Desesperado

The trucker Steve Randall (Steve Brodie) is an ex-GI that has fought in the war and has been married with Anne Randall (Audrey Long) for four months. Steve has a trunking business, but he arrives home with the intention of celebrating his wedding anniversary with Anne. He receives a phone call from a client that offers a small fortune to him to transport some goods that night and he does not have how to refuse.

When he arrives at the spot, he finds that he was lured by the mobster Walt Radak (Raymond Burr) that wants to use Steve's truck to transport stolen furs. Steve does not accept the deal but is forced by Walt's gangsters to drive his truck. When he sees a police officer on the street, he blinks the headlights to call his attention. There is a shooting and the police officer is murdered and Walt's young brother Al is left behind and arrested by the police.

Walt tries to force Steve to assume the murder to save his brother but Steve flees from the gangsters and travels with Anne, who is pregnant, to the countryside, pursued by Walt and his gangsters and by the police. When Steve finds a safe place for Anne in the farm of her Aunt Klara (Ilka Gruning) and Uncle Jan (Paul E. Burns), he goes to the police department and tells his story to Det. Lt. Louie Ferrari (Jason Robards) that does not believe in his words but let him go. Steve returns to the farm without knowing that Ferrari released him to be a bait to catch Walt and his men.

"Desperate" is a film-noir by Anthony Mann with a good story of pursue and death wish, with sordid characters, like for example the mobster, the car dealer, the detective lieutenant among others and good duel between Steve Brodie and Raymond Burr. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Desesperado" ("Desperate")

Raymond Burr is the main feature as the crime boss desperately trying to save his younger brother from a date with the electric chair. Directed by Anthony Mann, the pace picks up as the hour approaches for the execution, and the final minutes of the film are quite exciting, with Burr, the clock ticking down to midnight, and the police closing in. The implausible ending may have given the film more appeal but watered down the impact it was building up. Before Burr went into television, he made a believable impression as a criminal, as here, and the film loses momentum whenever he's not in it. Steve Brodie, as an unwitting small time trucker with a new wife, doesn't really convey the dramatic impact to counter Burr.

This 40s noir B-movie has quite a solid reputation, but its plot is strictly second-rate. Steve Brodie plays an average joe, a truck driver not long out of the army and recently married to a lush wife who bakes cakes to celebrate the fact that she is pregnant. Sadly, hubby never gets to taste her culinary skills because he accepts a last minute lucrative driving job that turns out to be crooked. Raymond Burr's gang of crooks haven't got their own vehicle so, bizarrely, they decide to hire one to carry out a warehouse theft and, one dead cop later, Brodie finds himself on the run as a cop-killer.

Mann's direction is better than the plot. He wasn't scared to try something different every now and then. At one point we're even given a blurry POV close-up of Burr's retreating fist after it has connected with Brodie's face. Burr plays the heavy here, as he usually did in his early career. He was a big man even before he put a few pounds on, but looks swarthy here as well, almost Mediterranean. He's certainly the most interesting character in the film, a gangster out to save his brother from the electric chair and endeavouring to have our relatively bland hero take his place.

The main weakness in the storyline is the hero's poor decision-making. He practically panics each time danger is at hand, and yet delays contacting the police for an inordinate length of time so that the villains can more or less pursue him at their leisure.

This is undoubtedly better than its modest production values would suggest, but it isn't a classic by any measure.

This is a TOUGH film, incredibly stylised. This is the essence of the 40's film noir (just take a look at the scene where a beating takes place in a basement, lit by a single swinging overhead light, fantastic). Burr is great as the gangleader.

This Black and White film from the late 40's had a great deal of class and great acting. Steve Brodie,(Steve Randall),"Frankenstein Island",'81, played a guy who had all the bad breaks and never seemed to be able to settle down with the gal or off spring and have a nice home in a small country town. Audrey Lang,(Anne Randall),"Born to Kill",'47, was the wife of Steve Randall who did her best to help him make the right decisions and even got him to marry her. Steve and Ann Randall kept running away from a terrible threat made by Raymond Burr,(Walt Radak),"San Quentin",'46, who was seeking revenge for the loss of a close family member. Jason Robards Sr., (Detective Lt., Louie Ferrari),"Impact",'49, played the detective who was very interested in Steve Randall and hounded him where ever he traveled. There are some very tense scenes in which Walt Radak uses a clock to drive Steve Randall to a complete breaking point in his life. Great classic B film with a very young looking Raymond Burr and Jason Robards Sr. giving a great supporting role.