Desperate

This past weekend's Noir Alley selection was one I hadn't seen before: Desperate. It's on one of the Warner Film Noir box sets, so I watched it on Sunday.

Steve Brodie plays Steve Randall, a trucker who is recently married to Anne (Audrey Long); it's recent enough, in fact, the the two are planning to ceelbrate their four-month wedding anniversary. Just before they can begin to celebrate, however, Steve gets a phone call from a man who says that he needs a trucker pronto that night and that there's pretty good money in it. (Well, $50 was a lot more in 1947 than it is today.) Steve isn't so certain, but Anne says go ahead.

Steve shouldn't have. The caller was representing Walt Radak (Raymond Burr), who is looking to transport a bunch of stolen furs. Steve wants no part in this, but the truck is already at the warehouse; there are more of Radak's gang than just the one poor Steve; and Radak's men have guns anyway. When a cop approaches, Steve tries to get the cop's attention by flashing his headlights, which is another mistake because it only serves to enrage Walt's men. Worse for Steve, Walt's kid brother shoots the cop and gets arrested in the incident, which means the chair for the brother.

Walt gives Steve an ultimatum: take the fall for the whole thing, or else. Steve doesn't like either option, but Walt is planning to send a man to pick up Anne and hold her hostage, which would give Steve even less of an option. So he takes his first chance to escape and tells Anne to get to the train station and they'll head west together.

Thankfully, Anne has an aunt an uncle who own a farm up in Minnesota, and that would be a good place for the young couple on the run to hide out for a while. Or, it would have been if it weren't for the fact that Walt has hired a private detective to find Steve and Anne. Where the detective goes, Walt can't be far behind....

Eddie Muller introduced Desperate saying that it has plot holes you can drive a truck through, and although I'd tend to agree with that assessment, it's still an entertaining movie. You can't help but think Steve should have told Anne to go to the police instead of the train station, and he could have tried to plead his case right then and there with Walt not able to get at Anne. The resolution of the plot also strains credulity.

Still, the movie is an enjoyable watch, and looks nice thanks to good black-and-white cinematography and direction by Anthony Mann early in his career. I'm not certain I'd want to spend the money for a standalone Warner Archive disk, but I'm glad to see the movie is part of a box set.