The Unknown Soldier

Eero Aho

Aku Louhimies' The Unknown Soldier is a three hour Finnish epic that follows a single battalion through the course of Finland's Continuation War with the Soviet Union which lasted from 1941-1944 and followed the 1939-40 Winter War between the two combatants. The film chronicles the forth and back of the conflict across Karelia and the Soviet Union. Based on Väinö Linna's 1954 autobiographical novel, this overly handsome, yet technically assured film works best as a combat procedural. A strong point of view is lacking, though, except that war is heck.

Part of the problem is the broad canvas this 2017 flick attempts. Because of this, many of the characters come off as one dimensional: you get a Fascist, a Communist, and a raw recruit who you know is going to bite the bullet because he looks like Bambi. The director and fellow scenarist Jari Rantala have attempted to amplify our understanding of the protagonists by adding more about their loved ones waiting on the home front than is contained in the original novel, but this brings mixed results. It helps the audience better understand the civilian displacement caused by the war, but also overextends an already lengthy project. The romantic lead is a total washout, but Eero Aho as the insolent Corporal Rokka gives the film the focal point it badly needs.

Desperate

Steve Brodie and Audrey Long

Anthony Mann's Desperate, from 1947, is an effective and evocative noir. This B RKO production stars Steve Brodie as Steve Randall, a veteran struggling to gain an economic foothold post-war as a trucker. Audrey Long plays his wife Anne who unbeknownst to Steve, but not the audience, is an expectant mother. Steve takes a suspiciously lucrative job hauling some "perishables" which are actually the ill gotten goods of a heist masterminded by gangster Walt Radak (Raymond Burr). A police officer intervenes and is shot dead by Radak's brother. He is nabbed at the scene and is sentenced to the electric chair, much to the consternation of his brother. Steve, sought by the police and Radak, goes on the lam with his wife. They take refuge with Anne's Aunt Clara in Minnesota, but nothing can stop the inevitable showdown between Steve and Radak.

The script for Desperate, penned by Harry Essex whose checkered credits include Creature From the Black Lagoon and The Sons of Katie Elder, is standard innocent man on the run fare like I Am A Fugitive From the Chain Gang and many Hitchcock films such as The 39 Steps and North By Northwest. Essex even cribs a newlywed jape from Saboteur. Mann brings his own aura of paranoia to the proceedings. The chiaroscuro mix of shadow and shafts of light displays that there was an Anthony Mann look before he hooked up with cinematographer John Alton later that year for his breakthrough film, T-Men. Mann dollies into close-ups of fists, broken bottles, and, most scary of all, Raymond Burr, to conjure the mindset of his hunted hero. He tracks around the gangster's lair creating a milieu which would become familiar to fans of the director, an oppressive world with no sense of cosmic justice in which coiled characters explode into spasms of violence. 

Raymond Burr and William Challee

Desperate is part of a cycle of postwar films, such as The Stranger and Key Largo, in which the specter of fascism is shown nestling in the bosom of America, usually in the guise of gangsters, as a threat to domestic harmony. This is rendered fairly literally in Desperate. The final face-off between Steve and Radak, a crescendo of ultra close-ups, takes place in the family kitchen amidst sandwiches, milk, and family portraits. The inclusion of a wedding and dance sequence set in a Czech community in Minnesota posits the US as a haven for immigrants far away from Europe's turmoil. When Radak menaces Anne's Aunt Clara, he and his henchman resemble the portrayals of the Gestapo in Hollywood films during the war; something that can't be considered accidental when reviewing the films of the director born with the name Emil Anton Bundsman.

Steve Brodie and Audrey Long are more than fine as the leads. Brodie worked in Hollywood till the end of his life. He was typed as a supporting player and Desperate gave him his only lead role. Ms. Long married Leslie Charteris, author of many novels chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar aka "The Saint", and retired from show business. Burr is always money as a noir heavy. Desperate also boasts a passel of fine supporting performances: especially Douglas Fowley as a weaselly private eye, Cy Kendall as a crooked car dealer, and Ilka Grüning as kindly Aunt Clara. Best of all is Jason Robards (Sr.) as a tough police lieutenant who is willing to dangle the film's hero as bait in order to nab his man.

