- Variety review for Red Light.
by Stone Wallace
As stated in my recent biography George Raft: The Man Who Would Be Bogart,
1949’s Red Light could almost be taken as a follow-up to Raft’s They Drive by Night (1940). At the conclusion of the earlier Warner Brothers film, Raft’s character, Joe Fabrini, has become the boss of his deceased pal Alan Hale’s trucking operation. Jump ahead nine years and John Torno (Raft) is the owner of a a prosperous Los Angeles freight company. Life is moving along busily but smoothly for the trucking executive. But unbeknownst to John there is trouble brewing. John’s former employee Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr), in prison for embezzling from the Torno Freight Co., seeks revenge for his incarceration. He intends to get back at John by murdering his younger brother Jess (Arthur Franz), a Roman Catholic chaplain just returned from World War II. To execute his scheme, he enlists the aid of fellow convict Rocky (Harry Morgan), who is set to be released from prison a week before Nick. When John discovers the wounded and dying Jess in his hotel room and asks who shot him, Jess replies only: “In the Bible” before expiring. John looks throughout the room but the Gideon Bible is nowhere to be found. John then begins his relentless search for the elusive “clue”, aided by Carla North (Virginia Mayo). Although the police, led by Detective Stecker (Barton MacLane), priest Father Redmond (Arthur Shields) and even Carla try to persuade John to let the law take its course, John is determined to personally avenge his brother’s murder. Eventually his trail leads him to Nick, who in the interim has attempted to kill Rocky and murdered firm employee Warni Hazard (Gene Lockhart), who is discovered in the freight company garage. Nick pleads his innocence and is almost let off the hook until a mortally-wounded Rocky suddenly appears and reveals his guilt. John is prepared to kill his former employee but a posthumous message from his brother found written in the margin of the Bible – Johnny, Thou Shalt Not Kill – stays his hand. Nick attempts to escape, climbing to the roof of the building. Though John cannot bring himself to kill him, the brutal Nick still pays for his crimes – perhaps by divine intervention – when he is accidentally electrocuted while trying to make his getaway alongside a neon sign. A fate that certainly would have befallen him had he been brought to trial.Red Light is one of George Raft’s most unusual and intriguing films, combining as it does themes of religion and revenge. Presented starkly in true noir fashion, these conflicting elements elevate the film from just an ordinary crime drama. Another reason Red Light succeeds as a more effective entry than most of Raft’s post-Warner Brothers films is due to the efficiency of the director, Roy Del Ruth. Del Ruth had amassed a large number of noteworthy screen credits during
his lengthy Hollywood career. He started his filmmaking during the Silent era. Then, throughout the early 30s he directed a number of crisp, snappy vehicles at Warner Brothers, working with the likes of Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Bette Davis in such titles as Blonde Crazy (1931), The Little Giant and Bureau of Missing Persons (both 1933). He had also previously worked with George Raft, directing the film novice in his brief dancing bit against James Cagney in Taxi! (1932), and later working with a now-established Raft in It Had to Happen (1936). This association proved beneficial to Raft during the declining period of the actor’s career. A number of Raft’s late 40s films saw the actor paired with the lesser Edwin L. Marin, whose movies lacked the spark of Raft’s studio productions and basically stuck to formula. With Johnny Angel (1945) and, to a lesser extent, Nocturne (1946) the exceptions, the Raft-Marin collaborations proved undistinguished efforts, receiving neither commercial nor critical acclaim. These titles included: Mr. Ace (1946), Christmas Eve (aka Sinner’s Holiday), Intrigue (both 1947) and Race Street (1948), Each of these pictures was hampered by a low budget, routine storyline and uninspired playing by Raft in a familiar role that quickly became tiresome and redundant for theater patrons. Audiences that had already been exposed to and excited by gritty post-WWII noir thrillers that introduced to the screen such fresh and exciting personalities as Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark. The depiction of the characters portrayed by these actors (though not unfamiliar to the Raft resume: gangster, detective, two-fisted hero) seemed worlds apart from the low-key and by-now-caricatured playing associated with George Raft.While featured (once again) as the “good guy”, Raft fared better in Red Light. Under Del Ruth’s able direction, George Raft was able to escape the one-dimensional trappings of his previous roles. His customary cool facade is allowed to crack open at several points in the story and he expresses a myriad of emotions (some displayed better than others), ranging from an anguished sorrow at the brutal murder of his brother to a cold rage as he pursues the killer with determined, single-minded purpose. In short, John Torno emerges as one of Raft’s most complex roles, requiring some real thesping, which Raft performs mostly admirably. His sudden violent eruption inside the church where Arthur Shields pleads with him to forego vengeance is a particularly striking scene. Indeed, it can be argued that Red Light afforded Raft his best film role until his own sadistic turn as the ruthless crime czar Dan Beaumonte in Rogue Cop (1954).
