Railroaded! (1947)

I love this movie so much

Very best movie i ever watch

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Some people refer to PRC films as "Pretty Rotten Cinema", but like Monogram, in spite of its historical place on the ranks of "Z" Grade movie studios, it had a very interesting output of entertaining movies that are now coming to the light of day thanks to such DVD distributors such as Alpha and Kino. "Railroaded" is a typical post-war Film Noir where someone is accused of a crime they did not commit and the law must find the culprit with the help of various types of characters. At the beginning of the film, we meet the typically cynical film noir femme fatale, blonde Jane Randolph. She is a beautician who runs a bookie joint in the back room of her salon, and when it is robbed, a cop is killed after hearing one of Randolph's co-workers scream. A young man (Ed Kelly) is identified as the killer, even though Randolph's co-worker insisted the killer had a different hair color. Kelly is booked after he is fingered by the wounded robber (shot horrifyingly in the throat!), and his sister (Sheila Ryan) vows to prove his innocence. She begins to work with cop Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver again in one of his typical film roles) as well as villainous John Ireland, who is involved with the shady Randolph and has kept her under wraps from the cops ever since the shooting. In a short span of 71 minutes, we see the shooting, the accusation, and the investigation, which leads to a rather typical conclusion. It's what happens during the investigation that is interesting and unique. The photography is definitely typical film noir, dark and moody, and filled with some twists that are both frightening and riveting. It's also fun to watch Randolph sink from wise-cracking and hardened to drunken desperation, one of the few times a femme fatale is allowed to crack enough early in the film to see what's underneath their hardboiled surface. She is great. It's pretty obvious throughout who the guilty party is and that they'll get their come-uppance, but how it happens is fun to watch. There is one sequence that did occur to me as senseless. That is when someone is shot at close range and manages to pull out the shooter's handkerchief which will identify them. The shooter had plenty of time to notice this, but steps over the body and leaves even though the handkerchief is lying plainly in site. Other than that and other predictable moments, it gets a higher rating thanks to crisp dialog, great photography, and rip-roaringly faced pacing.

John Ireland plays Duke, a thief who dumps his wounded partner, sets up a frame for an innocent young man, then goes around knocking off people who are wise to what's going on or who have money he wants or who otherwise crimp his cool, manipulative style. At the end he is caught and killed in a shootout with the good-guy cop. C'est tout.The acting isn't as poorly done as the script. Ireland is one dimensional, but the head honcho is kind of neat, an older guy fond of quoting Oscar Wilde. I'd never heard of the good girl, Shiela Ryan, and now I know why. I keep getting her name mixed up with the far more appealing and vulnerable girl from "Odd Man Out." Jane Randolph plays a hardened whorish blond who is Ireland's property. It's impossible to fathom what appeal he has for her. He slaps her around, scowls constantly, insults her, and tells her things like, "Why are you getting tough with me? Crackin' up like that. Drinkin' like a fish. I don't like people who get tough with me." She's his devoted accomplice in the frame too, at least until her conscience gets the better of her and she wants to spill the beans to the cops, at which point what happens to her is what happens to all of the people who try to cross or get tough with John Ireland. When she whines she sounds like Claire Trevor in "Key Largo." But I don't care is she's garish and nasty. To me she'll always be the pointy chinned adoring friend of Kent Smith in "The Cat People." Try to shake it as she might, she still has the screen presence of a light cream-filled pastry.The problem with the movie is that -- directed by Anthony Mann or not -- it has no flair. None of the characters has much complexity to begin with and the director adds nothing to what is essentially a routine B crime movie. Nothing INTERESTING happens on screen. When someone is shot, he or she falls down and dies -- period. The camera placement and staging are functional, no more than that. Nobody is quirky. Well, maybe the Oscar Wilde quotes and the perfumed bullets are a nod in that direction but they don't clear the bar. Neither has anything to do with the story. And the guy who is in the hot spot? The innocent young man who was framed? He disappears half way through and we don't see him or hear about him again.I guess there IS one particularly noticeable feature of the movie. It's dark. The photography in fact isn't bad. At least we can feel the photographer trying to do something. There are lots of table lamps casting like upward and making sinister faces into images of evil. Sometimes the lighting overreaches. When Ireland is plugged (oh, so implausibly) at the end and sinks down out of the frame, the only lighted object we can make out is his right ear sliding deliberately from our sight.

John Ireland's portrayal of a cold obsessed killer is the best thing in this movie. His performance is edgy, sexy and menacing. A brutal thug who loves his gun. Unfortunately he is hampered by a weak script, where his actions often make little sense. (For instance, why would he contact the sister of the suspect he framed?). Jane Randolph is also strong as the moll, although her character seems to change midway through the movie.One of the first noir films directed by Anthony Mann, the movie is well shot, fast paced, tightly edited and tough. One wishes the focus could have stayed on Ireland, or, alternatively, the strong scenes of Ed Kelly being framed and pushed around by the cops. Mann will better develop these themes in his later films (noirs and westerns). Still a pretty enjoyable movie and a must for film noir fans.

Anthony Mann directed some of the very best noirs of the 1940s and early 1950s.This one is brutal, hard-hitting, and unrelenting till its Hollywood ended. (The ending may have been tacked on. I don't know. But it works organically with the whole, unlike many others.)The problem for me with some of his movies, this one included, is that they are so dark they're almost impossible to see at times. Yes, it's atmospheric. But it's also frustrating.The literal noir in some -- not all -- of his movies reminds me of the staging of Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera. Yes, it's brooding and intense. But it's also really hard to see.