Riff-Raff

Riffraff finds Pat O'Brien as Dan Hammer, hardboiled private eye, operating in the Canal Zone which when the USA was operating the Panama Canal had a kind of hybrid sovereignty between America and Panama. Of course other than an aerial shot at the beginning of the film, no one got closer to Panama than the backlot of RKO Studios.

I'm not sure if Mickey Spillane had already created his character of Mike Hammer, but O'Brien's portrayal sure could have been the model for it.

O'Brien is hired by someone to locate a missing map of some undiscovered South American oil fields. His client is later murdered and that starts the ball rolling.

A lot of the plot elements of Riffraff are found in that other private eye classic Murder, My Sweet and though Riffraff is entertaining, it doesn't hold a candle to that classic noir.

Anne Jeffreys does well as the singer/moll who actually proves to be quite a bit of help to him in that last encounter with the bad guys. Walter Slezak is as always one charming, but dangerous villain. Jerome Cowan does well as the feckless and luckless oil executive and the best performance in the supporting cast is that of Percy Kilbride as a laconic cabdriver.

In fact Percy's the one who gets the best of Slezak. You should see Riffraff just to see how he does it.

It seems that everyone in Panama has their eyes out for a missing map worth a fortune and P.I./con-man/fixer Dan Hammer (Pat O'Brien) is at the center of everything. Caught between the police, hoodlums, and gorgeous dame, Hammer's got his work cut out for him. But like everyone else, he has no idea where to find the map - even though it's hidden in plain sight.

What a nice surprise! Going in, I had no idea what to expect from Riffraff (or Riff-Raff or Riff Raff or however you want to spell it), but it's truly a wonderful little film. It's got a lot going for it. Frist, the cinematography is fantastic. Riffraff looks way better than its modest budget would suggest. Second, the acting is very strong. Overall, I'm not much of a Pat O'Brien fan, but here, he does a nice job. Anne Jefferys is more than his equal as the blonde love interest. Walter Slezak makes for the perfect heavy. And Percy Kilbride (of Ma and Pa Kettle fame) shines as the comic relief. Third, the direction is spot on. Director Ted Tetzlaff does a remarkable job with the film's nifty pacing. There are very few dull moments to slow things down. And that opening - wow! It must have been a gamble to film the first 10 or so minutes in silence, but it paid off. Finally, the writing is first rate. Riffraff has all that cool, fast-talking dialogue I've come to love in a film noir.

7/10

I was never taken much by Pat O'Brien, even though he appeared in many good movies since 1930. This is another good one, but not because of Pat O'Brien...

This was the first time I saw Anne Jeffreys, and for her alone it's worth seeing this film: without doubt, Jeffreys is a head-turner and heart-stopper. In reviewing her acting career, it's now clear to me why I have missed seeing her: soon after the early 1950s, she moved into TV for most of her career. And, as I have mostly avoided TV, well, there you go...

Anyway, to the movie...

I guess I'd call this type of story an adventure, a treasure hunt for black gold in the form of a missing map of oil wells in Peru, and a map that various nasty people are all trying to find. The reason for that lost map is finely drawn – on a dark and stormy night (okay, there are a few clichés along the way in this narrative) - with an exquisitely done sequence at the start, as the camera pulls back from a lizard at the edge of airfield in deepest Peru to reveal a waiting DC-3 and a small group of people trying to hear themselves think while the rain pours down on the tin roof of the terminal. Not a word is spoken, natch. Eventually, a passenger arrives to board the plane with another who'd been waiting. The plane leaves, clawing its way into the storm with the passengers sitting with the cargo. During the voyage, however, one of the passengers either jumps or is pushed from the plane – but the other passenger, Hasso (Mark Krah), now has the map...

From that point, you know there's more dirty dealings coming and, after telling his story to the cops, Hasso hires PI Dan Hammer (Pat O'Brien) to act as a bodyguard. Leaving Hasso at the hotel, Hammer visits Gredson (Jerome Cowan) who hires Hammer to find the map that Hasso now has, unbeknown to both. Hasso, being devious, hides the map in plain sight – a delightful ironic touch that's used to good effect throughout the movie, but would have been better, in my opinion, if the viewer had been kept in the dark also.

