Man in the Dark (1953)

Simply A Masterpiece

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Excellent but underrated film

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

A good noir thriller with a neat gimmick. Edmund O'Brien's Steve, part of an armored car robbery gang, gets caught, but he's paroled to a hospital for experimental surgery. He subsequently loses his memory. This cleverly sets up the archetypal noir hero's sense of alienation from society.For once in her noir career, Audrey Totter's character is sympathetic. As Steve's girlfriend, she starts out unconcerned about his fate, but, as she realizes what happened to him, her love for him outpaces her greed for the missing loot.The pacing keeps the plot moving at a pretty good clip. At first I thought the bumper car chase was silly, the cops gliding around in formation--as if on parade. And, from such close range, they should've been able to nail Steve. But then I remembered that Steve was having a nightmare. The mixing of memories and dreams with the main plot adds more and more, building into the palpably grotesque atmosphere of the amusement park. This long sequence is cooly spun into a quick finish. Steve 'squares' himself with the police, and he and Peg can finally have each other. The 3-D effects would probably look pretty cool in a theater. They happen quickly and don't detract much. But the trio of bad guys with goofy nicknames could've used more than the two-dimensional treatment that they're given. As a result, the middle of the movie does drag a bit, as they try to sweat out the whereabouts of the money from Steve.They can't be so dumb not to realize that he really doesn't know much about the past; why else would he have been on parole to have a mysterious operation as well as a new identity? Aside from dangling those chumps into the plot, Man In the Dark works relentlessly to keep our attention, and ultimately to bring O'Brien and Totter together. Along the way, the viewer's treated to a sort of noir Christmas.

Edmond O'Brien played in quite a few film noir pictures. And, interestingly, they all seem to be excellent...even "Man in the Dark" which you would expect to be a bad picture even WITH O'Brien. Why? Because the film was cranked out in only 11 days AND because there were a lot of cheap 3D tricks in the picture...yet it still turned out to be very, very good. So why would the studio do this in 11 days? Apparently, 3D movies were brand new and they wanted to be the first major studio to make a 3D picture....yet, amazingly, the film doesn't seem rushed or second-rate!When the story begins, a prisoner (O'Brien) is about to undergo some surgery. When he awakens, he has no memory of who he was and is christened 'Steve Rawley' by the doctors. Unfortunately, his old gang doesn't know about the purpose of the surgery--they just know they've got to kidnap him and tell them where he stashed the loot from a robbery. But he really does NOT know where it is nor who he was. His only clues are strange dreams he's been having. Could they point him to the right direction before the gang decides just to kill him and be done with it?As usual, Edmond O'Brien is great. He's tough, mouthy and just the sort of ugly mug you'd expect in a noir picture. And, having Audrey Totter and Ted de Corsia in supporting roles sure didn't hurt! Overall, a nice viewing experience...even with all the 3D gimmicks and use of rear projection towards the end (which I normally hate because it looks so fake).

B film-noir from Columbia Pictures and director Lew Landers. Dependable character actor Edmond O'Brien plays Steve Rawley, a gangster who agrees to undergo experimental brain surgery to alter his criminal activities and erase his memories. Rawley masterminded a payroll robbery and hid the spoils before being nabbed. Steve's old buddies don't believe his new situation and try to beat the information out of him. They desperately want their share of the payroll. I guess in the world of crime, amnesia is no excuse. Some of Rawley's memories come back; maybe bits and pieces can lead to the hidden money. Rawley's old girlfriend Peg(Audrey Totter)wants him to leave the stash alone and just run away to a brand new life. It is not going to end that easily.Other players: Horace McMahon, Ted de Corsia, Nick Dennis, Mickey Simpson, Ruth Warren and Dayton Lummis.

This is a tale of two films. The 2-D version is a decent 1950's film noir. Edmond O'Brien and Audrey Totter, both veteran actors, give superior performances. Production values are solid. But you might scratch your head over some of the strange actions (ex: the scared bird and the position of the scalpels). Such visuals slow down the action. And that brings me to the only way this film can be appreciated for what it is. That's in the 3-D version."Man in the Dark" is the second 3-D movie that had a major film release. It was preceded by "Bawana Devil" and was followed by "House of Wax". It's 3-D they way it was first thought of. Objects fly at the screen. There's a natural multi-layer depth. The all around feel is "it's 3-D, look at me!". And that at times makes it a real hoot.The one disappointment is the rear screen shots. The action in the front is 3-D, but the rear projection is just 2-D which is a bit jarring at first.The 2-D version is fine. But to appreciate "The Man in the Dark", you must watch it in 3-D.