Vida Contra Vida

Burgess Meredith does well in this straightforward Noir. It's short sweet and to a good point.

Not the greatest example of the genre but (did I say short). A couple of good twists and at times eerie and suspenseful.

It's also interesting to see Sheldon Leonard as a hard boiled cop.

So, if you are Noir-addicted it is worth the time to watch. It could have been longer, there were some gaps to fill but...

I liked it. Especially Burgess.

Burgess Meredith is hit in the head with some falling debris and when he comes to, he realizes he doesn't know why he's in that part of town. He also notices that his hat and cigarette case have the wrong monogram. He goes home only to be told that he wife moved a year ago.

Something happened to him and he's been suffering from amnesia. The blow to the head has restored his memory, but he doesn't know where he's been for a year. One thing he does know ... Sheldon Leonard is chasing him.

Meredith goes back to the part of town where the accident happened, and he runs into Claire Trevor who is his amnesiac self's girlfriend ... and who points out that he's wanted for murder.

This really early film noir has an intriguing set up, a nice mystery with a couple of interesting twists, and a fairly underwhelming conclusion. Still ... the mystery hinges on a paralyzed woman blinking while Meredith shouts out the alphabet. That's pure entertainment.

I can also never get enough Sheldon Leonard.

"Street of Chance" is an old movie that was meant as a B-movie. In other words, a shorter and cheaper film to accompany the main feature. So, even though the story is filled with some silly cliches, I could look past this because the movie wasn't intended to be perfect...or anything close to it!

Frank (Burgess Meredith) is walking down a city street when debris from a building falls on him. He's mostly okay...mostly. Although he hasn't broken any bones, he has broken his brain. In other words, he has amnesia and can't remember who he is and has trouble remembering recent details of his life. Eventually, he learns that he's wanted for murder....and he's determined to prove his innocence. To help him with this is a woman (Claire Trevor) who tells Frank she's his girlfriend. But can he trust her or anyone else??

The notion of getting bonked on the head and developing an all new personality is popular--particularly in 1950s and 60s TV shows. In reality, such accidents and reactions are rare. Again, I wasn't trying to say it was believable...just mildly interesting and mildly entertaining.

Paramount's "Street of Chance" is an early, and certainly not full-fledged, entry in the film noir canon. It qualifies mainly for being based on a work by that master of paranoia and cruel fate, Cornell Woolrich -- using the familiar amnesia premise to trigger the protagonist's alienation -- and by its oppressively moody low-key lighting. The first few reels offer a true noir milieu of urban angst and displacement -- the hero, injured by falling construction material, discovers a year-long lapse in his life -- and worse, he's suspected of murder and has a completely unremembered lover in addition to his puzzled wife. As the film progresses and he narrows in on the truth, it resolves itself into something closer to Gothic melodrama, with a more traditional view of human transgression and frailty. The blending of the two genres is reminiscent of the studio's "Among the Living" from the previous year rather than the out-and-out noirs "This Gun For Hire" and "The Glass Key" of its own release year.

Paramount's B-picture unit offered a higher degree of professionalism than most, reflected by the fine level of performance and technical achievement here. Burgess Meredith's lead character is far too benign to be a true Woolrichian anti-hero, but Claire Trevor shows underlying tinges of femme-fatalité which would serve her well later in her career. Lower-rank director Jack Hively contributes a few visual cachets, particularly the unexpected discovery of a pivotal character lurking in the background, and an over-the-transom tracking shot to end the picture that is almost Antonioniesque. Unfortunately, he doesn't milk the character conflict for much intensity, and the denouement is disappointingly soft.

This noir whodunnit is manned by Burgess Meredith, who gives a textured performance, and an early career appearance of Claire Trevor, who would go to greater things. Even Sheldon Leonard, as a deadpan cop, is mildly amusing. The amnesia plot, however, wears a bit thin on the nerves, as it so cliched. and was done too often in noir.

For a B film, this is not too bad. It keeps your interest for over an hour and is decently paced by the director, Jack Hively. Initially, one thinks the protagonist is the target of gangsters, but we find out quickly it is just trigger-happy cops. There is no explanation, however, as to why Jack transforms into Naehring for a year, and dumps his loving wife for that same year. Despite that hole in the plot, the film is entertaining.