Le passé se venge

Decent, if unexceptional noir. Amnesiac ex-GI (Payne) exits VA hospital to pursue his real identity, which soon involves him in LA underworld. Real star here, as others point out, is photographer Alton, who provides the production with a strong visual edge. Too bad that neither the script nor the performances rise to that same visual level. Payne is workman-like as the afflicted vet trying to escape his old life and start a new one. However, there's nothing dramatically distinctive about his presence. Note too how deglamorized Drew is in her role as Nina, which is unusual for that kind of gangland role.

The real problem, however, as others also point out, is Sonny Tufts' impersonation of a tough guy mastermind. It's just not his natural disposition, and he lacks the acting range to successfully fake it. Instead, we get a series of near laughable facial distortions meant to prove his tough guy intent. On the other hand, in the right kind of nice guy role, e.g. Easy Living {1949}, Tufts could be quite effective. Too bad we don't get more of Percy Helton's raspy Petey. He lends just the right kind of character color the movie sorely needs.

Likely, the film is too low-key for its own good. Not even the abrupt killing of the cop registers the way it should. We simply observe without being made to feel. Anyway, the movie remains a visual treat in b&w, even though the dramatics fail to work up a level of edge or impact that could make the results memorable. A routine noir, at best.

Amnesia is not the most original plot gimmick in film. From "Random Harvest" and "Spellbound," from "36 Hours" to "Mirage," from "Memento" to "The Bourne Identity," characters have wrestled with memory loss and struggled to find out who they really were. World War II veteran Eddie Rice has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain that has caused his loss of memory, and, once released from the hospital, Eddie heads to Los Angeles, where he hopes to find people who knew him in the past. Handsome John Payne is Eddie, the man in search of his identity in "The Crooked Way," a brilliantly photographed, but otherwise routine film noir. Adapted from a radio play, the derivative plot utilizes voice over to convey Eddie's thoughts and depends on improbable coincidences to bring characters together. Needless to say, Eddie quickly runs into his past, and what he finds plunges him into a murky underworld of gangsters, gunfights, and murder.

With his dark brooding looks, Payne is credible in the undemanding role, and he has solid support from Ellen Drew, the forgotten wife with a new life; Sonny Tufts, a tough gangster boss with a long memory; and Rhys Williams, a policeman who digs into Eddie's criminal past. However, the lazy plot and solid cast are enhanced by John Alton's masterful black-and-white cinematography, which evokes Martin Lewis etchings in its use of light and shadow. Deep black hallways and streets lead to glaring white lights, the slats of Venetian blinds throw bars of shadow across faces, heads are silhouetted while speaking, the lettering on a plate glass window casts words across an office wall, characters are lit from below, white-hot hanging lamps illuminate gaming tables. Alton's outstanding work demands to be studied for its composition, lighting, and focus. Although Alton won an Oscar for his color work on "An American in Paris," his images on any number of film noir and especially this one should have garnered him numerous nominations and wins. Alton's cinematography defines the best in film noir.

While the "Crooked Way" is often cliched and predictable, a solid cast and especially John Alton's images lift the film to essential viewing. John Payne fans should also be pleased, as well as aficionados of amnesia movies. Evidently, loss of memory is more prevalent among characters in Hollywood movies than among the general populace.

The Crooked Way an independent production released by United Artists finds John Payne in the role of an amnesiac who makes his way to Los Angeles with a different name and no memories of what he did before the war injuries. He got a silver star for service, but that tells him nothing of his past before World War II.

It turns out that he was a gangster who doublecrossed a confederate played by Sonny Tufts who took a prison rap for a couple of years in which time Payne left Los Angeles. Payne also finds the woman he was married to, Ellen Drew who pretty much repudiates him and who he was and now is. Of course that changes over the course of the film.

This film was Payne's introduction to the noir genre and it's all right, though not as good as later films like Kansas City Confidential and The Boss. Payne's career paralleled that of Dick Powell who had given up musicals for noir and action films a bit earlier.

The real revelation in The Crooked Way was Sonny Tufts who at Paramount in the Forties played leads that exuded a kind of goofy charm to them. He was outstanding in his part as the villain of The Crooked Way. He might have overacted a bit, but the part did call for it. He should have reinvented himself with this film, but his career would be petering out gradually during the Fifties.