However...the plot thickens when Molinar (Walter Slezak), another treasure seeker, starts putting the squeeze on Hammer to get the map, and who roughs up Maxine (Anne Jeffreys) while trying to find it in Hammer's office where Maxine had been waiting. Maxine, you see, had wormed her way into Hammer's sight at the club where she sings – not only for herself as a singer, but as a spy for Gredson with whom she is romantically involved. Or is she? That's for Hammer to find out, along the way. Got the picture?

The denouement, of course, is fairly predictable but enlivened by Percy Kilbride as Pop, the taxi driver who shows how easy it is to run circles around unwary and over-confident crooks on the run. The whole movie is further enhanced by the dark/light cinematography that captures the Panama City scene so well (even though it's a Hollywood back-lot); indeed, the highly inventive chase at night between Hammer, on foot, and Molinar in the taxi with Pop, almost leaves you...well, breathless; and wondering whether Carol Reed chose to use the same techniques of dark shadows, narrow streets and running footsteps in The Third Man (1949) when Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) chases Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna. The similarity is quite distinctive, even down to some of the skewed close-ups and sharp camera angles.

And, finally, the dialog throughout is just right: sharp, full of innuendo, devious, and witty - and every bit as good as others you've heard in great thrillers and intrigues.

Pat O'Brien does a credible job – as always – but his attempt as a hard-boiled PI and fixer doesn't quite match Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (1947) or the great Bogie in any one of his fine works from the 1940s or 1950s. However, I was looking at Anne Jeffreys most of the time anyway...

If you get the chance, see this one, for an enjoyable eighty minutes. Recommended for all.

In Panama, a private detective is hired to find a missing oil well map.

I expect this little gem got lost in the 1947 crowd. Too bad, because the opening scene is a wordless tour-de-force. Catch that ominous looking lizard in the first shot, indicating the sinister events to follow. Then there's the rainstorm that sounds like the sky is exploding around the airfield. And finally, scope out the open cargo hatch at 20,000 feet, where you see three people but no parachutes. It's a tough act to follow, and truth be told, the story then settles into an entertaining, if unremarkable, private-eye adventure.

Nonetheless, there are so many nice touches lifting the narrative—the lazy guard dog, the down-and-outers needing help, Pop's belching old cab. But most of all, there's the stylish visuals, courtesy director Tetzlaff and cameraman Diskant. The compositions are especially impressive since they're artistic without being showy. And, of course, there's the great RKO team of D'Agostino and Silvera collaborating on the noirish sets.

I also like O'Brien in the lead. He sure doesn't look like the standard Hollywood dick. He's about 20-years too old, 20-pounds too heavy, and more than a little balding. Still and all, he can fire off the tough-guy banter with the best and make you believe it. Of course, having the lovely Maxine (Jeffries) fall headlong for him remains something of a stretch, but that's just Hollywood being Hollywood.

Talk about hiding in plain sight-- the map trick has stayed with me over the years. Speaking of the unusual, catch that brawl at movie's end. One thing for sure, I want Jeffries in my corner from now on. She doesn't just stand around while the hero gets bashed, even when a tricky bookcase bounces back at her.

Anyhow, it's a really good little RKO programmer and a good reason to keep prospecting these unheralded oldies for their hidden gold.

An almost completely forgotten Film-Noirish adventure, set in Panama and made by no-one famous, but at moments up there with just about the very best. The long wordless opening scene with the plane is as good a beginning as Touch of Evil or The Letter or any other film for that matter, and I think it likely to have been an inspiration for the first 20 minutes of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom as well.

The dialogue is a delight throughout: so many great, succinct, telling lines, all pregnant with further meaning, and the camera communicates so much to us too. It's the kind of quality script that just isn't being written anymore today, and yet it's in what appears to be a cheap, throwaway B-movie: although all the bit parts are charming and likeable, the only face in Riff-Raff I've seen before is the lead, Pat O'Brien (though I can't remember where), and he's excellent as a cool, crooked, out of shape and morally questionable private eye - a gone-to-seed Humphrey Bogart - and the film is very much cut from a similar (if markedly cheaper) cloth to Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon, So if you like those, I see no reason you won't find something to enjoy in this one too.

The central macguffin of the map everyone's looking for being in plain sight all the time is a little far fetched, and there's no real emotional depth or dramatic urgency on display, which would have knocked it up into the big league of the classics, but even as it stands it might be one of the most enjoyable and best-realized B-movies ever made, so it's a crime it somehow fell through the cracks of history and is so forgotten today: existing copies are of poor quality, and it would be lovely to see it restored and rediscovered.