Crime movies: TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Byron Haskin, Theodore Reeves, Robert Smith, John Bright and Charles Schnee’s I Walk Alone (1948), with Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Wendell Corey, Mike Mazurki, Kristine Miller and Marc Lawrence

[“See Lizabeth Scott Put in Her Bid for the Title of Queen Femme Fatale, and Dan Duryea Put in His Bid as King of the Heavies! Byron Haskin’s Too Late for Tears (1949), with Scott, Duryea, Don DeFore, Arthur Kennedy and Kristine Miller.”]

By David in TN
friday, october 25, 2024 at 7:40:00 p.m. edt

TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Byron Haskin’s I Walk Alone (1948), with Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Wendell Corey, Mike Mazurki, Kristine Miller and Marc Lawrence.

Film Noir Guide: “A cynical ex-con (Lancaster) is paroled after serving fourteen years on a murder charge. Because of a prior agreement with his former bootlegging partner (Douglas), Lancaster expects to return home as co-owner of a successful nightspot, The Regent Club. But double-crossing Douglas has other plans.

“Lancaster’s pal (Corey), a bookkeeper for Douglas, is guilt-stricken over his part in the double cross, and a sultry nightclub singer (Scott) falls for Lancaster after she learns what a heel boyfriend Douglas really is. Miller is the [stunning] society widow Douglas is planning to marry for ‘business reasons,’ [mountain of a man] noir veteran Mazurki is the club’s tough doorman and bouncer, and Lawrence is a bootlegger turned used car salesman.

“The excellent cast turns this average crime story into a fast-moving, entertaining noir. Corey is especially good as the morose bookkeeper.

David in TN: Yes, last week’s Too Late for Tears was a good one. This week Eddie Muller features a good film not previously on Noir Alley. Like last week, Byron Haskin directs and Lizabeth Scott and Kristine Miller are in the cast.

N.S.: Wendell Corey was a wonderful actor, who often played the voice of sanity (e.g., as Monty Clift’s friend in Fred Zinnermann’s The Search (1948), Jimmy Stewart’s warden in Carbine Williams (1952), and as his friend, in the Hitchcock masterpiece, Rear Window (1954). The conservative republican had 220 credits in his relatively short but hard-working career (someone sabotaged his imdb.com page—I’m looking at you, Jon Hopkinson!), the vast majority of them in tv, where he starred in several single-season series.

Alas, privately, things were not so great, and Corey drank himself to death at 54 (1914-1968). He was married to the same woman, his Alice, for 11 days shy of 29 years, and left her with four children.