O Enviado de Satanás

Forget Double Indemnity - for me, this is the quintessential film noir. Ray Milland was never better, and all the cast are on top form. The editing's great, and there's not a wasted shot. Some say the ending's a cop out (see other comments for plot details), but it's hard to see how else it could have been done without compromising both the essence, and flavour, of the film.

I last saw this classic on TV about 15 years ago, and as far as I know it's never been either repeated, or released on video or DVD. WHY???

If anyone out there's got a recording they'd be willing to copy for me I'd love to hear from them. Maybe we can trade. Thanks.

Alias Nick Beal (1949)

A nice discovery! I'd never heard of this film, though I pride myself on following the noirs that are out there (mostly on TCM these days, having used up all the DVD released films). If you start with some doubt in the overly dramatic beginning credits (lightning, rain, and a Waxman score that is over the top), don't quit. We get a classic noir voice over by leading man Ray Milland, and then we're in the classic noir milieus.

Thomas Mitchell is at first the main man, and he's great in his inimitable way (though always better in supporting roles). And other character actors fill in the scenes as we see a man ready to run for governor and a whirlwind of corruption and wheeling around him. This doesn't sound like a noir, actually, but call it a crime and suspense film. It's good, moves fast, keeps an edge.

Milland shares the lead, entering on a foggy dock as the music turns dour. Cinematographer Lionel Linden has a field day with dramatic light and atmosphere (he's most famous for "Manchurian Candidate," though see "Blue Dahlia" for starters.) And he helps a lot because the movie is otherwise a kind of clever drama. There is one trick behind it all, which I can't mention, and you might not buy into it (and it certainly makes this a weird noir, and maybe even a weird crime film). But it makes it original in all the dark interiors and night scenes.

So what makes the film not quite click? One is Milland, who is stiff and dry (as usual). The other is Mitchell, who has a wonderful ease on camera but who doesn't have the bearing of a powerful man—a savvy top notch prosecutor who is being swept into high end politics. And the "trick" to it all makes it less worldly and gritty than this kind of scenario needs. It is overall a kind of Faust story—the devil tempting a good man who is willing to "sell his soul" to do the right thing.

And what of Audrey Totter, you ask? Yes, she's the usual wonderful "dame," the femme fatale with airs, in this case. Her role is too small and too restrained, however. In fact, maybe everyone is restrained, a bit, not rising to the level of the visuals, which are not a bit restrained.

That Hollywood ending? Read your Faust.

Thomas Mitchell (Foster) wants to run for Governor and rid the town of corruption, but corrupt Fred Clark (Faulkner) stands in his way. Enter Ray Milland (Nick Beal). Milland can offer Mitchell what he needs to take power.

Tony Blair's PR spin-doctor Alastair Campbell is obviously the inspiration for this film. Milland plays the role of domineering adviser to Thomas Mitchell, and Milland gets his way. The cast are all good in this film, with fallen girl Audrey Totter (Donna) getting a special mention – she is funny, intuitive and tragic all at the same time. I thought the film was a bit talky at the beginning but it does seem necessary in order to set the scene. And there certainly is an air of mystery when Milland appears. There are various good scenes, my favourite being when Totter ends up speaking the dialogue that she has just rehearsed with Milland. At first she dismisses Milland for talking nonsense, but there comes a moment when she is with Mitchell and she realizes what is happening. Some of the rehearsed dialogue did not make sense to her when first repeated. But it all fits now. It's well acted and directed and it's the most memorably chilling moment for me. Good direction, effective camera shots and a good music score round out the other film highlights.

So, if you fancy running for any kind of position of power in the political arena, just remember to carry a bible with you……..or there may be trouble.

This strange story of an honest crime-fighting district attorney certainly has several haunting moments. They involve a dark stranger who has the uncanny ability to appear and disappear at precisely the right moments. This suave, eerie gentleman offers vital evidence to our honest DA against a highly corrupt criminal - that would allow him to be put away forever. No self-respecting DA could pass this up at any cost - but what is the cost? With fog bound meetings on a lonely pier at the wrong end of town, the too good to be true deal is struck. - Now to cover the unrevealed cost.

Wonderful direction and shadowy cinematography combined with superb performances make this a must see rarity. Most unfortunately it's been locked away in the MCA vaults since Paramount sold it in a package in the 50s. TCM HD is your only hope to see the newly re-printed copy - struck off for one of their Noir festivals. Let's hope they may offer it for sale on DVD sometime in future!

Some Public Domain copy houses are offering M.0.D. Off-Air copies, some of which are poor but one from the UK, has a reasonably good/OK transfer on offer.

Rarely spotted on TV even by midweek insomniacs, brushed aside even by aficionados of the Hollywood past, Alias Nick Beal is a top-notch movie that puzzlingly languishes in limbo. It's an unusual but successful cross of the supernatural fantasy films popular in the forties – like Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Heaven Can Wait, The Devil and Daniel Webster – with the grittier conflicts of the big-city exposés in film noir.

Thomas Mitchell, a progressive and muckraking mayor, won't rest easy until he eradicates corruption from his unnamed town. But incriminating ledgers detailing the graft of a rival political-machine boss have been burned. Mitchell gets a call asking for a mysterious meeting at a waterfront bar, The China Coast Café, where, like a wraith out of the harbor fogs, materializes Ray Milland. Ordering Barbados rum (with its voodooish connotations), he introduces himself as Nick Beal, which seems to be the short Americanization of Beelzebub. He offers Mitchell the pristine ledgers, from which the mayor can nail down a conviction and propel himself to the governor's mansion; trouble is, now he's stuck with the sinister Beal.

Unflappable in his suavity, Milland stays pitchfork-perfect in his scheme to strip Mitchell of his honesty and ideals. He enlists the help of bar floozie Audrey Totter, who turns herself into Mitchell's Gal Friday and diverts his affections from his wife (and conscience) Geraldine Wall. And every time Mitchell thinks he's compromised his principles for the last time or struck his final dirty bargain, in slithers Milland with another twist of the knife, a brand-new temptation. Finally elected to the statehouse, Mitchell finds that he's sold his soul to the very forces that he had always fought...

Alias Nick Beal has to be, hands down, the most sure-footed movie John Farrow ever directed; he never slips in sustaining its spectral look or precarious tone. Totter, too, excels in a part that tests her range, from a cat-fighter in a sleazy dive through efficient political aide to repentant cat's-paw. This may be her most fetching performance, particularly in her drunken exchange with a bartender: `What time is it?' `You just asked me that.' `I didn't ask you what I just asked you, I asked you what time it is.' Mitchell and Milland can't be faulted at the top of a cast that includes George Macready as a preacher who can't quite place Milland: `Have you ever had your portrait painted?' he gingerly inquires. `Yes – by Rembrandt in 1655," comes the smug retort. (The screenplay is by Jonathan Latimer, who also penned The Glass Key, Nocturne, They Won't Believe Me, Night Has A Thousand Eyes, and The Big Clock.)

This morality tale about the seduction and fall of a promising politician echoes themes explored in the same year's All The King's Men but adds a fanciful metaphysical dimension. That may look like a cop-out, a way to avoid tackling the issues realistically, but the metaphysics can be seen as metaphorical – Satan can be a symbol (and as Macready remarks, maybe he knows it's the twentieth century, too). Whatever one's take on The Spirit That Denies, the movie survives triumphantly on its own terms – the splendid and satisfying Alias Nick Beal doesn't deserve the obscurity that has come to enshroud it.