Spionaggio atomico

Communist agents in Canada are spying on Dr. Carl Macklin, an atomic physicist whose knowledge they want to steal. To kidnap him, Eric Hartman, the party's top man in Montreal, offers $100,000 to deported American criminal Joe Victor.

Joe's former flame Joyce Geary is blackmailed into helping with the plan. Police inspector Leduc of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigates. A thug working for Victor kills the scientist's secretary after using her to gain information. Leduc is taken prisoner aboard a ship as Hartman and Victor attempt to take Dr. Macklin with them to Europe.

Leduc pleads with Victor, who misses his native country, to do the right thing for and help stop the communists. A shootout ensues between Victor and Hartman ...

Decent crime thriller that gets a major boost by the doyens of gangster films -Edward G Robinson and George Raft - and the story is intriguing enough and there's some exciting moments, though it does drag a little and it's not too exciting at times. Raft and Robinson are a joy to watch, however- loved Raft's one liners.

Edward G. Robinson and George Raft team up for the second and last time in A Bullet for Joey, a cold war noir espionage thriller set in Montreal.

Their first teaming as a memorable one. They co-starred in Manpower 14 years earlier and had a fistfight on the set over the affections of co-star Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich was involved with Raft at the time and Raft got jealous of Robinson who was a very cultured man and could talk to Dietrich about things that Raft knew little about.

A whole lot of water went under the bridge in the interim and there was no reported friction between the co-stars. Marlene had gone out of Raft's life and she was never in Robinson's at all.

Robinson's a Canadian R.C.M.P. inspector and he gets drawn into an investigation that involves the kidnapping of an atomic scientist George Dolenz and the device he's working on. A whole lot of dead bodies start turning up around Dolenz including a suspicious Mountie that starts the ball rolling.

Raft is a deported American gangster, living in Lisbon, who is recruited by Communist spy Peter Van Eyck to pull off the kidnapping. Raft sneaks into Canada, gets some of his old gang back together and proceeds on the job.

A Bullet for Joey proceeds on a parallel plot track with Raft putting together the kidnapping and Robinson working on a multiple homicide investigation.

Both Robinson and Raft were now B picture players. Robinson would make a big comeback the following year in The Ten Commandments. There was not to be a comeback for George Raft however.

Look for another good performance by Audrey Totter as the gang moll who Raft recruits to entice Dolenz. Totter graced many a B film back in the day competing with Veda Ann Borg for brassiest moll.

A Bullet for Joey is good noir film with a cast headed by two guys who knew their way around the genre. It's a cold war relic of a film, but I think can still be enjoyed by today's audience.

In Montreal, a police inspector (Edward G. Robinson) slowly discovers a plot to kidnap a nuclear physicist. American mobsters, foreign spies and a blonde seductress are all involved.

John Howard Reid considered the movie dull. He said a slow pace, one-dimensional characters, and an unconvincing climax plague the film. Sadly, I tend to think he is right. I was all invested the first ten or fifteen minutes, but found myself less interested as the movie went on.

I have a special fondness for George Raft, and an even bigger fondness for Edward G. Robinson, so you simply cannot go wrong with a film that has both men. And then adding all the film noir elements, along with spies and such, you have real potential. I just do not know if they actually reached it.

A Bullet for Joey (1955)

There are some quirky oddball aspects to this film that keep it interesting--but only in spurts. First of all, there's George Raft, who is past his best days, but it's interesting all the same to see an actor with some great movies in his past. The whole strange premise of the movie, which gets a little lost in petty distractions, is about Communist spying, with a gangster (Raft) doing some gangstery things across the border--in Canada. The good guy is the inimitable Edward G. Robinson, who has a minor role despite his big billing.

What drags the movie is the basics--the story, and the direction. Lewis Allen has a couple of decent films to his credit--"Suddenly" is great, and so is "The Uninvited"--but the mundane settings and amorphous plot here are sometimes just dull. I think this is classic case of too many variables that didn't quite click, and Allen couldn't lift it up to something fabulous. As usual, the best scenes are good, but even the ending, with all its drama, doesn't quite click.

Not bad, but rather formulaic 50's crime/spy movie. However, it was redeemed by George Raft's delivery of one of the best and funniest lines I've ever heard. No spoilers here, but pay attention during the scenes between Robinson and Raft.