Cornered
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Cornered |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1945 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Edward Dmytryk |
| script |
John Paxton John Wexley |
| production | Adrian Scott |
| music | Roy Webb |
| camera | Harry J. Wild |
| cut | Joseph Noriega |
| occupation | |
| |
Cornered is in black and white twisted American film noir of Edward Dmytryk from the year 1945 . Along with Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious and Charles Vidor's Gilda, it is one of a series of American films that dealt with the activities of the European fascists who fled to South America after the end of World War II .
action
Laurence Gerard, a former pilot in the Canadian armed forces and prisoner of war, is looking for the murderer of his wife, a young Resistance fighter, in France after the end of the Second World War . Marcel Jarnac, a henchman of the Vichy regime who ordered her execution, was officially pronounced dead. Gerard can follow the trail of Jarnac's widow to Buenos Aires . There he gets caught between the fronts of escaped European fascists, local sympathizers and anti-fascists who want to expose the war criminals and collaborators who have gone into hiding. The anti-fascists around the lawyer Manuel Santana implore Gerard not to be guided by thoughts of revenge and to help them convict Jarnac and bring him to justice. Eventually Gerard and Jarnac meet; Jarnac not only shows no remorse for his actions, but continues to pursue his political goals actively and with ruthless brutality. Gerard beats up Jarnac, who dies of his injuries. Santana offers to take on Gerard's defense.
background
After Murder, My Sweet, Cornered was the second of four joint films by producer Adrian Scott , director Dmytryk and screenwriter John Paxton . Dissatisfied with the draft script that Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz submitted to him (Bernard F. Dicks Radical Innocence names a third author, Czenzi Ormonde ), Scott initially hired John Wexley for a new script, which was available on March 26, 1945. Since the studio management of RKO Pictures , which produced the film, was bothered by the open portrayal of Argentina as an authoritarian state , Paxton was commissioned with a new version, which was completed on May 3, 1945. Subsequent shooting ended on August 17, 1945.
Cornered opened in American cinemas on December 25, 1945. The film was not shown in Germany .
Wexley later sued the Screen Writers Guild , unsuccessfully , that Paxton was named as the sole screenwriter and that he was merely listed as the story supplier in the opening credits . Dmytryk, then a member of the Communist Party , was attacked from within his own ranks, partly because the film allowed the fascist adversary Jarnac to explain his ideological point of view.
reception
“Even if the story is constructed too obviously, director Edward Dmytryk has brought every ounce of tension and excitement out of the material. All actors are there with great vigor. […] Cornered may not be perfect, but it's good entertainment. "
“Powell's second and definitive attempt to break out of his potty singer image [...] is even better than Murder, My Sweet . The expressionist outbursts are scattered, instead he focuses on a sparse ambiguity (supported by an excellent cast) […] As one would expect from a film that includes at least four blacklisted victims (Dmytryk, producer Adrian Scott and the actors Adler and Carnovsky ), the hard-nosed dialogues are peppered with political warnings and premonitions that stand out today as pleasantly old-fashioned, but are easily borne by Harry Wild's grandiose noir camera work. "
Web links
- Cornered in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Bernard F. Dick: Radical Innocence. A Critical Study of the Hollywood Ten. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 1989, pp. 144-146.
- ^ Frank Krutnik: "Un-American" Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era. Rutgers University Press, 2008, p. 156 f.
- ↑ a b Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , pp. 64-65.
- ^ Brian Neve: Film and Politics in America. A social tradition. Routledge, Oxon, 1992, pp. 95-96.
- ^ "Although the narrative is a bit too obviously contrived. Edward Dmytryk, the director, has squeezed every ounce of suspense and excitement out of the material at hand. All of the players are in there pitching with great zest [...] "Cornered" may not be perfect, but it still is a satisfying entertainment. ”- Review in the New York Times on December 26, 1945, accessed on February 15, 2013 .
- ^ "Powell's second and definitive attempt to shed his crooner image [...] is even better than Murder, My Sweet . Dispensing with the expressionistic flurries, it concentrates on bleak ambiguity (abetted by a fine cast) […] As one might expect of a film whose credits carry at least four blacklist victims (Dmytryk, producer Adrian Scott, actors Adler and Carnovsky), the hard-boiled dialogue is studded with political warnings and forebodings in a manner that now looms as pleasantly period, but is in any case effortlessly carried by Harry Wild's superb noir camerawork. "- Review in the Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999. Penguin, London 1998, p. 179, accessed online February 15, 2013.