Good 50's Films: The Narrow Margin

1952 Film Noir
From RKO
Directed by Richard Fleischer

Starring
Charles McGraw
Marie Windsor
Jacqueline White
Paul Maxey
David Clarke
Peter Virgo
Gordon Gebert
Don Beddoe

Film noir buffs have long considered The Narrow Margin to be the best B noir ever made. Whether or not that's the case, this is one taut, exciting, suspenseful thriller, let there be no doubt.  Made at a fast-paced one hour and 11 minutes by RKO, the king of noir-producing studios, it is a film trimmed of all the excess fat under the tight, nuanced direction of Richard Fleischer.

One of the best things about the movie is it takes places almost entirely on a train.  There is something about train sets that blends  so perfectly with mysteries and sleuthing.  It always feels tight and claustrophobic down those aisles and in the compartments juxtaposed against long shots of the speeding train or seeing the countryside whiz by from inside a compartment.  I absolutely love train movies.

The story concerns a cop who is assigned to protect a mob boss' widow as they travel on the train from Chicago to L.A. where she's going to provide damning testimony before the grand jury.  Obviously there are some unsavory types on board who want to make sure she never makes it to the west coast.  The screenplay adds spice by having the cop and the witness hate one another with a passion.  In true noir fashion, there is plenty of sassy dialogue between the two, some of it very funny.  A clip at the end here will give you a pretty clear idea.

Best of all, again in true noir fashion, there is an insightful ending that I never saw coming... and I love that.  We all love being armchair detectives, I suppose, with suspense yarns and when we fail to figure something out, it can be great fun when it's done as well as this is.

If the film has gone unseen by many over the years, it would surely be because of its largely unknown cast, especially the three leads.  You may have heard of Marie Windsor (in these pages a few postings ago) but what about Charles McGraw and Jacqueline White?  Studio head Howard Hughes green-lighted many B productions at this studio, using a number of lesser satellites in his acting stable.  

Both McGraw and Windsor have familiar faces, particularly in crime dramas, where each of them almost always played villains.  Here they both not only play good guys (with rough edges) but have starring roles, most unusual for these two character actors.
His detective is hard-nosed with a short fuse and she is brittle and antagonising.

The best film Windsor & McGraw ever made

White was known to film noir fans for her supporting work in another classic noir, 1947's Crossfire.  The Narrow Margin provided her with one of her best and most important roles in her brief career and yet it became her last movie.

The talk around RKO became louder and louder, the talk about what an effective thriller Fleischer had provided.  This was in 1950 when filming ended.  Hughes got wind of the notices and said he wanted to see the film.  He kept it in his office over a year without ever looking at it.  When he finally did view it, he was so impressed that he wanted to reshoot most of it, taking out Windsor and McGraw completely, and installing his two favorites, Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum in their parts.  The pair had worked together in Macao and His Kind of Woman, neither of which was a roaring success, and luckily Hughes was talked out of his ploy.

This is one of director Fleischer's earliest films and his success with it obviously put him in enough good standing to go on to direct such notable films as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Violent Saturday, The Vikings, Compulsion, Barabbas, The Boston Strangler and Conan the Barbarian.

The beginning of one of the best scenes

Aiding immensely to the proceedings, as is always the case with film noirs, is stunning cinematography, this time by George Diskant
who handles those shadows and lighting with aplomb.  It's been said the film offers a first-look at hand-held cameras to navigate the corridors and compartments of the train to help with that claustrophobia so important to the story.

Here is a film that honors the B film and highlights why one should not pooh-pooh a movie because of that status.  Much of my movie-going life has been devoted to B's, many of them superb.  The film is far superior to its 1990 Gene Hackman-Anne Archer remake.  If you haven't seen it (or perhaps can't remember), treat yourself.  It delivers all you hope it would.

Check out the clip... about as noirish as they come:

Next posting:
A look at a two-time Oscar
winner's 50's films