Desperate (1947)

Sang Adam Ant in the 1980s. It wasn't a particularly good song and this isn't a particularly good film. Nothing about it rings true. Everybody's actions and reactions are completely wrong. Raymond Burr (Walt) as the villain is the saving grace but he can't save this on his own. An example of this unrealistic behaviour is demonstrated when Steve Brodie and his wife Audrey Long decide to shelter. Bear in mind that their lives are in serious danger. So where would you go? Yep, a family member's house, of course. No-one would think to look there. Whilst you're at it, why not re stage a massive wedding ceremony for all the village to attend to attract a bit of attention, especially as you don't want anyone to know where you are? Oh, sorry, you have already arranged that. Well, that's good then. This film is totally stupid. There are loads more examples of this kind of stupidity throughout the film. Will the good guys win? This film disappointed me and Steve Brodie's actions are just ridiculously unrealistic. He's dealing with a gang who could kill him, for goodness sake. He should have been dead very early on.

Steve Brodie is a decent working guy who gets roped into a heist against his will by some gangsters and has to go on the lam with his pregnant wife. "Desperate" is a very minor affair, but it does have some stylistic panache courtesy of Anthony Mann, who directed and had plenty of experience working in this genre. Raymond Burr is the film's biggest asset as the head thug; he wants to take down Brodie's character because his own brother gets the death penalty for shooting a police officer during the robbery. He pursues him out of pure spite long after the events that set the principal plot in motion have passed. Indeed, one of the most confusing things about the film is its timeline, with a good nine to ten months intervening between the film's beginning and its conclusion but which is treated by the film like it's a couple of weeks.Really the two most memorable things about "Desperate" are a scene where Burr and his toughs rough up Brodie and Mann chooses to shoot the scene while a suspended bulb sways back and forth creating eerie shadow effects; and the other is the fact that I spent the whole movie waiting to see what I thought would be a very young Jason Robards, only to find that there was a different actor by that name, and he plays the head detective in charge of tracking down the criminals.Grade: B

The trucker Steve Randall (Steve Brodie) is an ex-GI that has fought in the war and has been married with Anne Randall (Audrey Long) for four months. Steve has a trunking business, but he arrives home with the intention of celebrating his wedding anniversary with Anne. He receives a phone call from a client that offers a small fortune to him to transport some goods that night and he does not have how to refuse.When he arrives at the spot, he finds that he was lured by the mobster Walt Radak (Raymond Burr) that wants to use Steve's truck to transport stolen furs. Steve does not accept the deal but is forced by Walt's gangsters to drive his truck. When he sees a police officer on the street, he blinks the headlights to call his attention. There is a shooting and the police officer is murdered and Walt's young brother Al is left behind and arrested by the police. Walt tries to force Steve to assume the murder to save his brother but Steve flees from the gangsters and travels with Anne, who is pregnant, to the countryside, pursued by Walt and his gangsters and by the police. When Steve finds a safe place for Anne in the farm of her Aunt Klara (Ilka Gruning) and Uncle Jan (Paul E. Burns), he goes to the police department and tells his story to Det. Lt. Louie Ferrari (Jason Robards) that does not believe in his words but let him go. Steve returns to the farm without knowing that Ferrari released him to be a bait to catch Walt and his men."Desperate" is a film-noir by Anthony Mann with a good story of pursue and death wish, with sordid characters, like for example the mobster, the car dealer, the detective lieutenant among others and good duel between Steve Brodie and Raymond Burr. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Desesperado" ("Desperate")

Raymond Burr shines in Desperate an early film in his career. You could tell this man was going to be films for the long haul. Although it would have been a shame if he only was cast as thuggish gangsters for the rest of his life.But in that part he steals the film from leads Steve Brodie and Audrey Long. Brodie is a friend of Burr's since childhood and Brodie's recently returned from the war, married his sweetheart Long, and is now settling into a career as a truck-driver. Burr conceives a brilliant scheme in which he hires Brodie for his truck as part of a heist only he doesn't tell Brodie about it. When the heist is a bust and Burr's younger brother is captured and a cop killed in foiling the robbery, Burr's conceives a nasty hatred for Brodie and Brodie and Long have to flee. Suspicion is also on Brodie so the police are after him as well.It's really quite preposterous when you think about it. Burr takes the eager kid brother along on the job because the brother wants to emulate his sibling. Then when he's caught it isn't his fault, it's the fault of the guy who was tricked into it and who foiled Burr's plans. But I saw a situation like that in my own life.I knew this man who was in fact quite a lowlife himself. But he did rise to a position of some authority and insisted on bringing his equally raised lowlife son into his business. The kid was also a prize specimen with a serious drug problem and was busy in his supervisory position extorting the other employees for monies to feed his habit. The father was completely blind to his kid's problem, it was everyone else who was conspiring against his precious son. In the end the kid both lost the job and ended dying of cocaine contributed heart problems. To this day the father won't recognize his own culpability. In a nutshell that's Raymond Burr's character here.Steve Brodie had a good career as a secondary lead, this was one of his few starring roles. He was a good actor, but his height prevented him from gaining stardom and he didn't have the charisma of a James Cagney who could have really done something with this character. So could Alan Ladd over at Paramount. Audrey Long is probably best remembered for playing opposite John Wayne in Tall In The Saddle where she is in competition with Ella Raines for the Duke. Brodie and Long are fine, but this is really Raymond Burr's film.