El gran complot

Although the film is a work of fiction, The Tall Target is based in part on an actual incident that involved an attempt to assassinate President- elect Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington to assume the presidency in early 1861. A planned stop in Baltimore was canceled and Lincoln was spirited into Washington in the wee small hours of the morning with no kind of fanfare or publicity, as he put it, 'like a thief in the night'.

Anthony Mann directed this 19th century noir type film starring Dick Powell as a New York police sergeant who gets wind of a plot to murder Lincoln in Baltimore. After he confides his suspicions to colleague Regis Toomey, Toomey winds up dead and Powell's more convinced than ever of the rightness of his belief. He boards the train that Lincoln is scheduled to board in Baltimore on to warn him, but Powell's got a lot of people on that train ready to do him in and he doesn't know who to trust.

The Tall Target is very similar to Mann's other classic Winchester 73 in the tautness of the direction and script. There isn't one wasted frame of film in The Tall Target and the suspense is kept throughout, even though history tells us Lincoln dodged a bullet that day. Mann assembled a very strong supporting cast for Powell that includes Adolphe Menjou as a militia colonel called to the colors, Leif Erickson as a Bowery tough, Will Geer as an officious conductor, Marshall Thompson as a southern hothead and resigned West Point cadet and his sister Paula Raymond.

Best performance in the film though is that of young Ruby Dee who plays a slave to Thompson and Raymond traveling with them. She proves to be the only real friend Powell has on the train. It's a quiet understated performance of dignity and strength.

By the way in case any of you are wondering why she doesn't just run away and claim her freedom, a couple of things stops her. The Dred Scott decision for one which obliterated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 with the northern free and southerns slave states and the new Fugitive Slave Law from the 1850 Compromise. However Dee knows that freedom is coming her way and soon.

The Tall Target is one excellent film, one of the best from Dick Powell when he decided to stop making musicals. Catch it absolutely.

Tall Target (1951)

The simple idea of Anthony Mann approaching a crime movie about Abraham Lincoln made me seek this out. And it's great stuff, filmed with the lively, dramatic black and white of the time. And in a weird quirk, the leading man (played by Dick Powell) is named John Kennedy. Mann was just beginning his legendary set of eight Westerns with James Stewart.

While not a bit a film noir officially, this is coming from that era, and has the dark, ominous feel of a good noir. Powell (a noir staple) plays a detective with a somewhat modern air (not 1861, when is when the film is set), and he some of that man alone against the world quality. And then, on top of it, this is a "train movie," one of that unnamed genre of films that is primarily or entirely set on a train, up and down the length in various ways (what one character with a drink in his hand calls "the longest bar in the world, New York to Baltimore").

This one starts beautifully at night, and there is some terrific stuff just to look at, as the lights against the night sky are stark and the shadows heavy. The smoke and steam billows gray into the black sky. The plot, proceeding, is remarkably visual, too, with Powell looking for clues as things start to look increasingly ominous.

There are some great side characters here, including Ruby Dee in her young elegance and strength. And then there are some side actors who play their caricatures a little too hard (like the train conductor, briefly, but several times).

The cloak and dagger plot is fairly linear—the story is based on fact loosely, so there might not have been total freedom. But I'm not sure how many times on one train ride Mr. John Kennedy can get himself into a total lethal trap and then fight, trick, or luck his way out of it. But that's part of the fun of it, I suppose.

And there is enough other stuff going on here to make it really interesting and beautiful. A surprise for me.

While most everyone seems to know about the assassination of President Lincoln, this was just the last of quite a few plots to kill the man. In particular, getting Lincoln to Washington for the inauguration was problematic, as crowds were often hostile and bent on killing the man they blamed for the splitting up of the Union. In particular, in Baltimore, the President-elect needed to be spirited off the train quietly to avoid the hostile mobs. So, the premise of "The Tall Target" is very appropriate---as there was a lot of hatred and hostility towards the man during the war years.

John Kennedy (no, not THE John Kennedy but he's a guy played by Dick Powell) is a New York policeman who is frustrated, very frustrated. The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln is approaching and he insists that there is a plot to kill the man--however, his superiors don't take him seriously. So, he resigns from the force and boards a train headed to Washington. He's determined to do SOMETHING. Along the way, he meets up with several conspirators--though unfortunately no one believes him! And, when he captures the one of the conspirators, the local police want to arrest him instead! What is the man to do?! Aside from one small dumb scene (where Kennedy left his identification and gun in his coat at his seat--leading to serious complications), this is a bang-up film. While you know that Lincoln survived to serve as president, you still are on the edge of your seat--a sign that this is a very good action/adventure film. Tense, well-written and acted--this is well worth seeing.

"The Tall Target," about a plot to kill Lincoln before his inauguration, is a compact little film directed by Anthony Mann and starring Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson, and Ruby Dee. Powell plays John Kennedy, a detective and admirer of the future President who finds out about an assassination plot and hopes to stop it, although his written report seems to fall on blind eyes. On board a train, Kennedy finds the person he was to meet is dead, someone is impersonating him, and, from all the political talk, there are lots of suspects who hate Lincoln as the country gets ready for war.

Most of the action takes place on the train and the atmosphere and black and white cinematography neatly capture the period. The performances are all excellent, including that of Will Geer as the train conductor and Ruby Dee as a young slave whose mistress' brother (Thompson) is a prime suspect in the assassination plot. Twenty years earlier, Dick Powell was a boy tenor playing male ingénues opposite Ruby Keeler; in the '40s, he turned to tough detective type roles, and ultimately became a highly successful producer. He's very good in "The Tall Target" but a little too modern in manner and dialogue delivery. It's somewhat noticeable because the period is captured very well by the other actors.

This is a very good movie with a neat ending and based on a true incident. There was, by the way, a John Kennedy who was a former law enforcement officer who served in the Lincoln administration. Whether he was involved in this situation, I don't know. It's a wonderful story nonetheless.

"Ninety years ago a lonely traveller boarded the night train from New York to Washington D.C., and when he reached his destination his passage had become a forgotten chapter in the history of the United States. This motion picture is a dramatisation of that disputed journey."

The Tall Target is directed by Anthony Mann and written by George Worthing Yates, Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Holmes) and Art Cohn. It stars Dick Powell, Paula Raymond, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson and Will Geer. As the above opening salvo suggests, story is disputed, it's based around the so called Baltimore Plot, a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln; the tall man of the title who is on the train heading for his inauguration.

Set mostly aboard a train, Mann's The Tall Target is a very tight noirish type period thriller that sees Powell's gruff detective try and protect Abe Lincoln from assassins lurking within the confines of the locomotive hauled express. Although a low budget production, there is some smart period detail to enjoy and the cramped setting of the train interiors allows Mann to infuse the story with paranoia and claustrophobic tints. Major bonus is that the makers excellently capture what must have been a powder keg of political uncertainty in 1861, this is born out by the number of interesting characters with a voice aboard this train. Thus the suspense and mystery elements are not confined to being of the obvious variety.

With Paul Vogel's black and white photography adding some period bite, and putting the noirish sheen to scenes such as the ones involving smoke, it's a shame that the cast are mostly hit and miss. Powell just about carries off the tough-guy persona, with the scenes shared with Menjou good value, and Geer is the stand out as the jobs worth conductor. Raymond is lovely, but hardly puts a stamp on proceedings, while Thompson is badly inadequate when it comes to putting the threat into threatening situations. But they are only minor itches that fail to derail the film from the tracks, because ultimately it's the story that is the star, a story boosted no end by Mann's taut direction. 7.5/10