Desafiando o Perigo

When army chaplain Arthur Franz is shot and killed, his brother, San Francisco businessman George Raft sets out to discover who did it.... and to take vengeance before the police can stop him. His only clue are Franz's last words and a missing Gideon Bible. We already know it's Raymond Burr.

It's an unusual film noir produced and directed by Roy Del Ruth. Instead of the usual insistence on man's sinful nature in a world gone to ruin, this one has a clear religious message; it looks Catholic to me, but sufficiently worn down to avoid offending any rabid Presbyterians in the audience. Raft wanders through the movie with the same low-affect performance he gave in seemingly all his later movies, but that permits others to emote more fully without seeming to go over the top.

... because you always know what you're going to get. However, that doesn't mean that I don't really enjoy his movies. Nobody, I mean nobody does revenge like Raft. Here he plays businessman Johnny Torno, proud older brother of young Jess Torno, a priest recently returned from being a chaplain in WWII. Four years earlier Torno's bookkeeper Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr) was sent to prison for embezzling from Johnny's company - he was embarrassingly guilty and it was really a lot of money. Instead of blaming the man in the mirror, Nick blames Johnny for his fate and crafts a particularly cruel revenge. If he kills Johnny, Johnny's troubles are over. However, if he kills what is precious to him - brother Jess - he can plunge Johnny into a living hell of grief. He sends a hit man (Harry Morgan) out to do the killing. Johnny finds Jess just before he dies. Of course Johnny wants to know who did this so he can kill them in revenge - he tells Jess so - and Jess tells him the answer is written in a Bible.

Now at first Johnny thinks Jess means his own personal Bible, but after searching through it he finds nothing. He then realizes that Jess probably meant the Gideon Bible that is found in every hotel room. This starts Johnny on a search for the missing Bible and all of the guests in the hotel room since Jess' death who might have taken it. Nick, now out of prison, along with the hit man, are right on Johnny's heels hoping their plans are not discovered.

It is very odd to see later TV good guys Harry Morgan and Raymond Burr playing such sinister characters but the performances ring true. So does Virginia Mayo as a girl Johnny befriends along the way as the voice of reason and even redemption. Raft wrestles here not only with bad guys and a mystery but with God Himself - he treats the Almighty either like a traffic cop that he thinks can be bribed or an unreliable employee that he doesn't fire because he enjoys blaming him for his troubles, depending on his mood.

A good noir and good stuff from Raft - highly recommended.

One man (Raymond Burr) avenges being sent to prison for embezzling from a San Francisco trucking company by having the younger brother, a priest played by Arthur Franz, of the owner of the trucking company (George Raft) killed, shot in cold blood in a hotel room by Burr's prison associate Henry Morgan. The killing itself is impressively done and Morgan looks surprisingly mean. Burr is in top form looking downright menacing, and basically carries a lot of this film, as Raft's part goes way overboard as the vengeful older brother, though the Gideon's Bible angle of the film gives the part some saving grace. Virginia Mayo's role as one of the people who stayed in the hotel room where the murder took place, does not add much, as she is used by Raft to help find the Bible in which there is supposedly a clue to the killer's identity. As well, the great talent of Gene Lockhart gets somewhat squandered in his role as company VP. The role of the Bible itself makes the film a bit of a religious noir, an element that is also captured in some superb cinematography by the great Bert Glennon. The final fifteen minutes do definitely not let one down as Burr and Raft meet in the trucking company office on a rainy night, and the pieces fall efficiently together.

Red Light is directed by Roy Del Ruth and adapted to screenplay by George Callahan from the story This Guy Gideon written by Don Barry. It stars George Raft, Virginia Mayo, Raymond Burr, Harry Morgan and Gene Lockhart. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Bert Glennon.

Something of an oddity, Red Light finds George Raft up to his neck in religion, revenge and a smouldering Virginia Mayo. After his brother, a chaplain, is murdered, he sets off to find the killer, whom can be identified by a message scrawled in a Gideon Bible. Find the Bible, find the killer.

It is brought into the film noir sphere of things via Glennon's photography, which kicks in at the hour mark and runs concurrent with the murky thematics in the narrative, Frisco a rain sodden place of sleaze. Other than that it plays more as a crime drama, albeit one with some decidedly spicy killings and another top villain turn from Raymond Burr. Tiomkin's musical cues are strange and not always in sync with what is happening on screen, while the biblical hermeneutics and various plot contrivances irk rather than perk.

See it for Burr and Glennon's work, or if you fancy a weird blend of noir and ethical religio redemptions! 6/10

How satisfying! What better casting than George Raft as ANGRY MAN?? The Lord may say: "Vengeance is mine," but Georgie says "the heck with that noise -- this one's MY baby!" He rampages through a multi-state search-and-destroy mission in his quest to find the message hidden in the Gideon Bible that was in his brother's room when he was killed. Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan are his Mutt and Jeff antagonists: The irony of course being that as he fervently seeks the Bible, he fervently disregards it. But with a little Mayo on the side, things turn spiritual on Georgie, forcing him to listen to The Man before he can do a Godzilla on Godzie's old pal Burr. This is George Raft vs. The Lord, and it's anybody's match! Great fun all around, and there are even moral lessons, if you're into moral lessons, and intense but effective music to learn by, in the bargain. If you can find it, it's worth an hour and a half in your busy schedule, and you might even end up spiritually uplifted -- but stay out from under big trucks -- they're heavy!