Classic 40s Movie: “Act of Violence”
September is Classic 40s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Eric Rodriguez.
Movie Title: Act of Violence
Year: 1948
Writers: Screenplay by Robert L. Richards, Story by Collier Young
Lead Actors: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor
Director: Fred Zinneman
IMDb Plot Summary: An embittered, vengeful POW stalks his former commanding officer who betrayed his men’s planned escape attempt from a Nazi prison camp.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 40s Movie
Moody. Dark. There are hints of the sins of our heroes as well as absolution. POW survivor’s guilt, widows, a reckoning, making the karmic balloon payment — it doesn’t get much more dramatic than this.
The men in this movie are deeply flawed and broken both physically and emotionally. The women in this movie, Edith (Enley’s wife), Ann (Parkson’s girlfriend), and Pat (street angel) are far more advanced emotionally and much stronger in character. The Ryan character, Joe Parkson, serves several storytelling elements. He is the stakes for his girlfriend Ann, he is the secret and the sin of Enley, and he is an aggressive avenging angel. Like the shark in Jaws, his presence is announced by a sound, the scraping of the brace holding his leg together. It is the very sound of guilt scratching to escape Enley’s skull. That’s pretty much the whole plot. A man spends most of the movie trying to outrun the bill collector in his soul.
Noir elements. I read a very short description of noir that went something like this; it involves a woman with a past and a man with no future. This picture has a whole crop of men with no future. The woman with a past is Pat, played by Mary Astor. Pat is a woman of the night. Part con-woman, part spotter, but warm and very aware. In the middle of the movie, Parkson closes in on Enley. On the run, Enley runs into a bar and meets Pat. She is both the best and worse character for him to meet while so desperate. If Enley were an addict, Pat would score his horse. She also sets the course for his recovery.
Staging. There is a scene where Enley tells Edith about what happened to him and Joe in the POW camp. They set it on a fire escape; concrete walls on one side, metal stairs and rails. The buildings in the background also have metal bars on the windows or spikes on the rooftops. The shadows cast a cage around Enley wherever he goes in the scene. He is visually trapped by the past.
Enley and Parkson both play WWII vets, but neither of them is portrayed heroic. There isn’t the slightest suggestion these guys were the tip of the spear for the greatest generation. These men are hobbled by cowardice, treachery, mental illness, depression, and obsessive anger. Movies of the 40’s featured male characters in way over their head and actors who could make those flaws and vulnerabilities very real.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie
There is a fantastic scene where Frank confesses his secret to his wife; I won’t spoil that here, or the heartbreaking scene where Joe tells his side of the same story. Instead, I’m going to focus on the women in this film.
The movie gets a whole new life when Ann joins the story. She is Parkson’s girlfriend and she is crazy for him. Imagine the saint a women would have to be to fall for a guy starving for revenge; a man who forsakes her unconditional love for conditional revenge. Ann is hopeful, but also resourceful and tenacious. She is the real soldier and peacekeeper of this story. Parkson doesn’t tell her he’s happy to see her, he isn’t the kind of guy who could, but her effort in tracking him down doesn’t escape him either. He asks her how she found him. Ann’s reply begins enthusiastic, “It was nothing much. Once I got out here I just asked people and described you.” He stops limping for a moment. Ann looks down at his leg and realizes she just hurt him, “No Joe it had nothing to do with that.” Love pure and simple, everyone has their clothes on, but there’s no mistaking it. Enley’s the guy on the run, but Parkson’s the guy with the dilemma.
Ann doesn’t give up her quest to stop Parkson from killing Enley. She visits Edith to present her plea. Edith is tries really hard to steer Parkson away from Enley. At first, Edith doesn’t trust Ann. When they first meet, Edith drops her purse and a pistol rolls out. Ann stares at it and Edith confesses, she doesn’t even know how to use it. Ann picks it up and acts like she’s putting it in a drawer, but she keeps it for herself. She convinces Edith Parkson has figured out where Enley is staying. Edith calls to warn Enley and he gets the message just as Parkson arrives in the background.
