does have his suspicions about, as well as unresolved feelings for, Coleman, but can't find the evidence, so off she goes.

In Chicago en route to her magazine's offices, Coleman's cab crashes trying to elude a mysterious pursuer (Milo O'Shea). Hospitalized, Coleman wakes to find herself in a state of amnesia (of the trickiest sort: She remembers things that are convenient to advancing the story but forgets everything else). Back on the coast, she has no memory of her journalistic scoop and so thinks herself a loyal soldier for the United Defenders; she also believes she's engaged to O'Shea, because he told her so. And the plot lumbers on, with the murdered man's widow showing up to find him, and an all-powerful `Mr. X' looming darkly behind the whole operation....

Violence is riddled with holes and implausibilities (of the type that, in today's Hollywood, would all but guarantee a blockbuster). Rather transparently, it draws on themes and issues that sparked the early years of the noir cycle: The dissatisfaction of returning veterans and post-war labor strife (and might the demagogue's name `True' be an echo of then-president Harry S Truman's?). But the topical references prove no more than gimmicks for a quick-and-dirty production that has little coherence or resonance.

The film is about a group which calls itself "The United Defenders". It's a pseudo-political group that has very vague goals and agenda for achieving it apart from mob violence. The group is run by some cynical men with no real political beliefs...just the belief that they can lead stupid veterans into creating a fascist-like organization in order to make the leaders rich. Ann works for the group but really is a reporter there to get the dirt on this hateful group.

So far, I liked the film. However, when Ann heads to Chicago to meet with her publisher, the movie gets a bit dumb. She's in an accident and has amnesia!!! I hate the amnesia bit...it's way overused in films and would make sense if Ann suffered a massive head injury...which she didn't! No head bandage...no obvious trauma of any kind...just movie amnesia!!! Despite this bad plot device, the film did remain interesting...mostly because the villains (led by Sheldon Leonard) were enjoyable to watch. But at heart, the film misses the mark despite being quite entertaining at times.