The story has things wrapping up just a tad too neatly for Payne in the end, still Payne definitely showed he had a career in noir with The Crooked Way.

War hero Eddie Rice returns to his home town as a result of a serious head injury that has left him with no real memory of who he is and nothing in his files that suggests where he should go. He decides to hang around ad hopefully meet someone he knows who will introduce him to another and another until his life is back in focus. What he doesn't reckon on though is that the first people to recognise him will be the police – who don't buy the idea that violent hood Eddie Riccardi has "lost his memory". This is a sentiment that gangster Vince Alexander shares when he discovers that the man who turned states evidence against him is back in town.

An interesting concept in this film. The idea that a "war hero" comes back to discover that really he was a violent criminal, a man he himself would have disliked and that he has to deal with the consequences of a past that he has no recollection of. In theory it could have been tough and morally complex and indeed I was hoping that these aspects would make for a dark and strong crime drama. In a way the actual product was both satisfying and a bit disappointing. The plot provides some good drama. It doesn't all ring true and it lacks the moral uncertainty that I had hoped for but it does still work well enough for what it is. If anything the script doesn't totally deserve Florey as director because the latter does do a solid job of working in the shadows and of framing shots to maximise the darkness within them.

The script doesn't make this same effect work within the story or characters though and indeed ethically it is perhaps too simplistic, with Eddie himself being disappointedly disconnected from his past. Of course I have to acknowledge that in this regard John Payne is miscast. He never convinces as a man struggling with anything (other than a sleepy delivery) and there is never a connection to his past in anything he does. Contrast his performance (and indeed what this film does) with Mortensen in "A History of Violence" and you can see where he and the material really don't deliver all they could (should) have done. Tufts works better but in fairness perhaps has a simpler character to pull off. He is a typically tough bad guy, full of patience and menace in his delivery – I liked his scenes but he conspires to make Payne seem weaker by comparison. Drew, Williams, Helton and others all do well enough for what is asked of them but the main expectation was on Payne and the film cannot shake the feeling that he is just not up to the task.

Overall then a solid enough drama but not up to the standard that it had the potential to be. Florey's direction works well with the cinematography (which is perhaps typical for the genre but still good) and it is just a shame that neither the script nor Payne are able to make more out of the potential within the sweep of the story and characters.

This is one of those post-War noir films about a soldier with amnesia. The film is chiefly notable for its excellent expressionist noir cinematography by Austrian émigré John Alton, with some splendid scenes such as two people tensely talking to each other in bold silhouette. Sometimes the stark lighting and dramatic shots are almost too much, as in the beginning when the psychiatrist who has treated John Payne in the Veterans' Hospital tells him as starkly as the lighting of the scene that there are two types of amnesia, organic and psychological, and he has the organic type which cannot be treated because he has shrapnel in his brain. Knowing only that he enlisted in the Army from Los Angeles (he later discovers it was under a false name, which is why the Army cannot discover anything to tell him about his background), Payne is released from hospital and goes back to his origins to see if he can discover anything about who he is. The film moves right along and does not waste time with exposition, so as soon as Payne steps off a train at Union Station, he is recognised by some cops who haven't seen him in five years. Payne then has the shocking realization that he had been a criminal, and he is immediately sucked into dangerous and compromising situations, involving people who want him dead. Ellen Drew is excellent as his former wife who has trouble believing that he is not pretending to have lost his memory, and doesn't want to help him at first. Two of Payne's strong points as an actor were looking bewildered and looking resolute, so he is well cast, as he has to do both in turn. Sonny Tufts is terrifying as a vicious criminal who wants to kill Payne, and one suspects that the film crew must have been scared to death of him. This is a good B thriller of modest pretensions. John Payne was a very nice man with excellent manners and a pleasant personality. I only met him once. My mother and I called on him backstage after he had been in a play. She and he had known each other when growing up in Roanoke and Salem, Virginia. She told me Payne was from what used to be called 'a good family', he was a glamorous young man whom all the girls were chasing, but he got bored with Virginia and decided to become an actor. She had a very high regard for him, and my impression of him was that he was a fine fellow.