Rendez-vous avec le crime

Right before the final few moments of 1946's "Appointment with Crime," I realized I saw it many, many years ago - the final scene is very striking.

William Hartnell plays Leo Martin, who went along with a robbery scheme and was badly injured and wound up in prison while the other perps went free. When he is released from prison, he plans his revenge.

One of his ex-partners, Loman (Raymond Lovell) runs a dime a dance joint. Leo wants a job from him and subsequently learns that the job, a jewelry store robbery, was actually planned by someone else - Gregory Lang (Herbert Lom), an art dealer.

Leo comes up with a way of framing Loman for the murder of the other partner, and then blackmailing Lang, whose gun was used. He also gives himself a great alibi for the murder. At the time it occurred, he was at the dance club monopolizing the time of Carol (Joyce Howard).

Lom is appropriately classy and slimy at the same time. Hartnell is scarily effective and manages to talk without moving his mouth very much.

I have been working off of a list of noirs and near-noirs - many of them atrocious - and this is a cut above those I've seen.

... Just transpose the James Cagney of "The Public Enemy" into immediately post-war Britain and make him a loner, but a bit of an enigma at first. But as the film rolls on you will not like what you learn about Hartnell's character, Leo.

Leo is recruited by a couple of gangsters - Loman and Hatchet - who use a dance hall as a front, to do a smash and grab job at a jewelry store. Things go terribly wrong when a protective awning in the display window falls on Leo's wrists and he is then apprehended by the police and does time. The gang does not stand behind him as they had promised after Leo gets caught but, seriously, what could they have done but get caught themselves? But Leo is the type to hold a grudge. When he gets out of jail he goes straight to Loman and says to pay the debt they owe him - the imprisonment and permanent damage to his wrists - they should give him a job. He is rebuffed and thrown out. And from there Leo becomes the original Darkman minus the burns and decides to frame the framers, so to speak.

The film is - I think - being intentionally vague about what Leo did before he was caught and imprisoned. The beginning might even have you believing he might have been a musician, as I could not see what his obsession was with the permanent damage to his wrists. That is probably so that he initially has the sympathy of the audience. And they don't really change that characterization much until a true sympathetic character - a dance hall girl, worn down by life at a young age, who is impressed by Leo's kindness and attention in the face of his excon "just one mistake" underdog status - appears.

This film has something you would not see in American films at the time since Britain never had an all encompassing production code like the US. In this film the something that you would not see in American movies is an almost openly gay couple who have pretty prominent roles, with one member of the couple being particularly flamboyant for the time.

One thing that this film does that you would see in 1946 American films? This British noir, one year after the war is over, when Britain is still largely in ruins, has completely erased the war. Apparently the crime syndicate in the film, the police careers involved, and the dance hall girls along with that noir lifestyle have histories that seem to go back five years without mention of warfare.

I'd recommend this one. It doesn't have any stars that most Americans will have heard of with maybe the exception of the always interesting Herbert Lom, but everybody does a commendable job in a film with a plot that will keep your interest and plenty of atmosphere.

The story itself is riveting enough to keep you awake all long the viewing, and the finale excellent, bitter, unforgettable. But the directing is too smooth for this kind of topic, scheme. Maybe the the late forties was not yet the best period for gangsters stories; I am sure that in the early sixties, with someone like Stanley Baker as the lead, it would have been terrific. But it remains a rare feature, very underrated in the British film noir history. The 2020's UK crime flicks are lousy for most of them. The director John Harlow was not a great one, he was not Basil Dearden nor Michael Powell or John Boulting.

Petty thief "Leo" (William Hartnell) is left high and dry by his cohorts when a robbery goes wrong. Determined on vengeance when he is eventually released from jail, he sets out to settle accounts with "Loman" (Raymond Lovell) and his lackey "Hatchett" (Victor Weske). Prison and rage have hardened this man, and "Loman", for one, underestimates the determination of "Leo". That's an error he soon rues as he is soon not only cleverly implicated in a murder but also put onto the radar of the formidable "Lang" (Herbert Lom) who has a very non-nonsense reputation! Robert Beatty could hardly be called a versatile actor, so actually fits the bill of the rather plodding "Insp. Rogers" rather well. Indeed, for the most part even the usually wooden Hartnell makes a decent fist of this tautly directed budget drama. The story is hardly an original one, but John Harlow does keep it moving well enough and it's a perfectly watchable afternoon feature.

Small-time hood Leo Martin (William Hartnell), fingered by the coppers when his colleagues abandoned him after a botched smash-and-grab, swears revenge when he gets out of the joint. I must admit that I watched this British crime-meller because it starred Hartnell, the 'First Doctor' in the Dr. Who canon, but he is pretty good in a stiff way as the vengeful, amoral con (other than 'gangster honour', his character doesn't have many redeeming qualities). The story is pretty bleak, with the criminal life coming across as seedy and unpleasant rather than dangerous but slightly glamorous, as is common in many American films. Joyce Howard is a standout as Carol, a 'taxi dancer' working for 6p/dance at a sleazy nightclub, who initially befriends Leo and believes his protestations of innocence and good intentions, as are Herbert Lom as the crime boss and Alan Wheatley as his mincing, effete minion. Also worth mentioning is Ivor Barnard as a diminutive but menacing hitman. The melodrama is laid on a bit thick, especially in the first 10 minutes, and film is choppy at times, suffering from poor editing either in the initial production or afterwards when dealing with the censors (an abrupt cut from a pivotal 'torture' scene suggests the latter). The buildup to the climax is good but the ending is a bit flat. All in all, good but not great. Anyone wanting to see a pre-Who Hartnell play a hardcase would be better off watching 'Brighton Rock' (1948), in which he plays Dallow, the second-in-command to psychotic gangster 'Pinkie' Brown (David Attenborough).