Waterfront (1944)

One of the best films i have seen

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A PRC movie from '44, directed by Sekely, and starring Carradine, J. Carrol Naish as the optometrist (played in a style forecasting Suchet's Poirot), Claire Rochelle as the waitress, Bleifer as the café owner, Maris Wrixon as Freda. But a lousy performance from the bovine Terry Frost as the young businessman Jerry Donavan.The Hauser boardinghouse was at the center of this world, uniting the café (the waitress, the bartender, the owner), the business (Max Kramer, the Hauser daughter, and Jerry), the copper Mike. When the extortionist meets the businessman, he has employees who live in the same boardinghouse with his guest's employee. When the extortionist meets the optometrist, it's the same. The copper knows the Hauser daughter.A spy arrives in the city for an assignment which, even when deciphered, he never completes.The usual complaints are that the movie doesn't resemble MTV ('plods along', 'meanders around a bit'); there has to be something that flatters the half-wits tendency to whine, to grumble, to sulk. Nowadays, even '40s B cinema requires education.Two things: the coppers could of been summoned by the waitress for the shootout; and after the raid, Kramer's denunciation is assumed, guessed by one character.

PRC Studios ordinarily produced pretty rudimentary cinema. A handful of spare sets, few actors, few extras, studio bound. The plots were such that if the phrase "B Feature" didn't exist it would have had to be invented.This one, though, has an edge. The art direction isn't bad. No waterfront neighborhood ever existed like the ones we see in old movies -- sailors slouching around, hands in their pockets, cigarettes dangling from their lips, gathered in crowded little saloons with names like "The Anchor Bar," the narrow streets wreathed in cold fog. It's a fantasy waterfront but it works well enough.The performances are (mostly) decent as well, although I wasn't always on top of who had the little black book that was stolen from German agent J. Carrol Naish. Since everyone on the other side of the law seemed to be German, why would one agent hinder the operations of another? Well, the black book is just the MacGuffin anyway.Naish uses his go-anywhere accent. John Carradine is an impressive figure in a long black coat and black fedora. His figure is gaunt and his features sepulchral. Ominous all over, you know? And he's more reckless than the other spies. He wants to take over the gang in San Francisco and represent the Gestapo, although why he'd want to represent the German secret police instead of the intelligence agency, the Abwehr, the writers neglect to explain. I suppose the very word "Gestapo" generated chills.It's fast. Some of the Germans are forced to cooperate and others are completely unaware of what's going on, as is the viewer, occasionally.I kind of got a kick out of it.

Whenever I see that a film has been made by PRC, I assume the worst. After all, of the so-called 'Poverty Row' production companies, PRC was one of the poorest in overall quality. Quite simply, most of their films were hastily written and had very low production values---and it showed. However, here they have a film, while not great, is still quite enjoyable. I think it's because it was nice to see to fun old hammy B-movie stars in the same film--John Carradine and J. Carrol Naish. These men, along with the likes of George Zucco and Lionel Atwill made a huge number of Bs--and they thrived in this sort of low-brow but highly entertaining fare.The film is clearly a propaganda film and it's about a spy ring run by an optometrist (Naish). He manages to have his secret code book stolen (oops) but not by the US government--but in order to help one of the people that Naish is blackmailing into helping him. Oddly, Naish simply doesn't seem terribly concerned about this (a shortcoming in the film, actually) but when another Nazi comes to help him (Carradine), things heat up, as Carradine's solution to EVERYTHING is to shoot people! Subtle, he ain't! Eventually, Carradine's rash ways are the undoing of these rather stupid spies.While the film was highly entertaining and fun, the FBI lab guys incorrectly identified Carradine's murder weapon as a Mauser. The gun clearly was a Luger--as Mausers were newer guns and less available in the US (if at all). I'm no expert, but am positive of this--so why didn't the FBI guys get this right?!

Dr. Carl Decker runs an optometrist shop on the San Francisco waterfront, but he also doubles as a Nazi spy for the Bay area. Decker is robbed of his code book, which also contains the names of all the enemy agents in the area. Decker and Marlow, another spy who just arrived in San Francisco to have his orders decoded by Decker, go off in search of the present owner of the book, who is also one of the Nazi spies operating on the west coast. Marlow, however, has a nasty streak to him, blackmailing the owner of a boarding house owner, Mrs. Hausner with impending threats to her family still living in Germany, and not being shy about using his gun when the situation arises. Marlow eventually shoots another Nazi collaborator Kramer, who is running out and Marlow believes will rat on him and Decker, and the crime is pinned on Jerry Donovan, the fiancé of Mrs. Hauser's daughter, Freda. Eventually Marlow has to prevent the Maxwell murder from coming back to him, while avoiding capture at the same time. Pretty good war time espionage flick with good performances from Carradine and Naish. The rest of the cast is standard for a PRC production. The climax of the film is really a drawback, lacking much excitement and seemingly rushed. Rating, 7.