The curfew lifted, yet still in the grip of the seemingly now-annual seasonal tradition of business-crushing restrictions here in Quebec, what better way to put a momentary salve over the psychically-wounding madness than to trek back over yet again to the hidden headquarters of the head of Montreal’s longest running film society, to turn out the lights, chomp on some snacks and get lost in what turned out to be an all-Edmond O’Brien double feature of B-noir pics, starring (as well as co-directing one, though how that one-time gig came about I have no idea) the noted tough-guy character, with both films being ones I hadn’t heard of before (the studios cranked out these second features at such a mind-boggling rate, tough to ever catch up).

Trimmed of narrative fat as these studio second features always were (with each clocking in at the standard 70 plus minutes), with a literal bang of an opening sequence, as O’Brien’s corrupt Detective Lieutenant Nolan callously shoots a scared bagman in the back, taking the mafia money the poor shlep was carrying, then calling it in as a justified homicide (not realizing there’s a lonely old deaf mute guy watching the whole thing from his dingy apartment), then moving on to following the increasingly out-of-control cop as he tries to desperately cover up the piling on evidence of his crimes, all while trying to comfort his dance hall girlfriend and convince her they’re gonna run away together (with the girl growing increasingly unsettled by his manic behaviour, consisting of displays of smothering love punctuated by sudden violent fits of anger and jealousy), “Shield” plays as a kind of studio forerunner to the more modern and audacious indulgences of rebel filmmaker Abel Ferrara’s stunningly unforgettable
Bad Lieutenant.

While our star may not be Harvey Keitel, to be fair to the old school actor, neither the Hays Code nor the cinematic apparatus at that time, were ever gonna allow for O’Brien to come anywhere close to the insanely dark, drug-fueled and maniacal portrayal that Keitel went for (and achieved), but, even with that, O’Brien still pulls off a gripping turn, for a performer usually relied upon as an anchor of moral steadfastness… and the jarring scene of his Nolan character suddenly getting up to unsuspectingly bash in the brains of two low-level henchman at the table over who have been tailing him to get back the mob money they know he stole, is done with such sudden violent intensity — with the crazed cop hitting the men again and again, long after they’re already prone, while a young lady screams incessantly and the other patrons shrink back in horror – has the earmarks of an early version of a powerful Martin Scorsese scene (I’d be very surprised if that later king of the modern gangster film wasn’t impressed with this film). I can only imagine how audiences of the day reacted!

There’s some nicely captured moments in the police precinct, with his fellow cops exchanging constant knowing looks about Nolan. It’s pretty clear; they aren’t gonna stick their necks out, but they all know he’s dirty. All except Nolan’s naive young protégé, Sergeant Brewster, that is, played by John Agar (one of those actors handsome enough to get consistent bit parts and starring roles in B pictures, but never magical enough to transcend into super-stardom, and yet remains a most beloved, nostalgia-laden figure for someone like me, who grew up on B horror flicks of the 50’s, like the giant-spider pic Tarantula), who was saved from the streets in his youth by the once noble-minded Nolan.

A Cry in the Night also starts on a violent inciting incident setting the pace for the rest of the film — this time the kidnapping of a teenage girl (Natalie Wood) by a deviant (Raymond Burr), who, upon being caught peeping from behind the bushes at the girl necking with her love (Richard Anderson), brutally knocks the guy silly with his metal lunch pail and makes off with her, without realizing he’s just made the mistake of grabbing the daughter of local Police Captain Taggart (Edmond O’Brien) who will stop at nothing to get his daughter back – but unlike the surface visceral-minded pleasures of “Shield”, “Cry” ends up brimming over like a hot cauldron with thematic material.

While Burr’s mentally crippled character may be defined by crazy mommy infatuation (and lack of a daddy), “Cry” surprisingly (and, you gotta hand it to it, especially as a 50’s film, kinda boldly) balances it with a genuinely critical portrait of Taggart, an upstanding family man and community authority figure, who is ultimately revealed as harshly puritanical (while he’s understandably out of his mind about his kid having been nabbed, he’s almost equally as a crazed that she was taken from the town’s teen make-out spot – ‘It couldn’t be! My daughter would never have been there!’ — with his dangerous mirth extended now to the poor boy she was necking with) and deeply controlling (with his wife and own sister coming clean by the end to practically blame him for destroying their lives!).

In fact, with its finger wagging at both matriarchy (it creates little impulsive boy deviants!) and patriarchy (it’s repressive and fascistic, especially on women), the whole thing plays as a portrait of family as a breeding ground for monsters and madness. I certainly wasn’t expecting all that from a 50’s noir programmer!

While both films, as a sign o’ the restrictive times, are nicely wrapped up by their finishes, with bad cops exposed (and the rest of the force announcing their allegiance to fighting for truth, happiness and the American way) and sexual deviants properly disposed of, the finale of “Shield” ends on at least a hint of something darker lingering… a truth exposed that isn’t so easy to put back in the closet… that perhaps the authoritarian (cop-run) family that the saved girl and her beau are following triumphant and repentant daddy back to… might not be as safe for them as we assumed it was at the beginning.

Beyond the ever-reliable O’Brien, there’s the young up-and-coming Wood (I read a description of her once as ‘nubile’ – and I agree with that description – a lot — yeah, yeah, I could care less if me hankering after a teenage girl makes me creepy to you – why, hell, she already had tons of lovers by that point anyway, just read her biography!) and the one-time American Professor Quatermass himself (a role he was widely disparaged for undertaking by the Brits, but – what can I say – I liked him as the grumpy ol’ brilliant scientist somehow getting caught up again and again, like a scientific Kolchak, in quasi scif/supernatural goings-on in that great Hammer flick The Quatermass Xperiment Brian Donlevy doing a no-nonsense turn as Captain Taggart’s level-headed partner, struggling to keep his friend from ripping the heads off both kidnapper and daughter’s boyfriend… and there’s the boyfriend himself, played by Richard Anderson, years before attaining the heights, of my attention anyway, as the Bionic Man Steve Austin’s superior Oscar Goldman in the what-is-now-understood-in-less-naïve-times-as-hilariously-goofy The Six Million Dollar Man – as well as its eventual spin-off show, The Bionic Woman. And, hats seriously off to Burr, going full-tilt as the infantile minded, yet entirely dangerous kidnapper. The more films noir I see with Burr, the more I like him.

With one brutally effective and the other a hotbed of thematic riches, it was a well-programmed smorgasbord of exciting (Edmond O’Brien) B-pics. If there was any letdown to the evening it was, with the meaningless anti-science curfew now over, there would be no final thrill of dodging cops on my walk home.

Buck A Review   edmund o'brien   film noir   le cinéclubthe film society