D.O.A. (1949)

Directed by Rudolf Maté; produced by Leo C Popkin

Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) is an ordinary man, an accountant with a moderately prosperous business, a loving girlfriend (Pamela Britton) to whom he isn’t sure if he’s committed, and not an enemy in the world. On a trip to San Francisco, however, he is poisoned. He doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t know by whom. With only a few days of life remaining, Bigelow has little time and even fewer clues with which to solve his own murder.

The scenario of the innocent man caught up in crime and mystery is a staple of film noir; usually, the protagonist is accused of a crime, or even sentenced for one, that he didn’t commit. It’s a scenario we’ve seen often before. Here, the unique premise gives the movie not only a new angle but an urgency that pushes the action.

For such a movie to work, the direction and the performances - especially of the lead - are vital, and they are what contribute to D.O.A.’s success. Maté was best known as a cinematographer, but here he appears to be in his element as a director. The pacing is deliberately pedestrian at first; after Bigelow learns that he has been poisoned, though, it becomes hectic. There is a scene in which the panicky main character, having just been persuaded of his imminent demise, runs through San Francisco, going nowhere, just running, and the velocity of his running and his fear come off the screen at the viewer.

O’Brien is easily up to the task of portraying the doomed man. Not well-known today as a leading man, he nonetheless filled that role several times. This part is probably his best work. He convincingly shows us at first a man who has a decent life but is feeling pressured in a relationship and, perhaps, a little weighed down by mundanity. His horror at the revelation of his impending mortality is realistic. But then we see a transformation, a grief-stricken man walking down a sidewalk who slowly becomes his own avenging angel, filled with anger at the theft of his life. The rest of that life is lived with determination and purpose.

Of the other actors, Britton does well with the little she is given, the loyal girlfriend who doesn’t understand what’s going on with her man. And Neville Brand, in his first credited role, is a psychopathic gunman whom the viewer very, very much wants to see get his. Frank Gerstle may be notable as a doctor with a curt bedside manner: he confirms that the hero has ‘luminous toxin’ poisoning with the almost accusatory phrase, “Yeah, you got it, Bigelow.” A young Beverly Garland (billed as Beverly Campbell) has a substantial part for her first movie role.

The story’s premise is original and intriguing, though the bulk of it is the usual film noir mystery, with red herrings and a number of suspects. The names of characters come fairly fast at one point, but Bigelow sorts things out for the viewer (he could have been a detective, if he hadn’t gone into accounting.) The tale is compacted by time, however, which is running out for the protagonist; it was wise for the writers to give him anywhere from a day or two to a week. He - and the viewer - has no idea if he has even a few hours in which to solve his killing.

D.O.A.’s innovative premise and opening scene introduce an exciting and energetic crime story that doesn’t let up until the end.