The Boss

The Boss (1956)

This is kind of a great movie, a surprise to me, and with some stunning performances, great photography, and a sterling script (thanks to Dalton Trumbo). See it.

While the acting and visuals are going to get you immediately, the script will sneak up on you if you are paying attention. This is a movie begging to play with clichés, and it avoids them. Don't get me wrong, a mob boss in a small city is going to play tough and have cronies and the like. It's a good crime movie, for sure, and believable enough.

But there is, for example, no femme fatale (this is probably not a noir, strictly speaking, even if the dark crime mood makes you think so, but there are lots of noir characters and attitudes). The movie begins a bit off-kilter, I think, but if you think of it as a set-up for what a normal life would have been for the main character, it's necessary.

You see, Matt Brady (played brilliantly by John Payne) is a returning soldier with hopes of marriage as he marches in the opening parade. But then he gets drunk that first night home and things go very south. In another turn (not explained much) he starts rising up as a political and crime figure, becoming the big cheese.

This sounds like a Cagney or Robinson movie from the early 1930s, I suppose, and this movie is set in the 1920s for the most part, as well. But it has a different feel to it, and if you like those kinds of movies you need to give this a try. In addition to a friendly sidekick and his wife, who are regular sorts, there is a whole array of criminal types played well, with flavor but not exaggeration.

Why isn't this more well known? One reason is distribution--the only copy that I know of is a decent visual transfer with terrible sound (on Netflix). If Criterion took this up (or anyone, but I don't think a big studio owns it), it would glisten and be a late great example of its type, coming in the mid-50s as this kind of film was seeing its last days.

Payne, by the way, might be thought of as underrated--he certainly pours it on here, emotionally--and most of the movies I've seen him in he's a compelling type ("Kansas City Confidential" and "99 River Street") though he's a different and more boring guy in "Miracle on 34th Street." Here, the strong and silent type (Gary Cooper style) doesn't get carried too far. He bursts out at times, and has good physical energy on the screen. He might not be handsome enough for Hollywood, but that's a matter of taste, and tastes change.

I originally saw the film when it came out and only saw it again recently. Scenes from the film have stayed with me and I wasn't disappointed when it ran on TV. John Payne, The Boss, was a good Hollywood portrayal of a crime boss. The bad guys are really bad and the good guys are few. Crooked politics, payoffs, rub-outs, double-crosses, brawls, you name it and it's used. Payne was a popular actor in the 40's but I didn't appreciate him at the time. Based on this film I will try to see some of his others. If you liked Asphalt Jungle you probably would also like The Boss.

Dalton Trumbo, who scripted this picture pseudonymously, was so anxious to make his political and sociological points that he (nearly) let the story and characters get away from him. The plot moves, not naturally or logically, but in order to serve the author's purposes. Characters who have been steadfast and dependable, whatever their motives, betray those close to them. The fulfillment of one's ambition requires unprincipled, corrupt behavior, with only indifference or contempt for those who are hurt in the process. The sole semblance of loyalty is found among criminals. Trumbo's viewpoint clearly grows out of his personal experiences, and distorts what might have been a highly effective portrayal of a powerful man who lost more than he gained. The character of Matt Brady is a given: arrogant, thoughtless, insensitive, impetuous. But why? As much as these characteristics help to move the story where the script wants it to go, we are offered no insight into the main character's psyche, and little of significance concerning his background. And his drunken insistence that he and the woman of the streets he picks up are to become man and wife that very night (and thereby provide another key element for the plot) is - to say the least - a bit hard to take. Yet with it all, this film has more than a few effective moments. Those, and the substantial theme being presented, will leave the viewer with much to ponder.

In trying to jumpstart itself, this movie is somewhat heavy handed at the beginning, taking one notably big and questionable dramatic risk, but gains power slowly and turns into something of a monumental mini-epic with John Payne's changes of hair coloring registering his slow and merciless journey toward a godless end...what a performance, but it's not as good as Gloria McGehee's as the unwanted wife Lorry - which is about as good as you'll ever see from an actress on screen, period. Also great is Robin Morse as Johnny the Organization Man, a wonderful low key performance...where has this movie been all our lives? It's powerful, at times difficult to watch, brutal, and worth the ride.

The Boss, filmed from a script by the blacklisted and hence uncredited Dalton Trumbo, starts in 1919 and ends somewhere in the Great Depression. It's about the corruption of a municipal machine that focuses on demobbed doughboy John Payne who, when his older brother dies, inherits his political clout.

On the night of his return he godrunk and married a stranger he comes to scorn (Gloria McGhee, whomakes you yearn for more of her). His only unwavering loyalty lies withan old wartime buddy (William Bishop), who has married the girl Payne loved. So all his passion goes into strengthening his hold over the city, including forging an unholy alliance with the (unnamed) Mafia.

Despite a precisely staged shootout in the train depot (did Brian De Palma borrow from this as well as from The Battleship Potemkin, for The Untouchables?), The Boss is really a somewhat Kane-ish look at the rise and fall of a lone wolf; Payne's tough yet touching performance lends an almost tragic tinge. The result is an involving period piece that dwells on the late fringes of film noir.

(One topical note: the men's costumes were by Dick Cheney.)