Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

drjgardner All the mistaken comments about "Dead Reckoning" being "film noir" prompts my review. Though there are certainly elements of film noir here (e.g, femme fatale, rainy scenes, night scenes, double crosses, post WW 2 production) there are also some significant omissions. For example, the big city element is missing. It's not an essential element (as is the femme fatale), but it is one of the main elements to look for. Also missing is the motley crew of bad guys. Here we have a duo, both of whom qualify, but the best film noir have a bunch of evil doers rather than a mere duo.We're also missing the cop/detective/insurance investigator, but Bogart's military man on a mission might qualify.But the two essential features that are missing are (a) the unfortunate ending for the protagonist, and (b) the protagonists' contribution to his own ill fate. Without these elements there is no true film noir. The film may be bleak or melodramatic, and it may even be nourish (as noted above), but it fails to be the classic film noir.In addition, Bogart's personality in this film veers away from the classic film noir protagonist. He's an award winning serviceman, with a pretty upbeat attitude, and a successful businessman. Of course he's also Bogart, so he brings with him so many of the film noir characteristics that we can be forgiven to see that in this film he is different.

meritcoba "It is good that it was a little while back that we saw this movie, for it gave me a little bit of time to think about it," Kristl said."You changed your opinion?" Henry said."Well, I changed my point of view. I changed how I look at it.""If I recall you said it was a Maltese Falcon rip off? So, it isn't any longer?""Well.. it still is, but on the other hand there is nothing against making a movie that is similar to another. On the face of it, many stories are similar. A lot of stories have a bad evil rising and a good guy fighting and defeating it. Many stories have the idea of a discovery, usually in the form of an adventure in which the protagonist undergoes an experience and changes at the end.""Uhm OK.""The problem with Dead Reckoning isn't that it is similar to the Maltese Falcon, but that it doesn't work very well. It lacks all the great things that the Maltese Falcon makes such a great movie. The relation between Bogart and Scott has no spark, while the one between Bogart and Astor does work. Then there are no interesting side persons such as Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. In the Maltese Falcon the Falcon ties the story together and greed is the driving force, in Dead Reckoning there is nothing.""It is a rather confused story.""It is…""As far as I got it, Bogey plays a Captain who follows the tracks of one of his subordinates and close friend Sergeant Drake. He discovers that he is killed in a fire. So what next?""Well.. Bogey the captain, goes to find out. He meets some guy who works in a club and who gives him a letter from Drake and then follows some muddle with a club owner who is a mob boss. The story meanders. And somewhere we got a situation that is almost similar to the Maltese Falcon: a game played between the cynical and hard boiled bogey and the 'femme fatale' Scott. It just falls flat and it is boring.""Okay.""You don't say much yourself.""Well, it is and old movie, but a bit boring. Like many of these old movies are, unless it's an adventure movie, like one with Errol Flynn. Like eh the Adventures of Robin Hood or adventures of Don Juan. Swashbuckling movies, with a charming hero. I just don't like these dark cynical movies. Light entertainment. Make life enjoyable." Henry gave Kristl a smile."Oh.. I sort of like them..""I gather that. Seems you tend to the dark side, my lady, while I tend to the light.""That sounds very Star Wars like.""Definitely.., it is.""Well….Yoda...just sit the next ones out.. and then it is your turn.""Good.. it is."www.meritcoba.com

PamelaShort At this point in Humphrey Bogart's career, he was now a well enough established actor to be given free rein of his choice of director while on loan to Columbia Studios. He came up with John Cromwell who had given him his first break in the play Swifty, back in the 1920s. Cromwell decided to work with him again, but there was a problem, they had no story. According to Cromwell; they finally got this one , a noxious sort of thing , but I felt perhaps we could make something of it.' The 'noxious sort of thing' in question was Dead Reckoning, which turned out- unintentionally, it seems- to be almost a parody of The Maltese Falcon. Just like Sam Spade, Rip Murdock ( Bogart ) is trying to avenge the death of his partner; in this instance they were formerly paratrooper pals. It also borrows shamelessly from the film Double Indemnity, the same idea of a narrative voice-over commentary by Bogart. Even to the point of Fred MacMurray's repeated references to the smell of honeysuckle, in Double Indemnity, while Bogart harps on the smell of jasmine in the hair of co-star Lizabeth Scott. Sadly there is not the same friction and chemistry between Bogart/Scott as with MacMurray/Stanwyck. Bogart in this movie does not really seem interested in his sexy leading lady Scott, and it shows on film. Sadly for Lizabeth Scott, as an actress she was not lucky enough to have been taken under the wing of a brilliant Svengali-like director, which had been the main factor in setting Lauren Bacall on the road to success. But I still found her performance is exceptional under the circumstances and more interesting than Bogart's. While not near one of his best films, it is still a curiosity to see for Bogart fans and Scott fans alike. Either you'll like it or you won't, I'll let the reader decide for themselves.

jc-osms Don't you just love those film noir titles that just reach out and grab your interest, despite having no direct relevance to the movie content...? Obviously, like the pulp fiction book-source, it's a device to attract casual interest from passers-by looking at cinema-hoardings or book displays. This is definitely one of those and moreover director John Cromwell, not one I'd regard as being in the Hollywood pantheon, somehow manages to get his name above the title too.Good for him, because this is a cracking and mostly pulsating film noir, led by the inimitable Bogart again immersing himself in a meaty role, ostensibly a demobbed army captain but evidentially a sub-Sam Spade type adventurer who gets up to his neck in danger as he attempts to track down his army-buddy-with-a-secret Johnny and taking in encounters with a gambling-den boss, his hired muscle who gets up close and personal in a far from pleasant way with Bogart's face and Lizabeth Scott as the femme fatale playing both ends as you would expect.The movie starts with a straight-away drop-in to the action leading up, you just know it, to a lengthy flashback from Bogie, involving a fairly contrived unburdening of not quite his soul to an ex-forces padre. The background story is raw and pacy enough to hold your interest pretty much all the way through with taut and edgy dialogue, natch, only lapsing a little when Scott & Bogart apparently hitch their wagons together and get all starry-eyed. Not to worry, a quick look at your watch tells you there are still 20 minutes or so to go and you know you're in for an exciting guns (and fires) - blazing finish.Bogart's great as per...and Scott is just fine for the most part in her Bacall-clone part, all smoky eyes and voice, even getting into a noir-trademark white outfit (a la Stanwyck & Turner) for the second half, although she acts a pretty poor deathbed scene in the final reel and can't lip-synch her early-on torch song for toffee. The villains don't exactly come across as villainous however, which lightens the tension a tad, the henchman in particular wimping out when Bogart sets fire to the boss's apartment - you'll laugh out loud (as I did) at his pathetic scream as he exits through a window.Nevertheless, the movie crackles along satisfactorily until its downbeat er... reckoning and employs and respects enough noir conventions to keep aficionados happy...including me.