Cry Danger
1951 Directed by Robert Parrish
Synopsis
A man is released from prison only to find himself involved with criminals who demand to know where he hid the money from the heist he was convicted for.
Cast
Popular reviews
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Let's get out of this sun and into a nice cool bar.
-DelongDick Powell spent his early career mainly in musicals until he was able to reinvent his film persona with a series of film-noir roles. His first breakthrough came when he became the first actor to portray private eye Philip Marlowe in a feature film. He'd never reach the success of Humphrey Bogart, but he still managed to give us four or five very memorable hard-boiled crime films with Cry Danger definitely being one of them.
The film's plot doesn't reinvent the genre by any stretch of the imagination, but the dialogue more then makes up for it. It's smart, witty, mean spirited and comes at you at…
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A tough little crime drama, let out of prison after 5 years when his alibi finally checks out Dick Powell sets about hunting down some sort of compensation for 5 years of his life.
Dick Powell made enough of these little gems to have become a fairly reliable signifier of whether I will like a post war crime movie and while he doesn't quite convince in the part in the way he does in 'Pitfall', its still an excellent movie.
It possesses a genuinely dynamite script and an almost exclusively morally compromised cast of characters who seem to just accept each little betrayal as nothing worthy of surprise. Life keeps on trying to teach everyone the same old lessons and…
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This is what dialogue writing should be all about. A brilliant, witty and clever script that was just fabulous to see delivered.
This is one movie that aspiring script writers should put on their "must watch" list for educational purposes, but everyone else should get the chance to see it just because it's a bloody great movie.
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I was lucky enough to see this restored noir in LA's Egyptian Theatre, in the presence of star Rhonda Fleming.
A near-perfect example of the genre, with tough guys, even tougher dames and a script from William Bowers that's both hilarious and sassy, Cry Danger should be on every film fan's must-see list, whether they enjoy noirs or not. Dick Powell is perfectly cast as Rocky and his co-stars are equally spot-on in their perfomances.
Unavailable on DVD due to some complex rights issues, I'm hopeful one day soon I'll have it on the shelf to rewatch again and again.
Recent reviews
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A tough little crime drama, let out of prison after 5 years when his alibi finally checks out Dick Powell sets about hunting down some sort of compensation for 5 years of his life.
Dick Powell made enough of these little gems to have become a fairly reliable signifier of whether I will like a post war crime movie and while he doesn't quite convince in the part in the way he does in 'Pitfall', its still an excellent movie.
It possesses a genuinely dynamite script and an almost exclusively morally compromised cast of characters who seem to just accept each little betrayal as nothing worthy of surprise. Life keeps on trying to teach everyone the same old lessons and…
-
Let's get out of this sun and into a nice cool bar.
-DelongDick Powell spent his early career mainly in musicals until he was able to reinvent his film persona with a series of film-noir roles. His first breakthrough came when he became the first actor to portray private eye Philip Marlowe in a feature film. He'd never reach the success of Humphrey Bogart, but he still managed to give us four or five very memorable hard-boiled crime films with Cry Danger definitely being one of them.
The film's plot doesn't reinvent the genre by any stretch of the imagination, but the dialogue more then makes up for it. It's smart, witty, mean spirited and comes at you at…
-
Man, Is this a Noir classic. Eddie Mueller's Noir City fest is where I saw this and many, many other classic prints I'd never even heard of. The script is so good, I feel like the Coen's stole every line, and I'll be goddamned if Joe Biroc ain't one of the best cameramen ever. Powell and William Conrad make good adversaries and the back and forth banter between all the actors is fairly realistic. You'll never, ever spot the ending, and if you do I'll personally mail you $5. This is Powell's movie the entire way, he picked the story, hired the director and is in every single scene. Stupid title, I just now realized.
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I was lucky enough to see this restored noir in LA's Egyptian Theatre, in the presence of star Rhonda Fleming.
A near-perfect example of the genre, with tough guys, even tougher dames and a script from William Bowers that's both hilarious and sassy, Cry Danger should be on every film fan's must-see list, whether they enjoy noirs or not. Dick Powell is perfectly cast as Rocky and his co-stars are equally spot-on in their perfomances.
Unavailable on DVD due to some complex rights issues, I'm hopeful one day soon I'll have it on the shelf to rewatch again and again.
-
This is what dialogue writing should be all about. A brilliant, witty and clever script that was just fabulous to see delivered.
This is one movie that aspiring script writers should put on their "must watch" list for educational purposes, but everyone else should get the chance to see it just because it's a bloody great movie.