C-Man

The reviews for "C-Man" are mostly very positive. However, I just saw it as a cheap little film with a ton of plot holes.

When the film begins, Treasury Agent Cliff Holden (Dean Jagger) learns that his good friend and fellow agent had been murdered. He vows to find out who's responsible and bring them to justice. Cliff blindly blunders from one situation after another where he SHOULD be killed but again and again he inexplicably survives...and there is no logical reason he isn't killed. Any film that relies this much on dumb luck and dumb criminals is second rate...and this one sure is. Additionally, some of the acting and cinematography is very second rate. In fact, nothing in particular stand out in this one, though Dean Jagger's toupee is very nice. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother with this limp little thriller that offers few thrills.

Dean Jagger who the following year would get the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Twelve O'Clock High was still sporting a toupee when he did this small independent noir film playing a US Customs Agent. Jagger is put on a case to find the killer of a fellow agent and friend. And as we know from The Maltese Falcon when a partner gets killed you're supposed to do something about it.

There's a gang that's smuggling expensive jewelry into the USA and using innocent women not in on the scam. In this case it's Lottie Elwen from the Netherlands. It's an interesting gimmick which I'll let you find out for yourself.

The film was shot entirely in New York on location and it has the same look and feel as The Naked City does. Harry Landers who later was on Ben Casey as a doctor is great as the gang's muscle. I wish we saw more of John Carradine as a disgraced doctor who is part of the smuggling scheme.

Best of all is Edith Atwater who later would play matronly and mother figures. Here she's one evil dame.

This one's a sleeper check it out.

I did not know this movie at all and I must admit that it is not bad at all but forgettable. Just as the other films directed by this Joseph Lerner, for instance GIRL ON THE RUN. But it is worth watching, after all John Carradine and Dean Jagger contribute a lot to the story, but they don't steal the show either. It is not a gritty.actionner, and anyway not an actionner at all. This is just an acceptable time waster, only destined to movie buffs in search of a rare item to watch. Even directed by a Joseph H Lewis or a Budd Boetticher, the result would have been the same - a bit better though - because there was nothing exceptional to take from such a story.

You will read that this is hidden treasure. I guess it's pretty hidden, but that's possibly because it's no treasure.

C-Man's chief claim to fame is that the score won a Pulitzer Prize. Be glad it wasn't played during the film, just the credits. What little bit that was played during the film was intrusive.

This B movie had some talented people: Dean Jagger, who won an Oscar the next year, John Carradine, Harry Landers, and stage actress Edith Atwater.

The story concerns a customs agent on the trail of a $325,000 necklace - that's $4 million today, and several people have been killed because of it.

The fight scenes in this were atrocious.

The plot was somewhat convoluted.

Dean Jagger, a US customs agent, hunts he murderer of a childhood friend who was killed while on the trail of a stolen necklace.

Where did this movie hide for so long? Set and shot primarily in New York City this is a gritty crime drama that seems to predate many other better known films. Its raw and in your face with a documentary edge of real street s and real places. The style reminded me of the films of Orson Welles, especially a film like Mr Arkadin. It also feels like the Lemmy Caution films of Eddie Constantine and other low budget European films. There is an edge to the film making, a do what it takes attitude that produces some surprising and some violent scenes. This is not the type of film you'd expect from an American studio, certainly not in 1949.

This is one of those movies that seems a bit hokey at first but by the time ten minutes have passed you're hooked and are willing to follow the story where ever it goes just because its a good story being told in an interesting manner.

I don't know why this movie isn't better known. Certainly its not a great movie, but its a damn good one. It reminded me of the sort of movie you'd catch at 2am on the Late Late Show when you're half awake, trying to fall asleep only to fall in its clutches and stay up all night... I think I would have thought this was even better if I saw this at 2am.

This is one to see and search out (Even though at this writing IMDb lists it as unavailable Alpha Video does have it on DVD) 7 out of 10.