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie
There are more monologues in this movie than dialogue. Enley doesn’t want to answer Edith’s questions and he spends a lot of time protecting his secret. When he finally talks, it’s much more confession than discussion. Other scenes are exposition. There are some great short, but story loaded, exchanges.
Enley explains to his wife, Edith.
ENLEY: “I was his CO and he’s got some crazy Idea that everything that ever happened to him is my fault.”
EDITH: “Frank, I want to ask you something. When we packed up all of a sudden and came out here from Syracuse, 3000 miles across the country, was that on account of him? Not collecting your terminal leave pay, dropping all of our friends back East, well it was, wasn’t it Frank?”
ENLEY: “You don’t know what made him the way he is. I do.”
ENLEY: “I told you he was crazy. Well, he’s not.”
Pat leads Enley to an underworld acquaintance that fixes problems.
PAT: Tell him sugar, be smart. He’s a lawyer, no kiddin’. They got all kinds of laws, they got laws to help people too. Go on, tell him.
At the tragic finale.
WOMAN: “Whose gonna tell his wife?”
PARKSON: “I Will.”
Act of Violence ends with that one simple line, but Ryan’s performance goes on and on. It’s closure for him and Enley. It’s the future for Ann and Parkson. We walks away with Ann as they cue the violins, the scraping sound in gone.
Key Things You Should Look/Listen For When Watching This Movie
The past has a sound; it squeaks and scrapes, won’t let you sleep at night and in this movie, it carries a .45. Ever heard anyone say, “I want to write a movie about redemption,” or some other thing you can’t touch. Act of Violence doesn’t have a single flashback or any other cool visual trick. They take something untouchable, write it as character, and cast it with Robert Ryan. They do add a sound when he is on screen, a sinister pervasive metal scraping effect.
Van Heflin plays a symphony of emotions as the final victim of a prison break he wanted nothing to do with. He delivers soulful performances time and again and is completely untouchable as Jeff Hartnett in Johnny Eager. In Act of Violence, his posture actually changes as the chase wears him out.
Janet Leigh plays the young naïve wife in this movie. It’s a functional role, but not as plumb as the others in the movie. A few years later, she’ll have a much better part riding alongside Robert Ryan again in The Naked Spur with Jimmy Stewart. If you haven’t seen her play the Russian jet fighter pilot along side John Wayne in Jet Pilot, ya just gotta. These are all pre-Psycho performances.
Thanks, Eric! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of classic 50s movies, 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 40s movies. And thanks to the GITS community, we’ve got 30 movies in the works, one for each day of the month!
Those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts. If you haven’t sent yours to me, please do so as soon as you can!!!
Act of Violence — Eric Rodriguez
Arsenic and Old Lace — Gisela Wehrl
Bicycle Thieves — Megaen Kelly
Brief Encounter — Emily Bonkoski
Casablanca — Paul Graunke
Double Indemnity — Susan Winchell
Five Graves to Cairo — Jeff Gibson
Foreign Correspondent — Doc Kane
Here Comes Mr. Jordan — Wayne Kline
His Girl Friday — John Henderson
It’s a Wonderful Life — David Laudenslager
Kind Hearts and Coronets — James Calder
Key Largo — Will King
Laura — Melinda Mahaffey Icden
Les enfants du paradis — Brendan Howley
Mrs. Miniver — Traci Nell Peterson
Notorious — Christine Henton
Now Voyager — Melissa Privette
Out of the Past — Brantley Aufill
Rope — Lance Morgan
The Bank Dick — Bob Saenz
The Best Years of Their Lives — Shaun Parker
The Big Sleep — Ipsita Barik
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir — Annie Wood
The Long Voyage Home — Vincent Martini
The Lost Weekend — Liz Warner
The Maltese Falcon — Roy Gordon
The Ox-Bow Incident — Clay Mitchell
The Philadelphia Story — Kristen Demaline
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock — David Joyner
The Third Man — Harry Cooke
To Have and Have Not — Felicity Flesher
Thanks to everyone who steps up for this ongoing project!
For the original post explaining the series, go here.
For all of the 40s movies featured in the series, go here.
Click REPLY and see you in comments about today’s classic 40s movie!