Cry Vengeance (1954)

Wonderful character development!

terrible... so disappointed.

Best movie ever!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Fast and efficient slice of thick-ear, with a plot borrowed from previous year's The Big Heat (1953). The producers, however, had the good sense to locate the action in Ketchican, Alaska, definitely not an over-used locale. Director Stevens makes good use of the outdoor settings, lending exotic flavor to the action. To bad that the photography is definitely non-noir. But then the interiors were filmed in a TV studio.The plot may be borrowed, but there's an interesting wrinkle. Namely, nominal, good guy Stevens is more fearsome than the ostensible mobster, bad guy Kennedy. That's because Stevens thinks Kennedy killed his family and framed him. Now, ravaged with revenge, Stevens wants to kill Kennedy's family, including his winsome little daughter. So, we're left wondering just who to root for. Then there's the psycho hit-man Homeier who's kind of a wild card in a mop of ultra- blonde hair. (Note, for example, the cold-hearted abruptness of the execution scene.) Add a number of familiar supporting players, like Mills and Doucette, and you've got a generally persuasive cast. And, oh yes, on the blondined distaff side mustn't forget barfly Vohs or the fetching Martha Hyer.Considering this movie along with Stevens' tour-de-force Timetable (1956), it's too bad his niche with b&w B-films was giving way to TV. In my book, he shows himself a filmmaker of more than average aptitude. Anyway, the movie's both interesting to follow and scenic to eyeball, a pretty good combination for any film.

Mark Stevens was a leading player in B movies, and was an excellent cop in THE STREET WITH NO NAME (1948, see my review) and private eye in THE DARK CORNER (1946, see my review), both excellent noirs. Here he got his first chance chance to direct himself. Although he does well enough as a director in other respects, because he could not see himself he probably did not realize that he looked too grim throughout most of the film, never changing his expression during the early portions. This may have made sense in theory, because he a wronged man seeking vengeance, and grief-stricken at the death of his wife and child. But one cannot have a single expression for nearly an hour like that without it becoming monotonous. Stevens furthermore according to the story had to have a severely scarred side of his face, which meant that he could show very little emotion on his face in any case. The film was largely shot at Ketchikan, Alaska. Alaska was not even a state at that time, but still a Territory. This was an extremely unusual place to set a film in the 1950s. The location footage, especially the aerial footage, is thus of considerable historical interest, not least to the people who live there today. Mark Stevens went on to direct himself again in TIME TABLE (1956) and directed three more feature films and 50 television drama episodes in the nine years between 1956 and 1965. He last appeared as an actor in 1987, and he died in 1994 at the age of 77. This film is not outstanding, but it is nevertheless a contribution to the noir genre.

If the writers had flashed back to the wronged man being convicted of a crime and the evidence which made him believe that mobster Douglas Kennedy was the guilty party revealed, this might have been better structured. However, they choose to start the film where the innocent man (Mark Stevens) is released from prison and sets out to locate Kennedy who is living with another identity in a small Alaska town with his sweet daughter and living a double life. Most of the film is cat and mouse with one of the cats (Kennedy) also the mouse for the psychotic Skip Homieier and Stevens playing mouse for both of them. All Kennedy wants to do is protect his daughter from danger, and while it is obvious that he is still living a life of crime, he's also a model citizen in his community where his past life is unknown.At times, I felt that maybe I had missed an important plot development, but after re-watching the beginning, realized that everything that had come before was exactly what I remembered having seen earlier. At times, the hero is as creepy as Homieier who is playing a variation of the psychopath which Richard Widmark played in "Kiss of Death". Especially disturbing is the sequence where Stevens follows little Cheryl Callaway (as Kennedy's daughter) under a Jedi and she innocently asks the stranger if he'd like to play with her to which he simply hands her firearm ammunition.While there are some definitely gripping moments of suspense, the damage has already been done by the weak narrative. There's really nobody to root for here, even Stevens who was basically done in by the unsympathetic way he's presented here. Martha Hyer adds some perkiness as a barkeeper with an interest in Kennedy but her character really serves no other purpose than to add some adult female to the story.

Cry Vengeance owes a debt to the previous year's Fritz Lang film The Big Heat. It too tells the tale of an honest cop whose family was killed in a mob-engineered explosion and who sets out as a crazed vigilante seeking redress. But while The Big Heat sizzles, Cry Vengeance stays tepid, perhaps owing to its sub-Arctic setting.The star of earlier noirs The Dark Corner and The Street with No Name, Mark Stevens directs himself as the hate-twisted protagonist, just out of prison after being framed and losing his wife and daughter. (Stevens has aged visibly, and it's not just the scarred-face makeup his character sports.) Strong-arm tactics with plenty of karate chops elicit the information that the man he holds responsible has assumed a new identity in Ketchikam, Alaska. But not only is Steven's arrival expected, he's followed by a platinum-haired gunsel who's the real killer (Skip Homeier, who bears a resemblance to Lee Marvin, The Big Heat's sadistic torpedo).Cry Vengeance matches its predecessor in brutality but comes up short everywhere else. Muddy photography wastes the scenic north, while the bland dialogue lacks the epigrammatic edge that's one of the joys of film noir (no "sisters under the mink" insinuation here as in Lang's film). The plot, with its double-crosses, needs a more baroque approach to sell itself.On the whole, Cry Vengeance falls victim to the fatigue that, by 1954, was beginning to beset the entire noir cycle. Plots and characters amount, basically, to retreads. Joan Vohs, as Homeier's sozzled moll, couldn't have given this performance without Gloria Grahame's the year before in The Big Heat. With Stevens looking tired, too, it doesn't augur well for Cry Vengeance. But it holds distinction as the only film noir set in the Alaskan Territory, as Hell's Half Acre of the same year was the only one set in the Hawaiian (it wasn't until 1959 that statehood was conferred on both territories).