La dernière rafale

"The Street with No Name" is an effective and very suspenseful noir with semi-documentary techniques that are reminiscent of those by Henry Hathaway. Directed by William Keighley, an able action director ("G-Men", "Each Dawn I Die"), it stars Richard Widmark as the creepily murderous mob boss Stiles and Mark Stevens as the innocent looking FBI agent in peril. The film often feels like a painfully dated propaganda for the FBI and its ingenious ways of infiltrating a crime ring after a murder of two innocent people. But the realistic location shooting and the presence of Widmark & Stevens make it watchable.

Impressive documentary style noir with a commanding performance by Richard Widmark. Apparently utilising real cops, FBI and internal and external locations, this is a most involving and believable little thriller. The opening is a bit dated with it's 'raise the flag' and breast beating stance in the name of J Edgar Hoover, but once this gets going it is really intoxicating. The night streets of 'skid row' are dripping with shadows as one character after another slips in and out of doorways to pool house or strip joints. There is a major sequence in a boxing gym with a couple of fights in progress and training going on around whilst a bunch of hoods take and place bets on this and that. Good tale, very well told and beautifully photographed.

Gene (Mark Stevens) infiltrates a gang led by Alec (Richard Widmark) with the intention of discovering who is responsible for a series of recent shootings and robberies. Gene makes his reports to Inspector Briggs (Lloyd Nolan) and has an undercover contact to help him, Cy (John McIntire). However, Alec suspects that one of his gang is betraying him and he then gets a phone call which confirms things to him....

This is a boys film about gangsters. The only woman with any kind of role - Judy (Barbara Lawrence) appears briefly and gets slapped about - I'm not sure her role has any relevance. The story is good and both the main characters, Mark Stevens and Richard Widmark, play their roles convincingly. A slight irritation is the narrator at the beginning - I wished he would just shut up and let the film take its course. Similarly, there are a few overlong sequences of police checking but overall it's a good film. However, it would have all ended differently were it not for an unsung hero, a cab driver (Charles Tannen).

At first, the docu-drama approach feels like kind of a safety net that prevents the viewer from losing himself completely in this striking noir universe, but the intricacies of the police work were interesting to watch unfold and this is still a strong film. Particularly memorable are the taut, virtually noiseless chase scenes that take place in suitably dark, nightmarish settings, like the one where crook Widmark sniffs out undercover cop Stevens at the hideout. I also liked the colorful low life lingo such as when one of the thugs tells Stevens to "pick yourself a boom-boom" as they suit up for their big score.

Great to see Richard Widmark doing what he does best - playing villains, of course. Few actors could match Widmark when it came to that staple of screen heavies: losing their temper. This guy slaps people's faces with a karate-like precision that's remarkable. And just the way he tells some flunkie henchman he doesn't want around to "blow" is pure heaven. In a role like this, he owns the screen; he's like a well dressed rat always scavenging for his next meal.

I was reading a Cornell Woolrich story about a year ago and one of the characters used a Mark Stevens' picture as an alibi for where they had been at a certain time. Never having heard of Stevens I assumed it was just a made up movie star name and movie title ("I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now".) Imagine my surprise when shortly thereafter I looked up his name and found out that there certainly was such an actor, a borderline leading man who apparently enjoyed some level of stardom during a 30 or so film career. Judging by his appearance here, he's a good, functional actor, though he has the sort of face it's easy to forget. Which is probably why he was selected for this part, as he isn't asked to carry the film (he's off screen for about half the running time) and as an undercover agent he's naturally required to blend in with his new environment. He does that quite well.

This underrated noir, efficiently handled in all departments, has rather unjustly been overshadowed by its higher-profile color remake – Samuel Fuller’s HOUSE OF BAMBOO (1955), which I’d watched before but will re-acquaint myself with now thanks to the original (scheduled as part of my ongoing Richard Widmark tribute).

The film (whose title is allegorical) deals with F.B.I. rookie Mark Stevens infiltrating a criminal gang headed by Widmark; the Bureau gave Fox (who produced it) their full co-operation: the studio, in fact, had already made THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945) in a similar vein and, though THE STREET WITH NO NAME is marked by that earlier title’s innovative semi-documentary style, it actually ties in more with the gangster pictures of the 1930s. Incidentally, director Keighley had been responsible for a number of these over at Warners – including BULLETS OR BALLOTS (1936), which I may well check out presently on the strength of my positive response to this one!; Besides, the hero’s undercover activity and the suspense inherent in such a situation anticipates Raoul Walsh’s WHITE HEAT (1949) – while its scenario, also involving the concurrent presence of a ‘rat’ operating within the Bureau itself, would be replicated nearly 60 years later in Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED (2006)!

At first glance, Stevens looks like an unlikely tough guy but, in retrospect, he acquits himself surprisingly well; Widmark – in his second film – has graduated from sadistic thug to unscrupulous gang boss (memorably introduced, with his face half-hidden behind a handkerchief during a night-club ‘job’, spitting a line at the orchestra conductor: “O.K., Stokowski…dry up!”). The film is also blessed with a terrific supporting cast (including Lloyd Nolan, John McIntire and Ed Begley – all of whom play F.B.I. operatives – Donald Buka being especially noteworthy among the criminals as Widmark’s taciturn but ruthless right-hand man, and only one prominent female figure in Barbara Lawrence as the typically-abused gangster’s moll).

As expected, Joe MacDonald’s shadowy lighting emerges to be an indispensable asset here – rendered even more effective (and realistic) by locations carefully-chosen to fit the desired mood of every sequence. A remarkable outburst of violence at the film’s climax (set inside a warehouse) is equivalent, then, to the icing on the cake.