ada the leading man is my tpye

Micransix Crappy film

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

LeonLouisRicci In the post war world of returning servicemen it was left to film-noir to explore the ramifications and residue that haunted and plagued the patriotic participants. This film does not disappoint.It clearly, with shades of black and gray, shows that you can move to the suburbs but you can't remove the scars, both physical and psychological. The laws of modern physics demonstrated that for every action there is a reaction.Both men are burdened with that reaction. The limp and the neurosis are symbolic of the strain that was unbearable. The therapy here seems to be the love of a woman. Most noirs aren't populated with so many nurses of the soul and menders of the heart. But here we have them in triplicate and one might say that they "lighten" the noir tone if not to major distraction.The film is just slightly off pure film-noir because of that safety net provided the lost souls by the fairer female and not the fa-tale female, but only slightly. It is a great demonstration of expressionist style and fatalism that surely ranks very high and is a strong entry into the time period that was the consummate cinema-noir.

jpark4 This is some of the grittiest noir I have seen.  This is as close to the bone as it gets- no wisecracking to lighten the mood, no sacrificing of story for atmosphere, although there is plenty of atmosphere-just a dark, straight ahead  story of people with a past, passing through a world where no one is perfectly clean.  There are no epiphanies, no one is morally redeemed.  These are people who have in the past been placed in horrible circumstances by forces largely beyond their control, but the disasters that their lives have become are largely of their own making.Robert Ryan gives a solid performance as the vengeance-crazed vet.  Van Heflin's performance as the guilt- ridden, morally conflicted (and thus morally ambiguous) ex-POW is excellent.  He disintegrates from upstanding hale-fellow-well-met to cringing man-on- the-run as he realizes that his current life is a fragile construction of fantasy that the horror of his past during the war must inevitably shatter.  Mary Astor's performance as the aging barfly looking for "kicks" is stunning and in my opinion, Oscar-worthy, although she was not nominated that year.   L.A.'s original Bunker Hill district is also a standout in many scenes.As with any noir, you won't be uplifted.  You will, however, be entertained by "Act of Violence".

evanston_dad A surprisingly frank and morally complex film noir released immediately post-WWII.Van Heflin plays a man who ratted out some fellow soldiers in a Nazi POW camp; Robert Ryan is one of the survivors who comes to seek vengeance on Heflin after they've all returned to the States and have spent time rebuilding their lives. The movie poses difficult questions, much more difficult ones than movies of its kind normally did, and it doesn't let itself off easy by making either Heflin nor Ryan all good or all bad. One of the most daring elements of the film is its suggestion that Heflin is deserving of forgiveness, because the codes of conduct that govern men in the theater of war are different from those that govern us in our day-to-day lives. That maybe doesn't seem like a daring thing to say now, but at the time it would have been.Heflin and Ryan are both terrific; Ryan is one of my favorite film noir actors. But the women in the film make quite an impression, and no wonder given that two of them are played by Janet Leigh (as Heflin's wife) and Mary Astor (as a world-weary good-time gal who takes Heflin under her protective wing). If the mens' world -- both at war and at home -- is one of violence and revenge, it's the women who act as the voice of reason and sanity, trying to impose a sense of stability amid the chaos.A really, really good movie.Grade: A

seymourblack-1 "Act Of Violence" is a powerful and tense melodrama about two men who, during the period immediately following World War 11, are both haunted by the past. The methods by which they struggle to resolve their troubled circumstances differ, as one chooses violent revenge as a solution whilst the other ultimately opts for an even more perversely criminal remedy. Stark visual contrasts are drawn between the brightly lit scenes which celebrate all the optimism and positivity of the period and the more darkly lit ones during which the problems of the recent past are addressed.Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a clean cut ex-serviceman who runs his own successful business. He's happily married and well respected in his local community. Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) is a disabled war veteran who calls at Frank's house and learns from his wife Edith (Janet Leigh) that Frank is away on a fishing trip. Joe pursues Frank to the nearby lake with the intention of killing him but is thwarted when he is unable to get a clear shot at him. When a bartender tells Frank that a stranger with a limp has been asking about him, he immediately panics and heads home.Frank tells Edith that Joe and he were in a Nazi POW camp together and that he doesn't want to see Joe as he's mentally ill. Frank also admits that it was because of Joe that he moved the family away from their previous home in Syracuse, New York. The couple hide out in their darkened house when Joe calls again and his threatening presence pacing around outside, makes the sound of his irregular stride seem extremely sinister.When Frank goes to a builders' and contractors' convention in Los Angeles, Joe goes again to his home and tells Edith that he's pursuing Frank because he was responsible for his disability and the deaths of a number of his comrades. At the convention, Joe finds Frank and after a brief scuffle, Frank escapes. He goes to a bar where he meets Pat (Mary Astor) who introduces him to a "lawyer" named Gavery (Taylor Holmes) and a hit man called Johnny (Berry Kroeger) and between them they make an arrangement for Joe to be murdered. The events that take place when the killing is to be carried out, lead to a resolution for both men and some degree of redemption for Frank.Frank is an archetypal noir character being a rather weak man, haunted by something from his past and who despite his best efforts, is unable to avoid his own destiny. His collusion with the Nazis that led to the deaths of his comrades had been an ill judged action which had been made at a time when he was under duress and the same poor judgement was shown yet again when he made a similar bad decision to conspire with criminals to kill Joe. Neither man is completely noble or unequivocally evil, but both are undoubtedly victims of their recent tragic past. Their story which initially appears to be a simple conflict between good and evil is gradually revealed to be something more complex and disturbing.Fred Zinnemann's direction and Robert Surtees' cinematography are both excellent and combine effectively to unveil the different aspects of Frank and Joe's characters and also to convey all the associated tension and anxiety that they feel throughout."Act Of Violence" certainly grows from its deceptively straightforward looking introduction into an absorbing tale of some substance and profundity.