Fingerman (1955)

Directed by Harold Schuster; produced by Lindsley Parsons

Casey Martin (Frank Lovejoy), not long out of prison, hijacks a truck and the evidence lands him in the local office of the U.S. Treasury Department. There, he is offered a choice: a lifetime in jail as a ‘four-time loser’, or the chance to start clean. The latter, however, involves infiltrating and bringing down notorious gangster Dutch Becker (Forrest Tucker), which will be dangerous not just for Martin, but for those near and dear to him.

Though it has elements of film noir - voice-over narration by the main character, and enough trenchcoats to have emptied a studio’s wardrobe department - Fingerman fits more into the genre of ‘gang-buster’ movies. Instead of a policeman or federal agent, the good guys’ mole in the criminal organisation is a tough-talking, tough-acting ex-convict, who has reasons other than government coercision for bringing down the bad guys.

Lovejoy does a decent job in the lead. His character is an essentially kind man who treats fair those who treat him fair. He is supported by Peggie Castle as Martin’s love interest. (Tragically, both actors would die relatively young: Castle of alcoholism at 45, and Lovejoy of a heart attack at 50.) Tucker does well as a menacing villain; he manages to make his character’s stated abhorrence of violence seem true. Aside from the strange Timothy Carey as Becker’s sadistic right hand, the rest of the cast is unknown.

A product of Allied Artists, the re-named Monogram Pictures, Fingerman shows its low production values. As with many cheap productions, however, the lack of funds does not really hinder the movie. Crime dramas, like westerns, could be made without great cost. The story takes place in the usual unnamed city, which allows filming on generic sets.

What hurts Fingerman, however, is the writing; specifically, the pacing of the story. At 82 minutes, the movie is about as long as most films of this genre. But it seems to spend most of its time in the set-up. It’s half over before Decker decides to take on Martin as a member of his gang. Ordinarily, a slow build-up would be commendable: one assumes that under-cover work demands long preparation.

The trouble is that once accepted, Martin learns too much too fast. What he is able to find out while undercover could have been achieved with a well-placed eavesdropping device. Perhaps the writers, realising that they had spent most of the running time leading up to the meat of the story, had to rush the remainder. In any case, there is something strongly unsatisfying about the second half of Fingerman.

While good performances and dialogue help the movie, its rushed narrative does Fingerman too great a disservice, and hurts the over-all results.

The Conformist (a.k.a. Il conformista; 1970)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci; produced by Maurizio Lodi-Fe

Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has joined Italy’s Fascist Party and is ready to prove himself to his bosses. To do so, he is ordered to kill his former university professor. As he prepares for the task, he recalls his earlier life, visits with his drug-addicted mother and his insane father, and the people who shaped the man he has become.

The Conformist has been praised as one of the greatest movies ever made. While it is certainly very good, I cannot agree with such a rating. There are a number of outstanding elements to the film but I find it flawed in a significant way, which inhibits its completeness.

The acting is first-rate. Trintignant is excellent in the title role. He never strives to make Clerici likeable, but does give him depth and a kind of complexity that makes him understandable. He is a villain, and meant to be a villain in a kind of banal, every-day fashion. But if one cannot understand a villain, he becomes little more than a cartoon character. Certainly Clerici is understandable - perhaps too much so.

The direction complements the acting, and there are some scenes that are tense and frightening in a realistic manner. In particular, an assassination sequence is almost horrifying in the mundanity of the killers and their behaviour.

What was very visually noticeable was the look of the film, the responsibility of production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and art director Nedo Azzini. They recreated an atmospheric 1930s look and feel (perhaps accentuating the styles of the times), as well as the monumental architecture and décor beloved of Fascism. The giant, stony offices in which the Italian government officials work is reminiscent of the genuine productions of Mussolini’s regime and its attempts to portray itself as an immense entity, but they also emphasise the emptiness of the Fascists and their beliefs.

What I found to be less than these elements was the writing and the story. This may be surprising, as they were adapted from the acclaimed novel by Alberto Moravia. I thought the obviousness of the story a factor in dulling its effectiveness. Clerici wishes to join the Fascist secret police, and the man to whom he applies lists the reasons why people want to join, but expresses puzzlement over not being able to fathom Clerici’s motives. This scene is intercut with another in which Clerici explains to a friend that he craves ‘normality’. Everything is laid out for the viewer.

It may be that the intention is to demonstrate that Clerici doesn’t understand the difference between normalcy and conformity, between being contentedly ordinary and following the crowd to fit in. If so, then the movie damages its own argument, since becoming a Fascist would be normal - for the time and place - but joining the secret police would not be. No one associated with a totalitarian police force could claim normalcy.

The dénouement is a brief scene set in 1943, when Mussolini has fallen. Clerici accepts this event blandly, which doesn’t seem right, considering what he had become, and his actions toward an old friend, while fitting, are predictable.

While I can recommend The Conformist for its look and sympathies, the story is neither exciting nor demanding enough for the scale of the production or its intention.

The Beast is Loose (a.k.a. The Tiger Attacks; 1959)

Directed by Maurice Labro; produced by Francois Chavane

Paul Lamiani (Lino Ventura) is a former criminal, former convict and former fighter in the French Resistance during World War Two. Fourteen years after the end of the war, he is contacted by an old associate (François Chaumette), now a member of the DST, France’s security service. Lamiani is coerced into joining the criminal - and traitorous - organisation run by a former friend of his gangster days, Raymond Maroux (Paul Frankeur), in order to break it up from within. But what he doesn’t know is that Maroux has other enemies within his group. Soon double cross follows on double cross, and Lamiani will be lucky to escape alive.

The Beast is Loose is one of the movies that put Lino Ventura firmly in the leading man category, after several years of supporting - though always prominent - roles. One can see why he was able to secure stardom so quickly, as his acting in this film is both convincing and involving. Interestingly, he often played villains, as well as heroes, and was respected by critics and audiences in both parts.

Lamiani is initially seen as a quiet man, who prefers to talk his way out of bad situations. His past, however, suggests that there is more to his personality, and by the film’s end, provocations are such that another side is brought out. This duality is both persuasive and intriguing, since one is not quite sure what he will do under different conditions. The other performers are good, too, though they don’t have the chance for much range, except for Frankeur. Nadine Alari, who plays Lamiani's wife, was also a voice actress, providing French-language dubbing for movies from Some Like It Hot (1959) to Spectre (2015).

The direction is the other half of the appeal for The Beast is Loose. Use is effectively made of the settings, especially the cliffs of Normandy, where an exciting chase takes place in and under an old war-time bunker. Shoot-outs and fist-fights also feature strikingly, as one might expect, and are handled excitingly.

The story is adequate. The plot threatens to become too convoluted at times, and, in the end, becomes, paradoxically, rather simple. Nonetheless, it serves the movie well enough and, with other elements in its favour, The Beast is Loose works.

Interestingly, it is an early example of treating government operators and organisations cynically, showing them to be as ruthless as the villains they are going after. Perhaps this was a result of the complex situation in France after the war, when those who fought the German occupation had to live side by side with those who collaborated.

On the strength of Ventura’s performance, and the complementary direction, The Beast is Loose is an entertaining crime drama. (Ventura was an interesting man off-screen, too, if only for the fact that, though almost all his movies were French, his nationality, never surrendered, was Italian, yet he was rated by the French as one of the greatest Frenchmen. He was also a philanthropist; his wife and he being pioneers in charitable work for mentally disabled people.)