From the Rental Vault: A TCM Trio

Although I've yet to hit the halfway mark on the century meter, I spend a sizable portion of my TV-watching hours on Turner Classic Movies. It's re-introduced me to classics, uncovered unknown gems and demonstrated that mediocre moves existed before 1970. Here's a slate of snippets caught on-air and fully viewed thanks to the good folks at Netflix.

 -----

In some ways James Cagney functioned like Robert Downey, Jr., does in movies today. He had the ability to sell pedestrian dialogue and ordinary stories (like Downey's Sherlock Holmes outings) so well that viewers could invest in them even though the movie itself might not have been worth it had he not been a part of it, as well as the ability to bring an extra shine to worthy material (like the Iron Man movies and The Avengers). 13 Rue Madeleine (1947) is an example. Very loosely based on the Office of Strategic Services' work during World War II, Rue is the story of the training and deployment of clandestine agents into occupied Europe in the days leading up to the Normandy invasion. Actual OSS director William Donovan, upon reading the script, lodged enough objections that producers removed the "OSS" name from the story. Later, of course, the modern Central Intelligence Agency was formed from the OSS beginnings.

As Bob Sharkey, the man the federal government hires to train the new agents, Cagney brings his trademark intensity to what starts out as a background role. But midway through the movie, the rookie spies deploy to get information on a German scientist -- aware a little too late of the double-agent in their midst their leaders knew of from the start. Cagney himself takes a hand in trying to meet with the French resistance and salvage the mission, even though as an agency official he risks many secrets falling to the enemy if he's caught.

The movie is still mostly Cagney -- the one-named Annabella and Frank Latimore show up and hit their marks, and Richard Conte hangs about for awhile, but Rue dawdles when Cagney is offscreen and moves fast enough when he is on that its implausibilities fade into the background. For its own sake, Rue isn't much, but as an example of how a big star can not only carry but magnify a mundane movie, it's worth a little time.

-----

Most every day, a passenger train sails on through the town of Black Rock, NV, without stopping. Then one day it did, and disabled veteran John Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) disembarked.

Macreedy says he wants to find a Japanese farmer he understood lived in Black Rock, to fulfill an obligation to a wartime comrade. The townspeople, led by oligarch Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), seem uninterested in helping him. At first it's just small-town insularity, but soon enough Macreedy finds hints of something a lot more sinister. Smith's thugs include Ernest Borgnine and James Coburn, and they up the harassment level slowly until Macreedy must take a hand of his own on a Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).

Director Josh Sturges uses a number of contrasts to tell his story -- small-town community for insiders vs. suspicion of outsiders, the middle-aged, overweight and disabled Macreedy vs. the war veteran capable of quick, decisive violence, American pride in WW II victory vs. shame at its treatment of its own citizens of Japanese descent, and so on. Each by itself could have hamstrung Bad Day, but combined they help maintain suspense through the very end of the movie. Although spare and unadorned, the story offers some important fuel for thinking about war, its aftermath, the silence of shared shame and the consequences of living in fear.

-----

In the late 1940s, if you wanted to cast a guy as a heavy in your middle-budget noir movie, you called Lawrence Tierney. When director Robert Wise began work on Born to Kill (1947), an adaptation of the James Edward Gunn novel Deadlier than the Male, he called Tierney for the role of the brutish and brutal Sam Wilde.

The role of the femme fatale Helen Brent went to Claire Trevor, earlier known as John Wayne's love interest in his breakout Stagecoach. Helen's a wealthy woman staying in Nevada for what used to be called a "Reno divorce" -- as Nevada law allowed for easier divorces, people would often live in the state long enough to establish residence and file the paperwork. Just before she leaves, she finds a boarding house neighbor and her male companion murdered, but she slips town quietly instead of telling police and involving herself. On the train, she meets Sam and the two intrigue each other. Sam tries to pursue a relationship when they arrive at Claire's home, but learns she is already engaged to another man.

So the violently homicidal Sam -- the viewer knows he killed the pair at the beginning of the movie but Claire doesn't -- instead takes up with her stepsister, the innocent Georgia. Sam's aim is to get close to Georgia's money and stay close to Claire, with whom he remains involved. But as secrets begin to slip away, both his plan and Claire's become more difficult, as well as dangerous to others.

Born is a fine bleak noir, with broken people trying to corner a game or work an angle against everyone but themselves, only to find they are a part of someone else's game too. Trevor is excellent as the brittle Claire. She's sometimes icy and sometimes seeming to be warm and human but never too far from her primary interest: herself. Walter Slezak as a private detective closing in on some of the secrets helps spur the tension as he digs, and Elisha Cook, Jr.,  as Sam's pal Marty is in his own way scarier than Tierney.

Really, the only false note is the way Tierney is supposed to be some kind of magnet for the ladies. His droopy features, simmering anger and open resentment of anyone and everyone make an unappealing package; even when he's supposed to be charming Georgia he's crude and borderline loutish. But he excels at capturing the explosive violence Sam only occasionally controls (it may not have been only acting, as Tierney spent some time behind bars for different assault arrests and no few convictions), and the other is minor enough to be ignored.