Tributo de Sangue

William Holden is Jerry McKibbon, a reporter who's trying to help his pal Edmond O'Brien as district attorney John Conroy and his girl Alexis Smith as Amanda Waycross expose the big city gangster Ed Begley as Neil Eichelberger with some help from O'Brien's cop father, Tom Tully as Matt Conroy. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a thrilling crime drama though compared to others from the period, also perhaps a little subdued. Still, a suspenseful atmosphere permeates throughout especially when a boxing match where someone tries to kill provides the exciting climax. No big music score is provided but there are some good sequences when the story doesn't take the time for some romance between either of the male leads and Ms. Smith which aren't really needed. So on that note, The Turning Point is well worth the time.

The Turning Point (1952)

Great cast (good guys and bad), great director (William Dieterle is a stalwart Hollywood director who did "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" among many others), and solid plot. You can't go wrong. It moves fast, it makes sense, it has drama and romance, and a great shoot-em-up ending in a boxing arena.

And yet something is withheld. I think it's partly camera-work, all very shadowy and excellent, but not elegant, not pumped up and dramatic. The story, as well, is a little routine. By 1952 this kind of crime noir gangster film is old stuff. They even hint at this in the movie, by saying that the unnamed midwestern city is seeing a rise in crime in the old style, a return of 1920s gangsterism. But if they mean to return to the great gangster films, they don't quite make it.

But it's still really fine--William Holden is an understated player and therefore underrated. And the co-lead, the star of "D.O.A." and "The Hitchhiker" among a few other lesser films, is Edmond O'Brien, who is maybe at his best here. You see a curious position for Holden, hot off of "Sunset Blvd.," in a somewhat secondary role, because he might be the leading hunk, but O'Brien is the leading man.

A good film without that special something to lift it up, but without a flaw, either, in any usual sense. Totally a pleasure in its understated approach.

William Dieterle's resume shows him to be a solid craftsman only occasionally rising to true distinction. Same can be said of The Turning Point, an often routine noir about a government committee -- this was the era of the televised Kefauver hearings -- investigating mob activity and corruption in a "midwestern" city (though one scene is shot on Los Angeles' funicular railway). Routine also are cynical journalist William Holden and chief investigator Edmond O'Brien, though we're lucky to have the seldom-seen Alexis Smith as a woman attracted to them both. But the best thing in the movie is Ed Begley as the owner of a trucking company who is of course the hoodlum in chief, despite his panelled office and tailored suits. He's memorably slick and squirmy in front of the committee. But his best moment comes when he confides to a henchman his plans to burn down the tenement building where his records are stored: "You don't believe I'd do it?" he jokes. "I don't think a jury would believe it either." The following conflagration is as brutal a plot development as can be found in film noir, with firetrucks, ambulances and bodybags aplenty. It's a scene that sticks with you long after the screenplay's romantic triangle has faded from memory.

A nicely assembled rather complex story about small time corruption in an anonymous midwestern city that effectively balances its mix of plot elements into a plausible and interesting whole. Edmond O'Brien plays an idealistic lawyer who heads an investigation that leads him into his own family. William Holden plays an investigative reporter and childhood pal of O'Brien's, a likely and believable role for him, a born cynic on screen if there ever was one, who not only gets to the center of the corruption plague but also attracts the attentions of Alexis Smith, O'Brien's girlfriend and secretary. Directed by William Dieterle, the film should be pulled apart by its competing angles, but isn't, holding together nicely while it fits in the increasingly deadly corruption headed by an always convincing Ed Begley, and showing a sympathetic and at times pathetic O'Brien whose life seems to unravel around him as the film reaches its various points, leading to a tight and exciting conclusion with Neville Brand playing a out of town killer in a crowded boxing arena.

The Kefauver committee's hearings into organised crime had millions of Americans glued to their TV screens and naturally Hollywood was quick to pounce. Of the film noirs inspired by the hearings the most accomplished is arguably this one directed by one of cinema's great stylists William Dieterle and featuring strong performances from a cast that can only be described as top notch.

Edmond O'Brien as moral crusader Conroy is dedicated but never self-righteous whilst William Holden's McKibbon is one of his cynical roles from this period. Alexis Smith as Amanda is required to be earnest and this she does very well. Ed Begley is spot on as an utterly loathsome crime boss supposedly based on the equally loathsome Frank Costello and as there is no show without Punch his sidekick is played by the ubiquitous Ted de Corsia. Carolyn Jones makes a delicious debut in a brief appearance as a gangster's moll.

Mention must be made of the expertise behind the camera, notably Lionel Lindon's cinematography, the literate script for which Warren Duff is credited but which shows the influence of the legendary but uncredited W. R. Burnett and not least the superlative editing by George Tomasini whose contribution to the films of Hitchcock was to prove immeasurable and whose editing here of the climactic scene at the boxing match typifies his skills. Apart fom 'stock' music at the start and conclusion, it is the sounds of the city that provide the soundtrack throughout.

Dieterle had begun as an actor in German silent films and adapted brilliantly to the Hollywood system but sadly, although he was never officially charged, the HUAC made life difficult for him and he was soon to find worthy directorial assignments elusive.

The film itself offers a grim reminder that even though the occasional battle against organised crime may be won, the war is ultimately lost. It is akin to the mythological Hydra and whenever one of its many heads is cut off, another grows in its place.