Steineded How sad is this?

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Ed-Shullivan No doubt Virginia Mayo is a classy, beautiful dramatic actress. In this film she plays a young woman named Carla North. Ms. North is attempting to make a living working the nightclub circuit going to where the jobs paid sufficiently to provide her food and shelter. By a series of of unfortunate but not related incidents the owner of a large freight company named Johnny Torno (played by George Raft) is trying to solve the mystery of a missing motel bible that his recently murdered brother while taking his last dying breath alludes to will solve who murdered him in that motel room. Johnny Torno then finds Carla North who happened to be in that same room shortly after his brothers murder. After eliminating Carla North as a suspect he engages her to work with him in finding out the current location of the other motel room customers who may have stolen the motel room bible that his brother said provides the only clue to his murder.So big brother Johnny ignores his freight company responsibilities and with the help of the motel bellhop and the beautiful Carla North finds out who subsequently rented that same motel room over the next week in an effort to find out who took that bible that is the key to solving his brothers mysterious death and murder.I am sure you noticed that I rated this film a dismal 3 out of 10. The 3 points are all attributed to the classy Virginia Mayo who plays Carla North, as well as to actor Raymond Burr who plays the recently released convict Nick Cherney. Cherney served his time in prison for fudging Johnny Torno's books and embezzling funds from the Torno Freight company. So the big burly bad convict Nick Cherney sought vengeance from Johnny Torno for putting him behind bars and what better way to seek vengeance than to have Johnny Torno's little priest brother whacked by his cellmate Rocky (Harry Morgan aka Dragnet's detective Bill Gannon) who was being released from prison before he was.This film noir is an okay time waster except for the fact that the so called male star of this film, Johnny Torno, played by the cardboard acting emotionless little George Raft kept sinking the film every time he opened his mouth and/or moved across the black and white screen with his hands stiffly held next to his hips as if he was a robot. Johnny Torno (George Raft) in my view was unable to portray on the screen the heartbroken older brother of a hero priest who survived five (5) years overseas serving in the war, only to be murdered and leaving his brother Johnny with a task to find his murderer and get even. There is one scene in a public washroom where Johnny Torno confronts the recently released convict Nick Cherney and commences to put a beating on him. Let's be real folks, George Raft stands a mere 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighs maybe a generous 135 pounds. The convict that Johhny Torno is supposed to be laying a beating on Nick Cherney, is played by the burly Raymond Burr who at the time, stood at least 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. This is just another example of how poorly cast George Raft was in the leading role of Johnny Torno.The Red Light title was merely used as a result of the very recent huge success that was ALL Virgina Mayo's for starring in the earlier 1949 release of another film noir titled "White Heat" which starred a real action/drama star in James Cagney. As of my writing this review, the 1949 Red Light film received an average IMDB rating of 6.4 by only 610 IMDB users. As for the much more critically acclaimed and earlier 1949 film release "White Heat" has received a much higher average IMDB rating of 8.2 . The key here is that this higher 8.2 rating of "White Heat" is attributed to a whopping average of 22,696 IMDB viewers, compared to only 610 IMDB user ratings for red Light.A title can help a film but it is the stars who will actually make a movie great as was the case with White Heat and compartively mediocre (at best) as is the case with this film noir Red Light. It is unfortunate that the attractive and good performance of Virginia Mayo was assigned to work with one of the worst actors of the time period, that being the short cardboard acting of George Raft.Sorry, but I call them like I see them. I give this film a 3 out of 10 rating.

utgard14 Businessman George Raft is out for blood after his priest brother is murdered. The brother's last words are about a bible so Raft scours the city searching for it, hoping it holds a clue to the identity of his brother's killer. Fine film noir with George Raft bringing a "WB gangster from the '30s" edge to things. It's a really good performance from tough guy Raft. This is about as sensitive as he gets on screen. He even cries in one scene. Great cast backing him up, including Gene Lockhart, Raymond Burr, Barton MacLane, and Harry Morgan. Virginia Mayo provides the lovely. Burr's a memorable heavy. Starts and ends well but middle drags some. Scene with the window washer is pretty cheesy stuff. Final scene is something of an eye-roller.

calvinnme ... because you always know what you're going to get. However, that doesn't mean that I don't really enjoy his movies. Nobody, I mean nobody does revenge like Raft. Here he plays businessman Johnny Torno, proud older brother of young Jess Torno, a priest recently returned from being a chaplain in WWII. Four years earlier Torno's bookkeeper Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr) was sent to prison for embezzling from Johnny's company - he was embarrassingly guilty and it was really a lot of money. Instead of blaming the man in the mirror, Nick blames Johnny for his fate and crafts a particularly cruel revenge. If he kills Johnny, Johnny's troubles are over. However, if he kills what is precious to him - brother Jess - he can plunge Johnny into a living hell of grief. He sends a hit man (Harry Morgan) out to do the killing. Johnny finds Jess just before he dies. Of course Johnny wants to know who did this so he can kill them in revenge - he tells Jess so - and Jess tells him the answer is written in a Bible.Now at first Johnny thinks Jess means his own personal Bible, but after searching through it he finds nothing. He then realizes that Jess probably meant the Gideon Bible that is found in every hotel room. This starts Johnny on a search for the missing Bible and all of the guests in the hotel room since Jess' death who might have taken it. Nick, now out of prison, along with the hit man, are right on Johnny's heels hoping their plans are not discovered.It is very odd to see later TV good guys Harry Morgan and Raymond Burr playing such sinister characters but the performances ring true. So does Virginia Mayo as a girl Johnny befriends along the way as the voice of reason and even redemption. Raft wrestles here not only with bad guys and a mystery but with God Himself - he treats the Almighty either like a traffic cop that he thinks can be bribed or an unreliable employee that he doesn't fire because he enjoys blaming him for his troubles, depending on his mood.A good noir and good stuff from Raft - highly recommended.

bmacv Meticulously groomed George Raft was a notoriously one-note actor, but his monotone worked harmoniously in the flattened acoustic of film noir. In Roy Del Ruth's Red Light -- an unusual "religioso" thriller -- he owns a trucking empire; his brother, a priest and army chaplain, has just been gunned down in a hotel room. The clue to the assassin's identity is supposedly scrawled in the room's Gideon Bible, which has gone missing. Raft enlists the aid of Virginia Mayo to track down both Bible and killer. But when they succeed, Raft's plans for revenge are thwarted by the Deity, in the form of a huge electrical sign during a pelting rainstorm, underscoring the movie's moral: "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Raft's quest is jam-packed with every cinematic device that makes the noir cycle such delectable (if forbidden) fruit: flicked-away cigarette butts, rain-streaked windowpanes, grotesquely lit close-ups, San Francisco at its sleaziest. The film's heavies, Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan, win no congeniality awards; Burr's performance here may well be the nastiest in his impressive portfolio of thugs. Despite Dmitri Tiomkin's pietistic score, which lurches from the "Dies Irae" to the "Ave Maria" and back again, the spiritual side of the story seems clumsily overlaid, a late addition to the film's hard-core noir structure. And the title remains a puzzle. Is it meant as an injunction to "Stop" the cycle of bloodshed? A reference to the votive candle whose flame indicates that the Blessed Sacrament is in residence? Or to the electrocuting signage which ends the movie? No matter; it does little to dispel the deep, and deeply satisfying, thematic gloom.