TCM's Film Noir of the Week for Sunday, July 9, 10 a.m. ET, is One of the Most Stunningly Shot Pictures Ever Made, T-Men (1947/1948)!

 

 

By David in TN
Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 9:24:00 A.M. EDT

TCM's Film Noir of the week for Sunday, July 9, is T-Men (1948), showing at 10 a.m. ET. This is another Anthony Mann film noir.

 

Alfred Ryder, left, and Dennis O'Keefe, as Treasury agent partners. Ryder was a legendary actor of the radio, stage, movies and TV, and a renowned theatrical director. Fans of Combat! will recall him as the German captain (sporting an impeccable German accent) who was a famous hunter in civilian life, and who turns Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow) into his prey in a story inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. John Wayne fans will remember Ryder as the exasperated prosecutor in True Grit (1969). O’Keefe was a star of B movies during the late 1930s and through the ‘40s, radio drama, a ubiquitous extra (over 200 pictures) and co-wrote T-Men with John C. Higgins (so says I.S. Mowis, at IMDB.com, anyway). America was so awash in talent then that a poverty row studio like Eagle-Lion could hire world-class talent to shoot a B-picture.
 

It's a documentary-style police thriller with undercover Treasury agents infiltrating a counterfeiting ring. Having undercover law enforcement officers was a common noir trope.
 

 

Dennis O'Keefe plays the main character, a "T-Man" pretending to be a former member of a Detroit gang called "The River Gang," probably based on the real-life, [Jewish] Purple Gang.
 

An intimate portrait of Abe Bernstein’s Purple Gang 

 

Charles McGraw plays a dangerous hood, a characterization McGraw did very well. Other times he played a cop.
 

Film noir writer B McMolo argues, “[T]he real star of the show is the cinematography. Every trick in the book is used to keep your eye glued to the screen.”
 

 

The film was shot by legendary, Hungarian-born cinematographer John Alton (Johann Altmann), who would win an Oscar for An American in Paris.

Many years ago, when my brother started out as a lawyer, he was assigned to defend a counterfeiter in federal court. He negotiated a plea deal for a prison sentence. The counterfeiter was satisfied and thanked my brother. He didn't mind going to prison for a few years.
 

Real-life T-man Elmer Lincoln Irey is along to lend the picture realism
 

Legendary character actor Wallace Ford plays one of the bad guys 

My brother said this counterfeiter was a scary individual.