Guilty Bystander

Zachary Scott stars in "Guilty Bystander" as Max Thursday, an alcoholic ex-cop who's practically lived in a bottle since he was hounded off the force. He barely gets by, his marriage is gone and he's a crappy house detective in an even crappier motel.

Thursday's ex-wife contacts him. It seems that their young son has been kidnapped and she wants Max to somehow find the boy. But Max is clearly an alcoholic and the only way he can function is to keep drinking....enough to keep him functioning but to enough to get him drunk. The trail leads to the seedy underworld and a lot of very dangerous characters.

While I didn't adore this film (it had too many names and some backstory seemed to be missing), it is amazing when it comes to atmosphere. Plus, Scott is really good as this terrific anti-hero. Well worth seeing if you love film noir...and still worth seeing if you don't!

Everything is in it: the dark shades, the twists in the plot and the troubles policeman and some ravishing ladies. Totally restored in 2019. A long story, but some gripping scenes in the end.

This movie presents a curious case. It obviously was made on a rock-bottom budget (and looks it); its plot -- about a kidnapped boy -- is as hard to follow as The Big Sleep's, without any of that movie's big-studio glamour and high gloss; and prints of the movie in circulation, with poor sound and visuals, don't help its reputation either. Nonetheless, Guilty Bystander has a few very strong points in its favor. Chief among them is the old pro Mary Boland as Smitty, the proprietress of a fleabag hotel several notches below the threshold of respectability; she's a scheming old battleax who has more going on under her unkempt wisps of grey hair than she wants her cronies and go-fers to know. Next there's Zachary Scott, as Max Thursday, an ex-cop now sleeping off benders in the same fleabag, where he's kept on as the house dick; an underrated actor, he invests his loser's role with a painful intensity, stumbling and limping from skid row to waterfront to warehouse in pursuit for the son he hasn't seen in years. As his ex-wife and mother of the kidnapped boy, Faye Emerson (Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt to you), brings more than her fabled bone structure to the part. In fact, with better acting than you have any right to expect (plus an unrelentingly depressing milieu), Guilty Bystander is more than a curio; it's as if the cast knew what a lousy movie they signed up for and decided to go for broke anyway.

Watchable microbudget noir shot largely on location in New York City and taking maximum advantage of subway stations, back alleys, and warehouse districts. The story is hard to follow, even though the big reveal - the identity of the mysterious St. Paul - is pretty easy to guess. Longtime character actor Jesse White makes a brief appearance as an unsuccessful pickup artist at a bar.

I was surprised to see Dmitri Tiomkin credited with the score on such a small movie. I was even more surprised by how much I disliked the score. To me, it felt all wrong for noir - overblown and portentous even when nothing much is happening, excessively romantic and "pretty" at odd (almost random) moments. It's a rare case of film music that seems to have little to do with the action on the screen.

Another reviewer wonders how this movie ended up on a list of the best 250 films noir. I know how. If you make a list of 250 (!) noirs, you'll be including basically all of them. Hollywood made a lot of noirs, but certainly not 250 that qualify as the "best" of anything.

"Guilty Bystander" is neither the best nor the worst of the genre, but there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

Incidentally, I'd like to think that when "Dragnet" was taking shape in his mind, Jack Webb saw this movie and thought, "Max Thursday, hmm? Maybe tweak it just a little ..."

This one checks most of the usual noir boxes and knowing it was shot on shoestring makes it even more impressive. The performances are well above average and the set pieces first rate. Many scenes shot gonzo style without permit in some of the seedier parts of the city. A must see for any fan of noir.