Undertow

Having returned to Chicago, Tony Reagan (Scott Brady) is accused of murdering a wealthy, powerful man who happens to be his fiance's uncle. Injured and with the police hot on his trail, Reagan has few places to turn. He eventually seeks the assistance of a woman he hardly knows. He met her the previous day on the flight to Chicago. With her help, Reagan's out to clear his name.

Undertow is a neat little film noir that, until last night, I had never heard of. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. The story has a lot of suspense that builds throughout. There may have been a few predictable bits in the plot (like the murderer's ID) and some big coincidences (like a friendly cop who agrees to help), but the journey is so much fun it hardly mattered. Director William Castle (yes, that William Castle) proves that he could do more than churn out sensational schlock. His pacing in Undertow is about perfect. The film also looks phenomenal. Cinematographer Irving Glassberg lensed a movie that looks far better than it has a right to. But, then again, I seem to say that about a lot of the Universal B picture output from the 40s. Finally, I enjoyed the exterior 40s-era footage. Whether it was the airport, the plane, or downtown Chicago, it was awesome stuff.

I have no complaints as far as the acting goes. Generally, I'm not much of a fan of Scott Brady. There's just something about him that puts me off. Here, however, I thought his performance was more than adequate. As for co-star Peggy Dow - what a revelation! Considering this was her first film role, she was amazing. Dow plays the sweet, innocent, cute, trusting, fresh-faced, all-American girl about as well as anyone I've ever seen. Looking over her filmography, I'm saddened to see she only made nine films. I'm going to make it my mission to see as many of these as I can. The rest of the supporting cast - John Russell, Dorothy Hart, Bruce Bennett - are equally strong. Finally, the film features a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from a fresh-faced Roc (with no k) Hudson.

Overall, a nice little film that I'm happy to have stumbled upon. Undertow gives me hope as I continue my journey through some of these smaller, lesser known film noirs.

7/10.

This is an odd case of a film having the same title as a film from twenty years before with absolutely no relation between the two. 1930's "Undertow" was about a lifeguard who marries a selfish party girl and then moves her to a lighthouse where things go downhill from there for both of them. This film has nothing to do with that forgotten but still surviving early sound film by the same studio and has nothing to do with an undertow, but I digress.

Tony Reagan used to be in the rackets, but after two stints in the military he is ready to go straight. He wants to buy and run a hunting and fishing lodge in the Rocky mountains and marry his girl, the daughter of an old rival of his back in his racketeering days. The movie starts in Reno where Tony runs into one of his old friends who is running a casino. While there he helps a schoolteacher on vacation (Peggy Dow as Ann McKnight) win 120 dollars rolling dice. You see, Tony still knows some of the tricks of the house. They share a plane ride home, and you can tell Ann thinks this might be headed some place romantic, something Tony does not pick up on. When he mentions his fiancée to her you can see her facial expression sink along with her hopes.

When they arrive in Chicago, Tony is met at the airport by the police. They take him to headquarters and say that the word is on the street that he is there to murder "big Jim", his fiancée's father, and tell him to leave town. Tony says to book him or leave him be. They leave him be, but soon he'll wish they had put him in jail because he would have been safer. That night he is knocked unconscious and when he comes to he is sitting in a parking lot in the car he rented earlier with a gunshot wound to his right hand and a gun sitting in the seat next to him. Then he learns on the radio that "Big Jim" has been killed that very night and that he is suspect number one. He tries all of his old friends looking for a hideout - the police have them all covered.

Then it hits him - the cops don't know about Ann, the girl he met in Reno. He dials her up and she helps him, even though she knows that he is a hunted murder suspect. So together this street smart fellow and naïve schoolteacher have to figure out who has framed him before the police can catch him. The suspense never lets up and there is some great photography and camera work involved here. I'll let you watch and find out what happens. Highly recommended.

Tony (Scott Brady) is the perfect patsy. He's an ex-con and the Chicago police are more than willing to believe the worst of him. So, when some unknown people kidnap him, shoot him and set him up for his future father-in-law's murder, the case seems pretty air-tight. However, like so many noir films, he investigates the case himself and aims to prove his innocence. Along the way, he gets the help from a nice lady and even from a cop.

"Undertow" is an excellent and enjoyable film. While Peggy Dow's character makes no sense (why would anyone help a wanted man when they barely know them?!), the overall story is quite well made and keeps your attention. It has some excellent twists and the acting is quite good despite the actors mostly being second-tier. It sure helped having the excellent director William Castle in charge, as he had a habit of making the most of lower budgets.

Scott Brady, who became a character actor in his later years, was a young hunk in "Undertow" from 1949, directed by William Castle and featuring John Russell, Peggy Dow, Dorothy Hart, and Bruce Bennett. Brady was Lawrence Tierney's brother and sounded just like him.

Brady plays a former mob member Tony Reagan, who, after time in the Army, falls in love with a mountain lodge and decides to buy it. In Reno, he runs into an old friend (Russell) - both the men have rings they want to present to their girlfriends. The club Russell runs is owned by Big Jim. Tony is in love with Big Jim's daughter (Dorothy Hart) and is on his way home to Chicago. Big Jim doesn't like him, but Tony is determined to win him over.

It doesn't work out as he'd hoped. Tony is framed for Big Jim's murder and winds up at the apartment of a woman (Peggy Dow) he met on the plane. She was initially attracted to him, believes his story, and wants to help him.

This film is interesting for several reasons. The first is the fantastic atmosphere of Reno and Chicago, the old cars, the stores, the pay phones - very evocative of the '40s.

The second reason is that Rock Hudson, under the name Roc Hudson, plays a detective. Blink and you'll miss him. Robert Easton is also in the film. It was his and Peggy Dow's film debuts.

The third reason is the appearance of black characters, both of whom have decent roles, and black people who appear as extras.

The fourth reason is the appearance of Bruce Bennett as a detective friend of Tony's. Bennett was an unusual man - under the name of Herman Bix, he was a star shot-putter in the Olympics. He then went to work in films (Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Mildred Pierce, etc.) and lived to be 100.

As for the film, it didn't hold together for me. I figured it out almost immediately, but that's because I've seen so many of these films. The end just fell apart.

There's more to Undertow than the first screen credit of young `Roc' Hudson (in fact his tiny role as a police detective barely registers). It's one of a handful of noirs that William Castle directed before turning his attention to, and making his name in, gimmicky schlock. While none of them is so good as his first – When Strangers Marry, with Robert Mitchum and Kim Hunter – they're more than passable. As is Undertow.

Scott Brady looks like Lawrence Tierney's kid brother (which in fact he was). In Reno after a stint at a mountain lodge he wants to buy and run, he bumps into an old pal from mobbed-up Chicago (John Russell). They compare the diamond rings they've bought for their respective fiancees, though that doesn't stop Brady from flirting with a girl (Peggy Dow) he met in a casino and shares a flight home with. Since the police meet him at the plane, any extracurricular romance comes to naught, so Brady dutifully hooks up with his intended (Dorothy Hart). Next thing, he's taken for a ride and framed for the murder of unseen crime boss Big Jim, who happens to be Hart's uncle. Trying to clear himself while on the lam, he enlists Dow's help; he also happens to stumble onto the fact that his fiancee and Russell's are the same woman....

Undertow is pure story, competently enough executed if devoid of anything particular to lodge in the memory. It preserves evidence of why Brady stayed in his brother's imposing shadow, and leads one to wonder why Hart made so few movies (though, of her handful of credits, roughly half are noirs). While not an essential title in the noir cycle by any means, Undertow was one of the hundreds of titles that went into making it a cycle, and far from the weakest of them.