D.O.A.

D. O. A. is an intriguing, fast paced movie, rife with metaphor. A mood of chaos and uncertain boundaries is introduced early in the film. At a hotel in San Francisco, businessman Frank Bigelow, seeking little more than the ephemeral pleasure of a brief trip, finds himself in the midst of party revelers. With unsettling frivolity, they roam randomly about their various guest rooms which appear unlocked and opened. The mood of strident, forced conviviality climaxes when they move the party to a local bar called "The Fisherman." As the jazz played in the venue intensifies in volume and rhythm, uneven camera angles catch the various musicians playing to the point that they're breaking sweat and literally, physically vibrating. Bigelow himself is jostled about in the crowd, actually losing his footing for a moment. The setting is that of a little world both frenzied and crazed. Bigelow appears detached as all react excitedly and emotionally to music that he admits isn't his taste.

This memorable key scene portends his disconnection from those around him and represents a crack, however slight, in his life's foundation. Though initially reticent about socializing and imbibing with people he just met, he has unwittingly been thrust into a reality more threatening than is immediately apparent. Later in the film, a jarring example of his full blown isolation occurs when he finds himself in an outdoor, public area. In unbearable turmoil, he momentarily encounters a little girl innocently playing with a toy. She appears in soft lighting, contrasting starkly to the shadows surrounding Bigelow, whose face registers the painful shock of awareness that ordinary activity continues unabated even while he grapples with extreme danger. This is reinforced when seconds later he observes a young couple embracing, compounding his agonizing realization that all simple pleasures are now unattainable to him. Noticeably, when he is literally "up against the wall" his back is touching signage of "Life Magazine" logos. All that once comprised his own life, that which he had considered to be little more than mundane minutiae, is heightened in significance and irrevocably at stake.

Frank Bigelow: "I want to report a murder." Homicide Captain: "Where was this murder committed?" Frank Bigelow: "San Francisco, last night." Homicide Captain: "Who was murdered?" Frank Bigelow: "I was."

It must be the dream of all directors to open a film with a scene or line which carries great impact and remains in the memory. The opening line in D.O.A must rank among the most dramatically effective and intriguing lines that has ever opened a movie. This is the quintessential film noir. Edmond O'Brien as the tough, hard drinking businessman who has grown tired of the normalcy of his life and the clinging Paula. His holiday in San Francisco is an opportunity to break the shackels. The premise that the hero has been given a slow poison for which there is no cure, and only a day or so to solve his own murder before he dies, is exceptional. We also have an array of sultry "bad girls", a seedy villain and a manic hitman. Rudoph Mate directs brilliantly, not missing a moment to twist and turn the action at a fast pace with no dull moments. Scenes of O'Brien running through city streets after he has learned his fate are superb with incredibly realistic wide shots. The fact that his direction is so effective makes one wonder how he could have allowed the lapses of ridiculous canned "wolf whistles" whenever the hero passed a good looking girl in the early scenes. Although these "wolf whistles" are really out of place and very annoying, the film is so effective that we can forgive the indiscretion. This is a classic example of a brilliant plot superbly told in a way that is still gripping 50 years after it was made. D.O.A. defines Film Noir.

Great B-movie film noir, played as if his life depended on it (and it does) by Edmond O'Brien as a small-town notary who pays a big price for signing the wrong document at the wrong time, turning what should have been a pleasure trip to the west coast into a murderous affair altogether.

It starts with a bang, O'Brien staggering into the local homicide unit to tell the cops that there's been a murder - his, before launching into the massive flash-back which takes up pretty much the rest of the movie. The action from there on is hectic and as convoluted as all the best noirs are as O'Brien, infected by a deadly poison, races against the clock to track down his own killer and the reason behind it.

The film makes fine use of actual San Francisco and Los Angeles locations as well as authentically depicting the hot and steamy atmosphere at a Frisco jazz club. O'Brien is great as the doomed Bigelow, racing, often literally, against the clock, stopping only to palm off his adoring secretary girl-friend, Pamela Britten, who of course doesn't find out what's wrong with him until too late.

The pacing is almost non-stop once it gathers momentum, unfortunately when it does, some of the scene-writing gets over-ripe and correspondingly over-acted as O'Brien and his girl pour out their hearts somewhat unnecessarily. The film ends bravely though with a downbeat conclusion, delivering what the title says it must and at least tying up all the loose ends by that time.

DOA was made on the cusp of Edmond O'Brien's transition from leads to character roles and it may very well be his career part.

