Railroaded

Rating:
Summary: O'Hara was one of us
Review: Clara and Marie are running a bookie operation for the girls in the back room of Clara's beauty salon. The owner of the Bombay Club is financing the venture. Clara's boyfriend Duke manages the club and collects the take from a string of bookie joints. With Clara in tow he decides to fake a heist. Marie, not in on the plan, screams when a shotgun in shoved in her face and alerts a nearby police patrolman. The policeman is shot dead and Duke's partner is fatally wounded, surviving only long enough to implicate innocent Steve Ryan and lead the police away from Duke.
RAILROADED! is a taut little crime caper, made on the cheap at that cheapest of Poverty Row studios, PRC. It's probably been spared the lingering obscurity common to most b-movies because of our current fascination with all things noirs and because it's one of the early works of director Anthony Mann, who would soon graduate to the big leagues and collaborate with Jimmy Stewart on some of the best Westerns made in the 1950s.
John Ireland plays Duke with coiled menace, a killer devoid of humanity, someone who massages his pistol past polishing with a perfumed handkerchief. Make of that what you will, but it provides the police with a sweet-scented clue when they remove the fatal bullet from the blasted patrolman. Hugh Beaumont, Beaver's dad, plays the good police detective who slowly realizes that the perfect suspect, the sandy-haired young Steve, may be as guiltless as he professes. Beaumont played some very strange and twisted characters in his pre-Leave It to Beaver, b-movie career, but he's a reassuringly straight arrow good guy here. The pivot the Good Guy and the Bad Guy fight over is Steve's pretty sister Rosa (Sheila Ryan), who's convinced of her brother's innocence and is willing to dance with the devil Duke to clear his name. My favorite character is Ferguson's (Beaumont) sidekick Chubb (Clancy Cooper), a gum-chewing square-jawed cop who glowers at Steve during his interrogation.
If you're a fan of Mann's Westerns, RAILROADED! should probably satisfy. It's interesting to see what Mann does with a limited budget in an urban setting. One of my favorite shots occur early on, when the gun toting thugs seemingly rise out of a dark and dirty alley into the foreground of the scene. You'll miss the tormented central character and the Technicolor western landscapes, but Mann throws in a trademark Good Girl/Bad Girl fistfight with a gun drawn Duke watching from the shadows. RAILROADED! is a strong early work from a master director, and good fun to boot.









Rating:
Summary: A GREAT MOVIE
Review: John Ireland is sensational in this movie, as always. He is one of the best actors ever, and it is sad he is not remembered that way. RAILROADED and RAW DEAL are both wonderful showcases for his talent. I reccommend any movie with John Ireland in it.

Rating:
Summary: ONE FOR THE CONNOISEUR
Review: The great Anthony Mann usually had a better than-budget cast for his film noirs, usually including Dennis O'keefe and Raymond Burr. In Railroaded however one has to put up with Sheila Ryan and Hugh Beaumont, but at least the excellent John Ireland is there to lend some credibilty to the acting. What I'm trying to say is that apart from Mann's amazing direction there aren't that many other reasons for seeing this film.

If however you are a connoiseur of the dirtectors art you will get alot out of this movie. As Manny Farber correctly identified this is one of the best examples of the "Germanic Rigour" that Mann brings to his films regardless of the non-existent budget. There are several amazing compositions and camera angles that Mann pulls off in this tour-de-force, and all create an amazing rythym like a well oiled machine. This isn't one for the casual viewer, but it is worth watching to see one of the greatest of all American directors working his magic. One for the purists out there.

Rating:
Summary: A minor example of film noir from director Anthony Mann
Review: The script for this 1947 gangster film has some major holes in it, but "Railroaded" is worth watching because of the work of director Anthony Mann on this film noir. The dialogue and the acting match each other, which is not a compliment, but seeing Ward Cleaver as a hard-boiled detective is certainly a treat. However, it is Ireland's performance as the crazed killer who likes to perfume his bullets that you will remember. This is not classic film noir, but Mann's visual style is above average for the genre and fans should give this film the once over.

