(From my 2021 post after HELL BOUND's TCM screening) HELL BOUND adds a scrappy twist to Noir Alley A favorite of Gord's and evangelized in the pages of the NC e-zine in the semi-distant past by Gary Deane, HELL BOUND (1957) made it to TCM in what we wags like to call its "Karel Reisz time slot" (if this jibe is too obscure, you are directed to the IMDB for the "punch line") this weekend and was a lively right turn into the world of "B+" moviemaking in the waning days of the American noir cycle. Eddie's outro (delivered more robotically than usual--a shadow on the teleprompter, perhaps?) asks us to vote on whether the film is "awful trash" or "really fun trash." Neither option is particularly accurate, given the presence of cinematographer Carl Guthrie, who channels his inner Ted McCord and delivers some bravura visuals in a series of highly different settings, leaving things on a gloriously grim high note with a superbly choreographed final chase scene through the modernist wet dream of a sprawling south Los Angeles junkyard. (Our subject line is a bit of a spoiler, but it's probably too obscure to be truly objectionable...) Gary wants us to think that the film points ahead to neo-noir, seeing John Russell's mastermind character as a link to future ice-cold characters. It's more realistic to see HELL BOUND as a film whose flabby script and inconsistent acting is held together by Russell's monomania and the sterling camera work of Guthrie. It follows the form of the heist films that were beginning to proliferate in the looming twilight of the American noir cycle, touching on motifs found in contemporaneous films such as THE KILLING (1956), THE BIG CAPER (1957) and THE BURGLAR (1957). A lot of attention was paid by Eddie (in this "one for the boys" episode) on lissome June Blair, whose entry into Russell's heist plot becomes the first of several sticking points undermining the scheme's viability. Blair is adequate playing a role that really makes no sense (the moll of a mob bankroller is going to go soft in the middle of a situation she insisted on being part of?) but the moments in the film where she displays a semi-feral need to remove her shoes (shorthand for sexual arousal) are a reminder that the film is not signaling the dawn of neo-noir so much as it is telegraphing the emerging sexual explicitness that would soon reign after the demise of the Production Code. (Eddie, going "boy's club" all the way, even released some mildly risque PLAYBOY shots of Miss Blair--the magazine's centerfold in January 1957--on Twitter after the screening.) HELL BOUND reminds us that shaky stories can be held together by cinematography/editing, by inspired location scouting, and by a strong performance from the lead actor. The film has a bountiful variety of first-rate visuals, and has an excellent "flow quotient" (evoking an engaged response from the viewer when seen with the sound off). It doesn't send itself up, so it's not "fun trash," and it's clearly not awful: it's simply the among the very last "B" films in the classic noir cycle that is valiant enough at hiding its weaknesses to warrant a big screen showcase. But don't wait for that--you can watch it for free on YouTube (above!) One-time BB denizen Mackjay weighs in on SHORT CUT TO HELL: As B movies go, SHORT CUT TO HELL makes it pretty far. This is a tawdrier remake of Graham Greene's source novel for THIS GUN FOR HIRE with lower-rent sets, and lead actors less charismatic, but still very effective. In fact, it's the acting that most impresses about this odd little film. Robert Ivers embodies the diminutive, tightly wound hit-man pretty convincingly; his body language and hard-edged line deliveries are spot-on. Opposite him is Georgann Johnson, who has a disarming, natural acting style. The oil and water combination of these two sustains an interesting tension for the whole movie. Their first meeting aboard a train is a case in point: a very effectively played scene. Talented Johnson never made much of a mark until television later in the 50s and 60s. In the role of Bahrwell, Jacques Aubuchon is very well cast, as are Murvyn Vye and assorted other smaller roles, including Yvette Vickers and Douglas Spencer. Scarce prints of SHORT CUT TO HELL don't always include director James Cagney's spoken introduction and sometimes a jump cut suggests editorial trimming. A restored version of this film would do justice to Cagney's gift for directing actors and a couple of fine action sequences.
on 12/31/2024, 4:57 pm
Posted by Don Malcolm on 9/27/2021, 9:16 am
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