It's a cheaply made thriller and it shows in spots. But it more than makes up for it in originality of plot and the performances of a superb cast of players.

DOA involves nothing less than Edmond O'Brien solving his own murder. He's in some kind of business and as a sideline he makes a little extra money as a notary. He notarizes a bill of sale and in doing so is a witness to a piece of evidence that a man who was a party to the sale had no reason to commit suicide.

But the perpetrator doesn't slip O'Brien something fast acting like cyanide. No he gets something called luminescent poisoning which is slow acting, but irreversibly fatal if not caught within a few hours of ingesting. When he learns what happens, O'Brien has nothing to lose in his hunt for his own killer.

Best in the cast of supporting players without a doubt is Neville Brand who invades Lyle Bettger territory in playing a psychopathic thug in Luther Adler's employ. Adler himself is always good as are good girl Pamela Britton and bad girl Beverly Garland.

The film was made on a shoestring, but occasionally those films can prove worthwhile.

I remember seeing DOA for the first time as a kid. It was on the Late, Late Show, a perfect venue for what may be the best of the post-war noirs. As the movie tension mounted, it almost knocked my socks off. After all, how many films in those days ended with a "dead hero" charging around San Francisco, even if he wasn't a cable channel zombie.

Anyhow, don't let those sappy early scenes fool you. They're necessary to set up the contrasting downspiral that ensues. As it happens, Frank Bigelow (O'Brien) may be bored with his accounting job in a quiet little town, along with the prospects of marrying a conventional girl, Paula (Britton), and living out a routine existence there. So, at the first chance there he goes, off to enjoy adventures in the big city, even if only brief ones. And get a load of the available women swarming around his San Francisco hotel. Now that adventure beckons, it's no longer thoughts of Banning or Paula. (But what was musical arranger Tiomkin thinking with those utterly cartoonish wolf whistles, perhaps the movie's only flaw).

So, along with the goodtime gang he's hooked up with, it's off to wild nightspots for the suddenly footloose Bigelow. The trouble is Frank has taken a big step away from the ordered simplicity of his small town and into the unfamiliar world of chaotic city life. And worse, the frenzied chaos of The Fisherman, its strung-out patrons and aggressive atmosphere, clouds the fact that his life will never be the same. In fact, the jazz scene with it's blaring, chaotic close-ups amounts to a superb one-of-a-kind metaphor for the bizarre world the small town accountant has now entered. Just as importantly, it makes anything that happens thereafter seem weirdly possible. As a result, when Frank swallows what turns out to be a deadly neon toxin, it seems perfectly in keeping with this landscape of disorder.

I may be biased, but O'Brien really deserved at least an Oscar nomination for his energetic and nuanced performance, as though Hollywood ever rewarded low-budget B-movies. In fact, I'm ready to enter him in the Olympics, for that 500-yard mad dash down Market Street. What a great natural reaction to the news that he's already a dead man. And filming the sequence with, I suspect, a hidden camera adds a kind of realism to the convoluted remainder of the whodunit.

Another high point is the sequence with the psychotic Chester (Brand). What a great piece of casting. Brand has such distinctive features, which he twists to full effect on the tormented Bigelow. But little does he know that Frank has acquired a peculiar kind of power. After all, what does he need to be afraid of since he's already dead. That scene in the drug store where Chester overplays his hand is another piece of fine filming and staging. I wouldn't be surprised that many in the audience have speculated with what they would do with Frank's kind of power, heavily purchased though it is.

What's so amazing about the movie is how adeptly the theme builds right down to the inevitable climax. We begin with a glimpse of a well-ordered world, but one that quickly descends into the depths of chaos and disorder, as Bigelow travels a nightmare road in pursuit of the where and why of his killer. I take the moral to be a conservative one, something like appreciating the routine and conventional, since it's never certain when an uncaring fate might intervene. After all, Frank really only comes to appreciate Paula and his small town once he's experienced its opposite. It's something that could happen to any of us, since even the most routine act may have unforeseen consequences. That's what's so unsettling about the movie.

Anyway, it's hats off to everyone involved in the making of this memorable noir. It's one of those submerged classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) that surfaced only after a period on late night TV. Frankly, I still sometimes slip it out late at night, and pull up my socks real tight. To me, it's got that kind of staying power.

(In passing—living in LA, I occasionally pass the Bradbury Building and think of the movie. It looks pretty much the same as it did then, but has since acquired a kind of cachet among movie makers. I like to think it's because of the sweaty, underrated Eddie O'Brien and the unforgettable Frank Bigelow.)