Railroaded!

After watching RAILROADED, I'm convinced JOHN IRELAND could have taken his place alongside men like ROBERT MITCHUM doing grim little film noirs during the '40s. He's excellent as a tight-lipped gangster with a scowling expression as he methodically kills anyone double-crossing him or standing in his way. He knocks around his blonde girlfriend (JANE RANDOLPH) with woman-hating contempt and fires bullets with casual lack of concern for fatalities. In short, he makes an ideal film noir anti-hero.

HUGH BEAUMONT, known by most fans principally as Beaver's dad on TV, is only lukewarm as the detective who falls for SHIELAH RYAN and decides to help her track down the killer after Ireland frames her kid brother (ED KELLY) for the murder of a policeman. Their final fade-out kiss looks a little clumsy but--hey, the accent is on crime and action, not romance.

Anthony Mann does the best he can with a low-budget crime melodrama and turns it into a taut, well-made, shadowy film noir with Ireland showing his stuff as a ruthless gangster.

Summing up: Brisk and entertaining, it's well worth watching for fans of this genre.

Top billing for "Railroaded!" goes to the great actor John Ireland who plays the coldblooded killer Duke Martin. Today, Ireland is perhaps best remembered for his role as the gunslinger, Cherry Valance, in the John Wayne western classic "Red River" and for his Academy-Award- nominated performance as a reporter in another Hollywood classic "All the King's Men." Duke Martin, as with most of the heavies in noir flicks, is a misogynist. But this time the woman hater doesn't get away with it completely. Both Clara Calhoun (Jane Randolph) and Rosie Ryan (Sheila Ryan) put him in his place. When Duke misquotes Oscar Wilde, "Some women should be beaten regularly, like gongs" (it was actually Noel Coward who used the line), Clara is quick to respond to the effect that if that line belonged to Oscar Wilde, then let him have it. When Rosie and Duke first meet at Duke's club, Duke calls women "dames." Rosie responds sharply, "I don't like that term." Duke backs up and uses the still somewhat derogatory "gals."

The plot involves Rosie's brother, Steve, portrayed by unknown actor Ed Kelly, who only made three films to my knowledge. Duke and his girlfriend, Clara, frame Steve for a bookie heist, during which time a patrolman is killed. The police are after a quick conviction and are getting ready to go to trial and ask for the death penalty when Police Sgt. Mickey Ferguson (Hugh Beaumont, aka Ward Cleaver) falls for Rosie and decides that her brother may not be guilty after all. Ferguson attempts to help Rosie find the real murderer when Rosie decides to conduct her own investigation by becoming chums with Duke. This all leads to more murders until the ultimate confrontation between Ferguson and Duke. The film is fast-paced and somewhat violent for its day.

The creative use of darkness and shadow was an important ingredient of noir cinema, but as one IMDb reviewer has already noted, there is so much darkness in "Railroaded!" that at times it is difficult to see what is happening. One reason for this may be viewing the film on a TV screen. Perhaps on the big screen there was no problem. Outside of this minor weakness, "Railroaded!" is a winner all the way.

Railroaded (1947)

An almost amazing movie, well made, beautifully photographed, held back by a stiff script but still it manages. And it has a dark current that makes it both creepy and contemporary. Director Anthony Mann seems to have made a dozen great films that are just under the radar, noirs and westerns that have some edge to them to keep them from falling into the abyss of their genres.

This is Mann at his mature earliest. He had made a few films in the earlier 40s, but this, along with "Desperate," marks his coming into his own. Yes, you might find too much of a formula at work here, but it's not derivative, just a little stilted in the dialog. And yes, you might ask, near the beginning, why the cops couldn't see how easy the frame up would be (anyone could have stolen the truck and committed the crime), but remember, this one fact was supported by several others, including an eyewitness confirmation. So, once over these humps, you are for a good ride.

Who to watch for amongst these relative unknowns? John Ireland, most of all, for his bad guy personification, all charm and heartlessness, simultaneously. His girlfriend, played by Sheila Ryan, is his match, in a sharp performance also dripping with selfish cruelty, but tempered, critically, by doubt and remorse.

The third star is the little known cinematographer Guy Roe, who must have been inspired by the young, rising director. The filming right from the opening, subtle crane shot of the beauty parlor facade is artfully gorgeous without becoming baroque the way Orson Welles had become (beautifully) by 1947 with "The Lady from Shanghai." Both are great examples of where the movies were just after the war, both with a dark, brooding, searching uncertainty. And both showing off the amazing movie-making machinery of post-War Hollywood. I say this because both films were smaller budget affairs, and yet they have uncompromised production.

Give this a serious look. It's imperfect, for sure, but it has such high points, including some dark dark filming that is so kinetic and scary it surprised even an old film noir fan like me, you'll be glad.

Set Up! or Framed! might be better titles than Railroaded! While it's true that the police pursue their suspect (Ed Kelly) with undue alacrity, it's also true that they're only following a trail of maliciously planted evidence. And an odd feature of the movie is that Kelly remains almost an incidental character (not even appearing in the credits); the focus stays on the police and the real behind-the-scenes villain.

Brash blonde Jane Randolph operates a little beauty salon that's really a front for a back-room book. One night a couple of masked robbers knock it over, but things go wrong: A beat cop is killed, and one of the gunmen (Keefe Brasselle) takes a bullet. Soon detective Hugh Beaumont knocks on Kelly's door, led there by the boy's monogrammed navy scarf, a sighting of his van at the scene, and a description provided by Randolph. Even Brasselle, bandaged up like the Invisible Man, names Kelly in deathbed testimony.

The only one who believes his innocence is his sister (Sheila Ryan). Luckily, Beaumont knows her from the old neighborhood and still is a bit sweet on her. Unluckily, so is the man who set up her brother (John Ireland) as part of a coverup to swindle the head of the syndicate both he and Randolph work for. Little by little, the craftily stitched-together ruse starts to pull apart at the seams, and the hotheaded Ireland grows more reckless and violent...

Directed by Anthony Mann just before his collaboration with cinematographer John Alton took his work to a new plateau, Railroaded! displays some of his trademark tricks (a taut story line; swift and unexpected burst of violence; shadows used not merely as mood but visual metaphors).

And Ireland gets not only top billing but one of his best roles. When he's not slapping around Randolph for her sloppy drinking (in the grand tradition of alcoholic molls like Claire Trevor in Key Largo and Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat), he's fetishistically perfuming his bullets. He's quite the sex-equals-violence kind of guy; when Randolph and Ryan get into a hair-pulling tussle, he watches from an alcove with a nasty smirk on his face, and his gun barrel unconsciously traces the action. It's as if it's deciding who will be the lucky recipient of its payload.

Railroaded! (1947)

*** (out of 4)

Anthony Mann directed this thriller, which has a Detective (Hugh Beaumont) trying to clear an innocent man of murder charges. The Detective eventually falls for the suspect's sister (Sheila Ryan), which leads to a wannabe gangster (John Ireland) who we know is the real killer. This is a pretty suspenseful and highly entertaining little film that has a whole lot going for it. Mann does a terrific job at keeping the film moving very nicely and he has enough interesting characters for two films. This was my first time seeing Beaumont outside of his role of the father on Leave it to Beaver and I was shocked to see how well he played a tough guy. His Detective has all the charm, energy and toughness, which is expected in a film like this. Ireland is terrific as the thug and Ryan does a nice job, although she's not on the same level as the two men. There's also a wonderful fight between two women, which has to be seen to be believed.