Crime in the Streets

John Cassavetes, Mark Rydell, and Sal Mineo

Don Siegel's Crime in the Streets is a dated juvenile delinquent melodrama from 1956. The film was originally an hour long television drama, written by Reginald Rose and directed by Sydney Lumet, that aired on The Elgin Hour the year before. Two of the members of the TV cast were retained for the film production, Mark Rydell as the most psychotic member of the juvenile gang and John Cassavetes, making his film debut, as the gang's troubled leader. What plot there is hinges on the possible murder of a retiree who has finked on the gang. The picture was produced by Allied Artists, the successor to bargain basement Monogram Pictures, and it shows. Action is pretty much limited to the single set that represents a slum block in Queens. 

The central problem with the film is the hackneyed script by Rose, most famous for penning 12 Angry Men. Changing the script from a 52 minute TV model into a ninety minute film, Rose pads the project with redundant monologues from Cassavetes's character's mother (Virginia Gregg), a girl sweet on him (Denise Alexander), a local merchant (Will Kuluva), and the local social worker (James Whitmore), all decrying the nihilistic attitude and feckless behavior of modern youth. Rose even provides a half-baked motivation for the anti-social demeanor of Cassavetes' Frankie Dane, what Manny Farber called "the gimp". Beatings from Dane's father have caused him to react defensively to human contact and he shies away from even the most benign touch. In the film's most ridiculous moment, a slap from a neighbor cause a psychotic break for Dane. The camera ratches out of focus to indicate Dane's temporary detachment from reality.          

All in all, Siegel does what can with the shopworn material. However, only the opening rumble between gangs displays his gifts for action cinema. Someone got the bright idea to put the opening credits over this sequence, but as with Touch of Evil, even this distraction can't lessen its kinetic impact as Franz Waxman big band jazz score blares away. Waxman must have felt liberated to do this kind of score after the acceptance of Elmer Bernstein's jazz score for The Man with the Golden Arm, but it sounds more like a facsimile of jazz rather than the real thing. Nothing else in this film matches this sequence, though I did enjoy Siegel's judicious use of close-ups, even the one of a dog eating from a garbage can. Siegel sensitively handles his cast, reining in those who tend to overact (Cassavetes, Rydell) and giving space to the more restrained performers (Whitmore, Mineo). Dane's gang members are given little characterization. Only Rydell and Mineo are even given a semblance of a character, but they represent little more than the dark and little sides of Dane's character, each trying to push Dane towards enlightenment or depravity. Rydell, who eventually became a successful film director, clashed with Siegel over his performance and, luckily, Siegel won, restraining Rydell's more cartoonish impulses. Mineo gives the best performance of the film, in a role very reminiscent of his breakthrough performance in Rebel Without A Cause. He plays "Baby", the youngest and most sensitive member of the gang and manages to suggest a youngster struggling with his moral conscience without telegraphing the effect.

Cassavetes and Denise Alexander

Cassavetes character is quite ridiculous, his tough is no more realistic than Travolta's in Grease, but he glowers effectively in a role that could have been risible. Denise Alexander would end up snagging a linchpin role of over four decades as Lesley Weber in the daytime drama, General Hospital. I once was confused when Andrew Sarris described James Whitmore's career arc as that of never becoming the second Spencer Tracy, but his role as the social worker here cleared that up for me. When he is not mouthing the liberal pieties provided by Reginald Rose, he is trying to buddy up with the gang by offering to treat them to a beer. The gang members, of course, tell him to scram. Essentially he is playing a secular variation on Tracy's Father Flanagan. The role verges on parody, but Whitmore, as assuredly effective here as when pitching potting soil, emerges with dignity. Robert Preston, another good salesman, played the role on television.