Guilty Bystander

Zachary Scott is an ex-cop with a bad case of alcoholism. He's a house detective at a sleazy hotel, sleeping one off, when his ex-wife, Faye Emerson wakes him to tell him their son has been kidnapped, his ex-colleagues are sympathetic, but it's up to Scott to track the abductors through the Skid Row world and rescue his son.... and himself.

This movie benefits from a strong, sympathetic story, and location shooting on the low-rent streets of downtown New York. There's a lot of talking, though, for such a usually visual genre, and the performances, while appropriate, are not terribly interesting. Scott and Miss Emerson start out with low-affect performances. Miss Emerson mumbles her lines in a tired and hopeless manner, and Scott spends the first half with subdued reactions. It's how a lot of depressives act, but it's not terribly interesting to watch.

The cast is eked out with some good performers, Mary Boland plays the sort of down-on-heels ex-floozie that Esther Howard usually did for Paramount Noirs, Sam Levene is the police captain who can't help because of the rule book, and J. Edward Bromberg, Kay Medford, and Jed Prouty have memorable roles. The result is a film noir that is highly watchable.

Max Thursday (Zachary Scott) is an alcoholic former cop living in a rundown hotel owned by his friend Smitty. He gets a visit from his ex-wife Georgia. Her brother Fred Mace and their son Jeff are missing. Apparently, Jeff has been kidnapped and Fred is somehow involved.

This is a harsh pulpy noir. Zachary Scott is acting with all his chops. It has the brutality and hard-talk for the standard noir B-movie. The story isn't much but it functions well enough. I like many of the New York City exteriors. They're low rent and outside the normal glamor locations. I would like better for the action but it's still the old style. It's an old noir crime B-movie.

Zachary Scott stars in "Guilty Bystander" as Max Thursday, an alcoholic ex-cop who's practically lived in a bottle since he was hounded off the force. He barely gets by, his marriage is gone and he's a crappy house detective in an even crappier motel.

Thursday's ex-wife contacts him. It seems that their young son has been kidnapped and she wants Max to somehow find the boy. But Max is clearly an alcoholic and the only way he can function is to keep drinking....enough to keep him functioning but to enough to get him drunk. The trail leads to the seedy underworld and a lot of very dangerous characters.

While I didn't adore this film (it had too many names and some backstory seemed to be missing), it is amazing when it comes to atmosphere. Plus, Scott is really good as this terrific anti-hero. Well worth seeing if you love film noir...and still worth seeing if you don't!

Everything is in it: the dark shades, the twists in the plot and the troubles policeman and some ravishing ladies. Totally restored in 2019. A long story, but some gripping scenes in the end.

Director Joseph Lerner does not have much of a track record: his two best known works are GUILTY BYSTANDER and C -MAN, and neither is memorable.

Zachary Scott was a handsome actor with the bad luck of landing roles reflecting ugly souls. Even when he is not an out and out weasel, as in MILDRED PIERCE, he still cannot rise above being the dipsomaniac that he is in GUILTY BYSTANDER. His acting is competent, as ever, he is just plain dislikable, not least because he keeps surrendering so easily to the bottle even after finding out that his very young son was abducted.

Pretty Faye Emerson, who played opposite Scott in other films, does not make much sense. She wants to find her little boy, enlists ex-hubby Scott's help, but then seems do nothing, basically just prettifying the screen. I was more impressed with the small parts of J Bromberg as the high blood pressure Varkas who slaps Scott; Mary Boland, as the landlord who keeps encouraging Scott to drink; and, above all, Jed Prouty as the malevolent Dr Elder, who knows more than he lets on.

Photography is good for a B noir. Script suffers from poor cause and effect, the son's disappearance failing to get to the former cop Scott as focused as any father would be, and the motivation for a serious felony like the abduction of a child, is never properly explained.

Not bad, but far from good.