Desperate (1947) Full Movie

stu b 08 Aug 2016

Early film noir from Anthony Mann that contains some great moments (for example, a swinging overhead light that alternatingly reveals the bad guys and casts them into darkness) although the happy ending shakes off a bit too much of the desperation that a fully-fledged noir would leave intact. Typical of the genre, Mann places the innocent hero into a tough position, caught between the cops and the gang, and having to flee with his pregnant wife from both. En route to the conclusion, things get rather picaresque but Raymond Burr, the chief heavy, keeps coming and coming. It's not clear whether our hero did anything wrong (in needing to make money so badly) or whether it's just the fickle finger of fate that laid in wait for returning servicemen of all moral persuasions - but this guy doesn't deserve the things that happen to him. Mann would go on to make a few more, darker, noirs and then a string of really great dark westerns with a morally ambiguous Jimmy Stewart.

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Geoffrey O'Brien 12 Aug 2018

B-movie as country-and-western ballad, seventy-three minutes of total involvement followed by oblivion: except for one's lingering uneasiness about unlit corners and warehouses near the river.

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Michael G 21 Jul 2010

Desperate starts off as a hokey enough and paint-by-numbers film noir thriller about a good guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The story's straightforward and frankly, its not exactly something you haven't seen before. But what makes Desperate a bit better is director Anthony Mann's direction and the way he takes a reasonably lukewarm story then builds and builds--right up to a fantastic stairway climax worthy of the Film Noir Hall of Fame. A must see for fans of Mann (especially when you see glimpses of what would later become some of the greatest westerns ever that he would later make), that final scene aside, not so much for fans of noir. Consider it a small part of a bigger potato chip at the bottom of the bag when you've already eaten all the greater ones--you don't necessarily regret taking it in but it won't be the one you remember the bag for...

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Dave J 08 Aug 2016

Early film noir from Anthony Mann that contains some great moments (for example, a swinging overhead light that alternatingly reveals the bad guys and casts them into darkness) although the happy ending shakes off a bit too much of the desperation that a fully-fledged noir would leave intact. Typical of the genre, Mann places the innocent hero into a tough position, caught between the cops and the gang, and having to flee with his pregnant wife from both. En route to the conclusion, things get rather picaresque but Raymond Burr, the chief heavy, keeps coming and coming. It's not clear whether our hero did anything wrong (in needing to make money so badly) or whether it's just the fickle finger of fate that laid in wait for returning servicemen of all moral persuasions - but this guy doesn't deserve the things that happen to him. Mann would go on to make a few more, darker, noirs and then a string of really great dark westerns with a morally ambiguous Jimmy Stewart.

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Jeffrey M. Anderson 15 Jul 2010

[Has] Mann's sense of coiled violence, just waiting to unload.

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