Cost: $500,000

Laurence Gerard (Dick Powell) comes back from the war to find that his new bride has been murdered; his life is in shambles. The culprit is a man called Jarnac, but he is a mysterious man who is claimed dead; Gerard knows otherwise.

His thirst for revenge takes him into the line of fire on multiple occasions. After achieving proof of Jarnac's existence, Gerard tracks down his enemy's wife (Micheline Cheirel) in Buenos Aires. There he gets unwillingly tangled up with an annoying tour guide (Walter Slezak) and gets dug deeper and deeper into Jarnac's deceptive trail.

Powell made this movie quickly after Murder, My Sweet with the same director to profit from some of his newfound notoriety. Dmytryk didn't think as much of this film, but it holds up as a strong noir.

In many ways, Powell's character is darker than that of Phillip Marlowe because he has nothing to lose. In spite of his sharp lines and knack for digging up information, he is more careless and desperate. Gerard is hard to relate to outside of his sorrow over his wife's death.

Dick wasn't known for being a method actor, but there are moments in his performance that are so rawly painful, it is easy to conclude that he was using ture emotions. Perhaps he was imagining what it would be like to lose June, his new wife. Most surprising is his crying scene, a brief glimpse of a tough guy in the deepest depths of despair. June remembered that Dick often cried in life, sometimes over the smallest of things. He was not afraid of showing emotion. However, this is his only earnest display of tears recorded on screen.


Not all of the movie was serious, though. Dick told Screen Guide magazine that, "Since the success of Murder, My Sweet, I've enjoyed the chance to work with fine actors like Mercier. He's a former opera singer, and we often try duets between the scenes."

He went on to joke about his new image. "That camera and baby spot are still staring at me as if I need a shave. Come to think of it, I do. The scenario lets me clean up after a while. That I don't look so much like laundry waiting to be sent out. But even in that condition the chorus girls in all my one-time musicals would never recognize me. Hallelujah!"


Opinions
"One great scene involves him telling a drop-dead gorgeous dame of his wife: his undying love is clear even as he describes her crooked teeth and how she was too skinny. And when he eventually turns down- even mocks- the babe's sultry invitations, it becomes clear: Powell is on a mission, and until it is completed, he is untouchable... Dick Powell was (and remains) a very under-rated performer. His films of the 40's and early 50's are great because he went out of his way to undo his softer image formed in 30's musicals." ~Eddie Denman, Amazon.com

"Powell is terse, tight-lipped and intractable, a quintessential Noir "hero", as the man desperately searching for the enigmatic Nazi collaborator responsible for his French wife's death. He shrugs off an onslaught of manipulative rhetoric and deception, trusting no one, cold-blooded revenge his only goal." ~Eric Chapman, IMDB.com

"Dick Powell was one of those classic Hollywood actors who was so laid back, so cool, so quick with the one-liner that he made most other actors seem positively dull. Even in the tightest of corners, he could always manage a suitable quip." ~Roger Burke, IMDB.com

NOTE: This title will be shown at 8:00 PM on September 9th on Turner Classic Movies.