Acossado!

Cornered (1945)

"You can't be serious," the cheerful man said to Dick Powell, playing an ex-soldier in post-war Argentina. "I'm always serious," Powell replies. And he is. This defines the actor, and the character, and the doggedness of this character's pursuit of some mystery in the movie. It's impressive and wearing--a little humor might make him more human, yes, and it would also make the move more watchable. The cheerful man is a mystery, too, played with usual irony and crossed agendas by Walter Slezak (seen in a similar role in "Born to Kill").

Director Edward Dmytryk is as usual just short of superb. I don't think he has a bad film, but he often worked with compromised material (the story here is an example) or he worked too quickly (my guess) to pull together something extraordinary. But putting it this way is meant to say this movie has lots of aspects that are great.

One strength is the section of shots of what looks like genuine war torn France made months after the end of fighting. Another highlight is the film noir style throughout--the lighting, the clipped dialog, the lone man against the world, the brooding depression. Powell is his own kind of attraction. As offputting as his anger can get after awhile, it's exactly what makes him good, bullheaded and bulldozing his way through a complex network of enemies (who would really just kill him in short order if this was a realistic film, which no noir is).

The plot is unusually hard to follow (though other noirs come close, like "The Big Heat"). And the antagonists are largely only talked about--Powell is searching for someone, and that person and his collaborators are either unseen or so duplicitous you don't know where he stands, and so the ominousness gets vague, but also beautifully diffuse and omnipresent. It is this oppressiveness that is part of the success here, even as you get lost with the details of the plot. There are some nice night shots (one briefly in the park is ominous) and many facial close ups. There is a terrific conversation on a subway platform with the noise of the cars drowning out the talk now and then, great audio effect. And so the filming is worth the ride alone at times. The music is intense and dramatic, the bit actors really powerful even if they sometimes do foolish things (the valet getting shot, or half of the things Powell does).

In the film noir "cycle" this is early--the core films come after WWII, so this, along with "Double Indemnity," is cutting edge in that sense. It's also definitive in its mood. It's not a crime film, not a gangster story (which is where the hard film style has its American roots). It's a plot about how a person tries to rearrange his life after having it messed up, internally and externally, by the war. Powell is a perfect early noir leading male (the other famous one in the 1940s is Bogart). So this is a critically important film, maybe more important than truly enjoyable, but if you like noir it'll be terrific enough to hold you. If you aren't predisposed to like this kind of story, you'll find it meandering and dull and confusing. Me? I'm predisposed to like it, and I did, and I'll even watch it again, probably figuring it out a little more and enjoying it better.

Buenos Aires enjoyed a vogue (so far as the movies were concerned) in the mid-1940s, providing the locale for Notorious, Gilda and Edward Dmytryk's Cornered. In all three, it serves as a sort of terminal moraine for Nazi refugees from the shambles of the Axis powers.

Dick Powell continues his transformation from lip-glossed song-and-dance man for Busby Berkeley into a five-o'clock-shadowed tough guy, a makeover he had begun the previous year as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet (also by Dmytryk). Here he's a Canadian Royal Air Force veteran who ends up in Argentina, via France and Switzerland, on a mission to avenge the murder of his war-bride wife. He enters a whirl of black-tie affairs in cavernous mansions (those Nazis knew how to party) and a nest of duplicity surrounding the mysterious, and presumably dead, war-criminal-in-chief, known as Jarnac -- the object of his deadly hunt. An at-first bewildering cast of sinister operatives gradually sorts itself out into villains (Walter Slezak the most memorable of them) and members of an anti-Fascist group; Powell, the while, skulks along the moonlit streets of the city in pursuit of Jarnac's "widow."

Dmytryk displays his pioneering flair for noir devices, keeping the atmospherics and tension high. He's let down a bit by the murkiness of the plotting, where the political theme emerges and disappears, leaving abstract stretches of suspense that might as easily have taken place in Boston or Bombay. And it's hard to buy into the convention that, in rooms blazing with gunfire, the red-blooded American will always prevail by means of a manly sock to the jaw. Somewhat dated by its wartime politics and its roots in the international-intrigue genre, Cornered remains a solid piece of work by both Dmytryk and Powell.

