This week Twilight Time Home Video released their first classic 3D Blu Ray, Columbia's underrated 1953 noir thriller Man In The Dark. Okay, classic may be a bit of a strong word to apply to this movie. It's not as good as House of Wax or Dial M For Murder. But it's not nearly as bad as something like Cat Women of the Moon from that era. And it's certainly better than any 3D movie that came out in between 1956 and 2003. Come to it, it's better than quite a few of the modern era films, too. It definitely has better 3D than most modern films, as tends to be the case with these vintage releases.
Man In The Dark stars Edmond O'Brien and Audrey Totter, a pair of noir icons if ever there any. O'Brien is best remembered today as the doomed protagonist of 1950's D.O.A. while Totter tends to get remembered for the oddball version of Lady In The Lake that was shot almost entirely from the hero's perspective. The movie is an apparently loose remake of a 1936 Ralph Bellamy movie called The Man Who Lived Twice. In it, O'Brien is gangster Steve Rawley, convicted of a Christmas Eve payroll heist of $130,000. He agrees to a brain operation that will remove his criminal tendencies in order to cut down on his 10 year sentence. The operation is a success but leaves him with no memory whatsoever of his former life, much to the annoyance of an insurance investigator and Rawley's old gang members, both of whom want to know where he hid the money. Rawley's gang abducts him and tries forcing him to remember. Rawley's moll (Totter) also initially wants him to remember, but then starts to fall in love with the new Rawley. Slowly, through a couple of bizzare dreams, the location of the dough comes back to him, leading up to a climactic chase through a carnival and a battle on top of a rickety wooden coaster.
Man In The Dark was the second 3D movie of the 1950s. After the runaway success of the genuinely bad Bwana Devil, Warner's announced they were working on House of Wax to be the first 3D film by a major studio (Bwana Devil was an independent production). Columbia honcho Harry Cohn decided to steal Warner's thunder and had Man in the Dark quickly rewritten for 3D and shot in 19 days. To pour salt in the wound, they even released the movie two days ahead of House of Wax. Because of this, the movie tends to get a bad rep since it was a low budget quickie. But the 3D camerawork is excellent, with a great sense of depth. The script is at least serviceable and the actors all do professional jobs. The movie also tends to get beat on by certain 3D enthusiasts for having too many gimmick shots. I'm not sure if I saw a different cut than they did, but it doesn't seem to me to be too much. Oh, sure, if you're going to compare it to Dial M For Murder or Miss Sadie Thompson, it's gimmicky. But it's no Comin' At Ya! or Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over either. And almost every gimmick shot in the movie is motivated by the story, not just throw in there unlike too many 80s films. No straws or popcorn being tossed at the audience. And hey, isn't part of the fun of 3D the gimmick shots to begin with? I'd much rather watch something like this than a lot of the modern films which have neither good depth nor good gimmick shots.
The movie is a fun 3D ride but it does have it's issues. The major one is the fact that at 68 minutes, it's actually too short (there's a complaint you don't hear every day). The movie has some interesting
ideas but doesn't have the length to expand on and explore them. Take the insurance investigator Jawald (Dan Riss) for instance. He's as creepy a character as any in the film, knowing where Rawley is being kept but not tipping the police off despite the APB on Rawley. He's also perfectly content to let the gang keep working Rawley over so that he gets led to the money. Then there's the implications of the entire brain operation in the first place. Unfortunately, the movie blows over these things simply because it doesn't have the time to get into them. One gets the feeling that this could have been as classic as noir as D.O.A., but it just misses the mark. That said, it does have some great noir dialogue and more than competent performances from it's cast. And Twilight Time's Blu Ray is exceptional looking. Limited to only 3,000 copies (as all Twilight Time's Blu Rays are), this is a must own for any fan of 3D or noir.
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