Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 14-January-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium

D.O.A. (1950)

This is not meant as an insult, but hard-boiled noir films like "D.O.A." are as closely related to television shows as they are to motion pictures. Think about it: they're self-contained stories which address specific people in specific situations instead of big philosophical or historical issues. Their settings and backdrops are unelaborate. They feature the quote-unquote Average Guy. They're obsessed with crime, cops, and sexuality and don't need to tie everything up in a bow. They even reached their heyday around the time the boob tube was taking over America. Such being the case, they need a good angle to hold one's interest for an extended run time. Some squeak by on coolness. Others keep you guessing "Whodunit?" or "Why doesn't he ice that lying bimbo?" The classic "D.O.A." has a particularly absorbing twist. The audience knows the outcome from the get-go but sticks around to watch the protagonist track his own killer.

It's a bummer if you stop and think about it. Average businessman Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) walks into the homicide division of a police station to report his own murder. A couple days earlier, he had gone to San Francisco to enjoy his bachelor freedom while his sweet but amorous gal Friday (Pamela Britton) stayed behind. Frank wasn't ready to settle down, see, which is why he hooked up with some party people his first night in town and went to a jazz bar. There, while he was chatting up a blonde, some guy put poison in his drink. By next afternoon when he visited a doctor, this "luminous toxin" had so permeated his organs that death was inevitable within a fortnight. So much for a vacation.

Doomed but desiring vengeance, or at least an explanation, Frank picked up the trail of a man who had tried to call him the day he was poisoned. But this fella was unavailable on account of recently committing suicide. He left behind a slew of questionable characters, though, including a glossy wife, a nerdy brother, a smarmy business partner, and a cheeky secretary, not to mention a missing bill of sale that Frank had notarized six months before. Did that mundane action lead to his death? Then there was the really nasty bunch that was also involved, i.e., a foreign crime boss, his moll, and his sadistic goon Chester (Neville Brand). Frank grilled every one of these unsavory specimens, sometimes twice, and traveled from Frisco to LA in a stew of anger and anguish. It was enough to make him realize how wonderful getting married and staying home might have been.

But what might have been doesn't happen in movies like "D.O.A." If it did, we probably wouldn't tune in.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.