Dead Reckoning [DVD] [2003]

A lot of reviewers are prejudiced against this film because it stars beautiful and sultry Lizabeth Scott instead of the familiar Bacall. They are wrong. Scott is terrific and this is one of Bogarts best films, full of atmosphere and crisp dialog. Bogart comes to Gulf City to clear his Army buddy's name and gets tangeled up with the beautiful Lizabeth Scott in a town where nothing is on the up and up.

There is some truly origional banter between Bogart and Scott. A wonderful scene has Bogart explaining to Scott how women should be kept in a mans pocket, taken out only when needed. They are driving in a convertible with the wind blowing Scott's long blonde hair and when she laughs at this idea we can tell something is going on inside for both of them.

There is a subtle noir atmosphere all the way through this film. Scott wears perfume that smells like night blooming jasmine. Bogart is sitting next to the window of his hotel room deep into the mystery and catches the scent drifting in the wind, not sure if Scott is around or if it's just the bushes outside. The whole film is like that.

There are other great scenes, like Scott standing in the rain at night, her fate being decided in that moment. This is a marvelous film and it doesn't lessen the Bogart & Bacall films to say that Bogart & Scott made a great team also. It is a shame they did not get a chance to make another one together. I strongly suggest a trip to Gulf City to find out just how spectacular they were together on the big screen.....

Captain Warren 'Rip' Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and his friend Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) are on their way to Washington right after the war for reasons they haven't been told. But on the train, they learn that Drake is going to receive the Medal of Honor. Drake realizes the publicity he'll get, and the next moment he's jumped off the train and disappeared. Murdock can't figure it out. He remembers the small enameled medallion Drake always carried with the name John Joseph Preston engraved on it. He knows something is wrong, and he's determined to track his friend down. Murdock winds up in Gulf City a few days later, staring at a corpse burned beyond recognition lying in the morgue. And he learns the only thing found on the body was a small lump of melted metal with enamel on it.

The movie is grade B noir, made watchable by a strong Bogart performance and a story line that almost compensates for noticeable weaknesses.

When Murdock investigates what drove Johnny to leave Gulf City and join the army, then come rushing back, he discovers a beautiful widow, Dusty Chandler (Lizabeth Scott), an unscrupulous gambler, Mr. Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky) and Martinelli's goon (Marvin Miller), who likes to administer brutal beatings to soft music. Murdock has to keep his guard up; he can't quite figure Dusty out. It turns out Drake, who's real name was John Preston, voluntarily took the fall for her when her wealthy husband was shot and then ran out before the trial. Did Dusty really love Johnny or was she just using him? Murdock meets her at Martinelli's supper club, buys her a drink and invites her to dance while he tells her of Johnny's death. "I wanted her in my arms," Murdock says in flashback, "while I told her. My right hand on her spine would feel the shock if there was any. She'd tested pure so far, but so did another girl I knew once, right up to the dollar."

"Tell me where you saw him...please," Dusty begs. "On a slab in the morgue, burned to a crisp," Murdock tells her.

"Her whole body," Murdock tells us, "had gone soft as custard when I slugged her with it, but I kept thinking -- she has to know something." It turns out that she does. This leads to more murder, beatings and betrayal. The worms of doubt and distrust dine well.

The drawbacks to the movie are due in part to Scott's performance. She was, in my view, a limited actress. We don't know which way she's going in the movie, good girl or bad, until the end, but she just doesn't create the kind of anticipatory tension that some other actresses could create with Bogart. She has a great husky voice, an nice overbite and a cultured accent halfway between Bryn Mawr and a lisp.

Bogart was at his best, I think, when he had strong, vivid actors to play off of. They accentuated his own unique style. Not only does Scott seem a little pallid, the other actors don't strike many sparks with Bogart, either. Carnovsky makes a smooth villain but not a vivid one. Marvin Miller simply doesn't carry much menace as an enforcer. The others, with the exception of Wallace Ford as a semi-reformed safe cracker, are all interchangeable with dozens of other Hollywood character actors.

On balance, if you like Forties noir and Bogart you will probably enjoy the movie. Just be prepared for some flaws. I like it well enough to have bought it. There are no extras to speak of. The DVD picture looks just fine.

When Rip's {Humphrey Bogart} army pal Johnny does a runner from the train taking them to Washington, it's the start of a shadowy street search that Rip undertakes to find out why his friend would do that. It soon becomes evident that Johnny was not who he said was, something that makes Rip's journey one that will involve, murder, deception and one hell of a dame.

Dead Reckoning has a mixed relationship with critics and Bogart/Noir fans alike. Some are harsh on Lizabeth Scott who plays femme fatale Coral Chandler, while others have issues with the plot, calling it rambling and incoherent to the dialogue on offer. I disagree with both those things. Scott is just fine for what is a wonderfully well written character, her facial characteristics are indeed expressionless at times, but this to my mind adds an icy veneer to her character arc. She also has a knack of looking vulnerable, something that is very crucial to the film and her character in particular. The plot doesn't ramble to me, it's bonkers, yes it is, but that adds to the mystery of it all. Told in flashback as Rip confesses to a priest, all threads are however neatly pulled together to finally reveal a delightfully complete, yet surprising Noirish whole. Yeah it's a jumble of conundrums, and twists and turns come and go, that's kind of the selling point really. To me at least anyway. Whilst some of the dialogue on show is as cheeky as Bogie got to deliver in the 40s. I was laughing whilst duly expecting something bad to be at the end of it.

There's an air of genre familiarity with the piece, no question about that. And if implausibility factors are an issue, you best stay away. But it has a nice line in atmosphere, brutality is never far away one feels, and it's a nice shoot with Leo Tover's cinematography understated and at ease with the tone of the film. Bogart is just great, this is what we want from the great man, spouting put downs and pearls of wisdom in a grim crime movie. However bonkers it may be. 8/10