Red Light (1949)

This film was memorable in ways that the director probably didn't intend it to be. George Raft's performance is over the top, in a good way. He doesn't hold back his anger with the church yet shows his inner conflict by donating money and praying at the altar. That's the serious part. And Raymond Burr is seriously evil. But many other scenes cracked me up with laughter. All the scenes with the Bible, the guy who comes back after the train scene, and of course the ending which was spectacular in a hilarious way. The phrase "24 hour Service" will always remind me of this film... In fact, that should have been the title...This film is worth seeing because it is so unusual for a noir picture to combine the serious with the humor and the religious themes. And the cast has plenty of interesting characters....

George Raft (Johnny Torno) owns a trucking company. Because of his real-life gangster connections you can't help but think he's corrupt. Anyway, he seems to be playing a good guy who owns a trucking company. His army-decorated holy brother Arthur Franz (Jess) comes across as an annoying priest who is thankfully murdered at the beginning of the film and thus begins Mr Raft's campaign to dish out some revenge. His only clue is a bible that needs to be tracked down.The cast are good in this film, especially the bad guys Raymond Burr (Nick) and Harry Morgan (Rocky). George Raft plays himself and that's completely fine. The film throws you a curve ball at one point when Raft meets up with blind Phillip Pine (Pablo). We hit a sentimental streak and start groaning at the piousness of it all before Raft provides the funniest moment of the film which provides a superb counter-balance to what we have just heard. Raft gets straight to his point with a very frank "have you got it or not?" to Pine. It's brilliant. It's delivered in a way that suggests he has absolutely no time for the story that he has just been told, just like the audience can't be bothered with it. Priceless! I assume the lights in the final scene are red - it's a bit of a strange title for a black and white film.

This obscure crime drama/pseudo-noir, independently produced and directed by Roy Del Ruth for United Artists, is well worth a look. Figurative (and, later in life, literal) heavy Raymond Burr plays Nick Cherney, an embezzler doing time for ripping off his employer, shipping company boss Johnny Torno (George Raft). Nick's understandably cheesed off about his conviction, and asks fellow con Rocky (Henry Morgan) - who's being released before him - to serve Johnny a heaping helping of payback after he gets out of stir. The cooperative Rocky obliges by murdering Johnny's priest brother Jess (Arthur Franz), but Johnny isn't willing to take his sibling's death lying down - until he reads some marginalia in Jess's bible. Shot on location in beautiful Carmel, California, Red Light also features Virginia Mayo, Gene Lockhart, and William Frawley (who has an interesting telephone conversation about plumbing), first rate James Van Trees cinematography, and an original score by Dmitri Tiomkin.

Red Light is an independent production released by United Artists and starring George Raft as a man on a mission. Raft plays the self made successful head of a trucking operation who is used to taking care of business himself. But when his younger brother who is a priest and an army chaplain from the late war played by Arthur Franz is shot in a hotel room, Raft is going to deal with killers himself and not let it be handled by the police in the persons of Barton MacLane and Bill Phipps.Before checking out of this mortal coil, Franz said he wrote something in the hotel Gideon Bible for Raft. But the book from that particular room has been stolen and Raft spends most of the film trying to locate it with the help of Virginia Mayo.There's not much suspense in this film mainly because Raymond Burr who was a former employee sent to prison for embezzlement is acting so guilty. He does have an ironclad alibi however, but you know it will be broken. Whatever suspense is in the how.The other suspenseful component of this sub par noir film is what will Raft do when he does learn the truth. What he gets from the bible are some eternal truths, but what he seeks comes out in its own way.Besides the players mentioned such folks as Gene Lockhart, Stanley Clements, William Frawley, Harry Morgan, and Arthur Shields are all in Red Light. The film had the potential to be a lot more, but Raft just doesn't carry it off right.