L'Homme aux abois

I Walk Alone is directed by Byron Haskin and adapted to screenplay by Charles Schnee, Robert Smith and John Bright from the play written by Theodore Reeves. It stars Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott and Wendell Corey. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Leo Tover.

Frankie Madison (Lancaster) returns to New York after 14 years in prison. Noll Turner (Douglas), Frankie's former partner in bootlegging, is now a wealthy nightclub manager, and Frankie is expecting him to honor a verbal '50:50' agreement they made when he was caught and Noll got away...

This is perfect noir foil for the three main stars, Lancaster is all macho mismanagement and edgy, Douglas is suave, cunning and intense, while Scott smoulders and portrays her conflicted character with believable confusion and an earnest yearning for worth.

The story intrigues mainly through Frankie being a man out of his time, after serving 14 years in prison, he comes out to find the underworld he once knew has changed considerably. Yet he wants what is his and will put himself through the mangler in the old day way to get what he thinks he rightly deserves. Kay Lawrence (Scott) isn't a femme fatale, she just borders the type by default until the truth will out and the story arc folds inwards (love the way Tover lights her scenes).

Douglas revels in being a villain, and the Noll Turner character gives him the chance to smarm, charm and trample on anyone who could affect his monetary gains. And so it is left to Corey as Dave to round out the key affecting perfs. He's the man closest to Frankie, but as a milquetoast type of lawyer, he has, while Frankie was in prison, helped legally cover the financial angles for Noll Turner. All characters are entering noirville and it makes for a satisfying experience for fans of such. 7/10

Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) gets out of prison after 14 years. He wants his half share from his former crime partner Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas) who now owns a roaring nightclub. Dink sends his singer girlfriend Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott) to talk to him.

Whenever Lancaster and Douglas get together, the movie explodes in threatening energy. Both actors exude a violent menace. The movie has a nice noir style starting with the shadow of Frankie. The sense of brooding criminality is pervasive. I'm uncertain about Frankie being taken down by a corporate flow chart but it is something different. This is simply a good start of a great acting duo.

Two thugs make good and then fight over a nightclub and Lizabeth Scott. I watched this for Lizabeth. She is even more stunning than usual but given little to do but grace glamorous evening gowns and lip synch. Its worth a watch but don't go in with high expectations because if the leads.

I just saw this film two nights ago at the San Francisco Film Noir Festival. This was a beautiful movie filled with subtle shades of noir. The underrated Lizbeth Scott has the best performance in this rarely seen drama. There's great snappy dialog. Kirk Douglas is the perfect villain of this clever movie. It is so easy to see his son Michael's face on him. Burt was fun to watch as usual in giving his best to this intriguing screenplay. What was interesting to see unfold (in this almost 60 year old film) was how challenging the crime corporations are in pinpointing the vastness of what exactly they own. How they get around the skimming of the profits. As well as stating that they only "get" a minimal amount of the percentages ~ by the books. There was a lot of thought that went into this film and the three stars gave it their best. Pure quality.

Three of the stars from DESERT FURY (1947) – Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Wendell Corey – were reunited in another, marginally superior noir that is most notable today for marking the first of seven screen pairings between Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Although it was still very early in their careers, they had already become typecast as, respectively, the jilted, ex-con hero and the suave, slimy villain and this film has them reprising those characterizations – albeit less effectively than their prototype seen earlier in THE KILLERS (1946) and OUT OF THE PAST (1947); the same goes for Scott and Corey who both share a divided loyalty towards the two male leads. I WALK ALONE can also be said to have kick-started the directorial career of former technician Byron Haskin which lasted for twenty versatile years; unfortunately, that fact is borne out by the surprising lack of pace (which makes the film seem longer than its 98-minute running-time) and a rather weak climactic confrontation. Even so, the film is most interesting in the way it depicts the change in crime syndication (from streetwise toughness in the bootlegging Depression days to business acumen in the capitalist post-WWII era) that occurred during the fourteen years Lancaster spent behind bars: this is highlighted in a sharply amusing sequence when accountant Corey wrecks Lancaster's dream of owning half of Douglas' business empire (as they had verbally agreed on all those years before) by disclosing in "double-talk" the complex legal relationship that exists between the various companies owned by Douglas!