During the making of the film, Raft tried to incorporate a unique mannerism into his characterization, one borrowed from his late pal “Bugsy” Siegel. Siegel had a hair-combing obsession and Raft suggested to director Del Ruth that he would like to use that trait in his performance. Del Ruth declined with the explanation that he could never convince an audience that a guy would really do that. So much for creative input.
Graphic violence is a chief highlight of the movie. Raft’s previous independent crime dramas were much tamer in comparison, with nary a hint of gunplay or on-screen brutality. Of course it is Raymond Burr who is the chief perpetrator of the carnage. He betrays his “partner” Rocky by shoving him from a train and later kicks the jack out from under a trailer, crushing to death the cowering Gene Lockhart. (While in private life a kind, gentle and humorous man, Burr excelled at onscreen sadism. Witness his memorable moment in Raw Deal (1948) when he hurls a flaming dessert into the face of his annoying girlfriend.)
Raymond Burr, who hailed from New Westminister, British Columbia, was still relatively new to the film scene. Because of his imposing physique and smoothly sinister voice (which was once described as the vocal equivalent of strawberry shortcake), he would become almost fatally typecast as a movie bad guy in numerous crime dramas and Westerns until his heroic turn as the newspaperman in the American-filmed inserts for Godzilla (1954) and, most notably, later as TV’s most famous public defender Perry Mason. Raft would later say of working with Burr: “I felt he had a lot of talent.” Burr’s onscreen cohort in crime was essayed by Harry Morgan, the versatile and solidly reliable utility actor who had previously appeared with Raft in Race Street. Morgan would later recall Raft as a gentleman and a complete pro to work with. So impressed was Morgan with Raft that he remarked: “I would have done ten more pictures with George if it had been possible.” The beautiful Virginia Mayo does well in her role as the concerned girlfriend and – perhaps more importantly – adds the right decorative touch to the dark proceedings. Mayo would score even higher in the crime genre that same year as Vera, the wife of mother-obsessed gangster Cody Jarrett in Warners’ White Heat. Ten years later Mayo would again be co-starred with Raft in Jet Over the Atlantic (1959), a film that would prove to be one of Raft’s last featured roles before being relegated to playing bits and cameos.
Veteran tough guy actor Barton MacLane (long a fixture in Warner Brothers gangster movies) had previously worked with Raft in the films You and Me (1938), directed by Fritz Lang, and the Raoul Walsh-helmed Manpower (1941). In Red Light, MacLane was allowed a welcome reprieve from his standard “thug” roles to play cop-on-the-case Detective Strecker. Arthur Franz, an actor whose career vacillated between supporting roles in A-films (Sands of Iwo Jima, 1948 and The Caine Mutiny, 1954) and starring
parts in B-movies (Monster on the Campus, 1958 and The Atomic Submarine, 1959), gives a brief but effective performance as Raft’s clergy brother Jess. Gene Lockhart and Arthur Shields (lookalike brother of that quintessential screen Irishman Barry Fitzgerald) offer solid support in their respective roles as trucking company employee and sympathetic priest. Other recognizable faces that pop up throughout the picture include William Frawley, Stanley Clements, Phillip Pine and Paul Frees. Raft’s close friend and confidant Mack Gray also played a bit, one of the 21 roles he did in Raft pictures.The film garnered for Raft one of his last impressive, post-studio paydays: Reportedly $65,000. Unfortunately, despite its many merits and a role that offered more shadings than the usual George Raft character, Red Light remains one of Raft’s more obscure movies. The film rarely, if ever, shows up on television, and while VHS tapes and DVDs occasionally make the rounds among collectors, a quality video print is almost impossible to find. Red Light deserves a rediscovery, both to fans of George Raft and noir cinema.
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