Sangue Acusador

"Undertow" is a simplistic example of a good 'B' picture, your basic Film Noir 101 movie. There are no surprises, lots of coincidences and plot contrivances, and the endgame is telegraphed about midway through. Screenwriters could have written this one in their sleep, which may account for the flawed, unsatisfying nature of Undertow.

The cast is attractive; several familiar 'B' actors put this picture over with performances that infuse it with much-needed energy. I thought Scott Brady, John Russell, Bruce Bennett and Peggy Dow were just fine, production values were good, but the movie lacks suspense and tension. Every time a crucial scene would come up you just knew the outcome.

Nevertheless, 'Undertow" succeeds in its own unsophisticated way, and for 40's theater audiences it would have been a good time killer while waiting for the main feature to come on.

Scott Brady meets Peggy Dow at the Reno gambling spot run by John Russell. He helps her win $120 at the craps table. They are seated next to each other on the flight to Chicago. He tells her he's going to propose to Dorothy Hart. He doesn't notice, but she looks disappointed.

In Chicago, Miss Hart is enthusiastic, but she warns him her uncle will object. He's the head of the Syndicate and he doesn't want her wedding anyone from the criminal world. Brady says he'll talk to him, but on the way he is grabbed, shot and moved. When he wakes, he discovers her uncle has been killed and he's been identified as the killer. The cops are on to his old friends. His only possible help is Miss Dow and his old friend Bruce Bennett, now a Chicago detective.

William Castle directed this with a lot of Chicago location shooting. It's more a Black Mask sort of story than a straight noir, with the lighting touches limited to the El system and the final couple of minutes. The movie is directed for speed and efficiency -- a Universal programmer, but with a decent number of red herrings and good performances (particularly by Bennett) until the murk begins to clear for the viewer about two-thirds of the way through.

Observant fans will want to keep an eye out for Rock Hudson in his first credited role.

The plot is actually impressingly ingenious, as it is impossible to guess what it is all about, and like the poor framed victim and failed wooer you feel inclined to just give it all up, but there are two dames involved in this, one in the thick of it and one by accident. Eventually the one with the many children carries home the prize.

The music adds to the increasing quality of this very suggestive noir, and several composers appear to have been at it, among others Frank Skinner and Miklos Rosza. William Castle directed many films, mostly B, the "Whistler" series and the "Crime Doctor" series among others, but this should be one of the best ones. For once the brevity of the film is an asset, because it increases the density and the brilliant conciseness of the account. The plot is brilliantly contrived, like a perfect jig-saw puzzle, which is impossible to identify before it is finished, as the clue to the mystery arrives better late than never. The actors make good performances, Scott Brady on the rack at the mercy of Dorothy Hart, while Peggy Dow is a relief. You get misgivings from the beginning as it is in the racket of gambling, starting off at Reno and continuing in Chicago with hoodlums and everything, and all your worst suspicions gradually come true. But it is an efficient thriller and well worth watching, for all its extreme unpleasantness of worries and suspense.

Today ,William Castle is known as the man who bought Ira Levin's "Rosemary's baby " rights and produced one of the best horror movies of all time.

"Undertow" has a quite derivative screenplay but the director made the best of it and any film noir buff can give it a chance :it thoroughly deserves it.It features at least one unforgettable scene: the chase in the long corridor which gives you goose flesh.Of the two female leads,I prefer Dorothy Hart to the rather bland Peggy Dow.

In the 1968 movie Castle produced ,there was a corridor which played a prominent part too.

There's more to Undertow than the first screen credit of young `Roc' Hudson (in fact his tiny role as a police detective barely registers). It's one of a handful of noirs that William Castle directed before turning his attention to, and making his name in, gimmicky schlock. While none of them is so good as his first – When Strangers Marry, with Robert Mitchum and Kim Hunter – they're more than passable. As is Undertow.

Scott Brady looks like Lawrence Tierney's kid brother (which in fact he was). In Reno after a stint at a mountain lodge he wants to buy and run, he bumps into an old pal from mobbed-up Chicago (John Russell). They compare the diamond rings they've bought for their respective fiancees, though that doesn't stop Brady from flirting with a girl (Peggy Dow) he met in a casino and shares a flight home with. Since the police meet him at the plane, any extracurricular romance comes to naught, so Brady dutifully hooks up with his intended (Dorothy Hart). Next thing, he's taken for a ride and framed for the murder of unseen crime boss Big Jim, who happens to be Hart's uncle. Trying to clear himself while on the lam, he enlists Dow's help; he also happens to stumble onto the fact that his fiancee and Russell's are the same woman....

Undertow is pure story, competently enough executed if devoid of anything particular to lodge in the memory. It preserves evidence of why Brady stayed in his brother's imposing shadow, and leads one to wonder why Hart made so few movies (though, of her handful of credits, roughly half are noirs). While not an essential title in the noir cycle by any means, Undertow was one of the hundreds of titles that went into making it a cycle, and far from the weakest of them.