Rating:
Summary: A minor example of film noir from director Anthony Mann
Review: The script for this 1947 gangster film has some major holes in it, but "Railroaded" is worth watching because of the work of director Anthony Mann on this film noir. The dialogue and the acting match each other, which is not a compliment, but seeing Ward Cleaver as a hard-boiled detective is certainly a treat. However, it is Ireland's performance as the crazed killer who likes to perfume his bullets that you will remember. This is not classic film noir, but Mann's visual style is above average for the genre and fans should give this film the once over.

Rating:
Summary: Tight, sharp, taut--classic film noir
Review: The short (73 minutes) of this film is not a problem at all; Anthony Mann's direction is so strong that there's no wasted moment. While some films noir suffer from being overly stiff (cf. The Big Combo), this one's fluidity is definitely in evidence. John Ireland is the standout here, but the two female leads--Sheila Ryan and Jane Randolph--are almost as good. A real plus, plotwise, is the 'good girl' falling (at least temporarily) for the bad guy.

Similarly, the 'bad girl' ultimately turns good. These reversals, coupled with the bad guy's peculiar behavior (the infamous perfuming of his bullets) and an unusual shoot-out in a long-after-closing bar full of upside-down barstools make for an interesting film.

Hugh Beaumont's good guy cop is a well-matched foil to John Ireland's Duke Martin, whose occasionally drunk girlfriend meets with Beaumont, near the end, to rat out what she thinks is her two-timing boyfriend.

Definitely one of the better films noir on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Tight, sharp, taut--classic film noir
Review: The short (73 minutes) of this film is not a problem at all; Anthony Mann's direction is so strong that there's no wasted moment. While some films noir suffer from being overly stiff (cf. The Big Combo), this one's fluidity is definitely in evidence. John Ireland is the standout here, but the two female leads--Sheila Ryan and Jane Randolph--are almost as good. A real plus, plotwise, is the 'good girl' falling (at least temporarily) for the bad guy.

Similarly, the 'bad girl' ultimately turns good. These reversals, coupled with the bad guy's peculiar behavior (the infamous perfuming of his bullets) and an unusual shoot-out in a long-after-closing bar full of upside-down barstools make for an interesting film.

Hugh Beaumont's good guy cop is a well-matched foil to John Ireland's Duke Martin, whose occasionally drunk girlfriend meets with Beaumont, near the end, to rat out what she thinks is her two-timing boyfriend.

Definitely one of the better films noir on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: A MOVIE THAT IS NOT SEEN IS A DEAD MOVIE
Review: [I]f you're not a huge fan of both Anthony Mann and the Film Noir genre,
you won't be interested at all in RAILROADED. BUT YOU WILL BE WRONG !
You will miss John Ireland in the role of a sexual perverted bad guy
who likes to perfume his bullets before killing ; in RAW DEAL, another
Anthony Mann's movie shot one year later that you can find in the DVD
standard courtesy of the Roan Group, you will also find one of these
degenerated killers, this time impersonated by a vicious Raymond
Burr.

You will also miss the long bare hands fight between Jane
Randolph and Sheila Ryan, very unusual in Hollywoodian productions of
that period. And there are numerous other anthology scenes that you
will miss.

So make your choice but don't forget that there is only a
scene access as bonus feature if you want to consider Anthony Mann's
RAILROADED as

A DVD for your library.


Rating:
Summary: A MOVIE THAT IS NOT SEEN IS A DEAD MOVIE
Review: [I]f you're not a huge fan of both Anthony Mann and the Film Noir genre,you won't be interested at all in RAILROADED. BUT YOU WILL BE WRONG !You will miss John Ireland in the role of a sexual perverted bad guywho likes to perfume his bullets before killing ; in RAW DEAL, anotherAnthony Mann's movie shot one year later that you can find in the DVDstandard courtesy of the Roan Group, you will also find one of thesedegenerated killers, this time impersonated by a vicious RaymondBurr.

You will also miss the long bare hands fight between JaneRandolph and Sheila Ryan, very unusual in Hollywoodian productions ofthat period. And there are numerous other anthology scenes that youwill miss.

So make your choice but don't forget that there is only ascene access as bonus feature if you want to consider Anthony Mann'sRAILROADED as

A DVD for your library.