It seems as if Dick Powell is almost forgotten today, which is a shame. A wonderful actor, singer, and incredible producer, he gave Sam Peckinpah and Aaron Spelling their starts, and his "Dick Powell Theatre" on TV was marvelously entertaining. Unfortunately, cancer would take him at the age of 59. But he packed a lot into those years.

Transitioning out of the Warner Brothers singing juvenile, Powell made "Murder, My Sweet" with the same director responsible for "Cornered," Edward Dmytryk, who would find himself blacklisted later on.

Here, Powell plays a Canadian flyer, Laurence Gerard, who goes to France after the war to find out who is responsible for his wife's death. He learns it is a Vichy collaborator, Marcel Jarnac, now dead himself.

Gerard doubts that Jarnac is dead, and his search for Jarnac takes Gerard to Argentina, where many Nazis have settled. Before long, Gerard realizes that he is unable to trust anyone, even those who claim to want to help him.

This is a very good movie, which also stars Walter Slezak as a man who sells information, as well as two Broadway stars, Luther Adler and Morris Carnovsky. Carnovsky was named as a communist by Elia Kazan but enjoyed a great stage career, dying at the age of 94.

Well worth seeing for the good performances, direction, and story.

A lot of the Hayes code seems destined for the trash heap in this film. We see women who are obviously willing to sleep with our protagonist. There's blood. There are bodies, right out in the open. Burned up or riddled with bullet holes, there they are. One of our characters gets slugged in the mouth and we see a bloody drizzle escaping his lips.

Yes, the Hayes code took a beating with this one.

There are dark, sinister looks, from dark sinister people. Gerard (Powell) is surrounded by murderous people and we don't know who is for him or against him. At least not until the end of the film.

This one film is proof positive that the innocence of America is long gone. No one is smiling. No one is truly happy. Everyone is on edge because, even though the war is over, our cast is headed for a long torturous road to normalcy. We are all hoping they make it.

During the war, Gerard (Powell) is returned to friendly territory were he recovers from his wounds. While in hospital, he receives a letter from his wife's father, telling him that his wife is dead. Gerard knows something isn't right and that "Dad" isn't telling the whole story.

He applies for a visa and is told a background check (his) will take a month. He returns to France illegally, to get answers. And thus the fun begins.

This is excellent film noir told from the perspective of writers, a director, and producer who have been affected by real war.

It shows.

Watched 'Cornered', having recently watched another Edward Dmytryk and Dick Powell collaboration 'Farewell, My Lovely' (aka 'Murder, My Sweet') and loving it. So hopefully understandably, a large part of me was hoping that it would be the same with 'Cornered'. Do think that it is hard not to love a film and have high expectations for another film to feature the same director, actor or both. There have been numerous cases in film of that happening, and there are examples of repeated collaborations that work and others that don't.

'Cornered' unfortunately fits in the latter and was rather disappointing, neither Powell or Dmytryk come off badly but there is not the same spark here that there was in 'Farewell, My Lovely'. Not down to them, both of them are among the film's better assets, but with the mixed results of the rest of the film. These are my own views, and with only having read a few reviews from trusted sources, the critical reception mixed just to say. 'Cornered' is competent and is far from a mess, but there are some big flaws here and ones that could have been easily avoidable.

Dmytryk directs skilfully and consummately. Powell gives another performance that is successful in the harder, tougher edge sort of roles and shying away from his musical roles, his best moments were pretty electric. Walter Slezak was the clear supporting cast stand out, his duplicity both entertaining and sinister.

It looks slick and stylish with a touch of eeriness, while the score has a haunting moodiness. The script has many moments of tautness and fun.

Sadly, 'Cornered' is let down by too many big problems summed up already. It does run too long, with some scenes feeling over-stretched and not always necessary, and really could have done with a tightening up in terms of pacing. There is evidence of some suspense, but the story does tend to be over-complicated that it becomes very muddled that the viewer loses track.

Although Powell, Slezak and the male cast in general fare well, the female roles are significantly less interesting and are actually rather blandly performed and underwritten. Character motivations and such also could have been much clearer, with the film trying to pack in a lot and go from point to point while not going into enough detail.

Concluding, competent but underwhelming. 5/10