D.O.A. (1950) - film review

A man walks into an urban police station to report his own murder.  He is Frank Bigelow, an accountant from a small Californian town who recently went missing after learning he had ingested a fatal dose of a luminous poison.  Knowing that he only had a few hours left to live, Frank set himself the mission of finding those who were responsible for killing him, to exact some kind of vengeance.  If only he hadn’t decided to take a vacation in San Francisco...  If only he hadn’t gone off to a nightclub with strangers he met at his hotel...  If he had stayed in his hometown, he might have settled down and married his adoring girlfriend Paula, and none of this would have happened.  Instead, he is a dying man, fighting a solitary crusade to hunt down his killer.  Ironically, it is Paula who provides him with his first lead.  The man who had been trying to contact him at his office a few days ago has just committed suicide.  Convinced that this man’s death is in some way linked to his own calamity, Frank begins his investigation in earnest.  But time is fast running out...

One of the true classics of film noir, D.O.A. employs some of the most devious twists and turns the genre has ever known to deliver a film that almost drowns in its bleak nihilism and tortuous labyrinthine complexity.  The foreboding tracking sequence which accompanies the opening credits, in which a man, shot from behind, walks purposefully through a maze of deserted corridors, sets the story up brilliantly, providing a strong visual motif for what it is to follow.  The flashback narrative is then used to brilliant effect to allow the man, who calmly pronounces himself dead on arrival (hence the title), to tell his story.  The film lives up to the promise of this remarkable intro by delivering an elaborate, well-constructed thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat right up until very last shot.

D.O.A. was directed with consummate skill by Rudolph Maté, his second foray into the murky world of film noir after the nearly as good psycho-drama The Dark Past (1948).  Before becoming a director in the late 1940s, Maté was one of Hollywood’s most esteemed cinematographers, with credits ranging from the classic Laurel and Hardy comedy Our Relations (1936) to the highly regarded Orson Welles thriller The Lady from Shanghai (1947), via Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940).

The Austrian-born Maté began his career in the silent era, notably working on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928).  The influence of German expressionism can be seen in his work, as both cinematographer and film director.   The main artistic strength of D.O.A. is its atmospheric lighting and camerawork, which lend an aura of oppression and doom that is entirely appropriate for a film noir, particularly one in which we know the central protagonist faces an ineluctable death.  This was one of the first classic films noirs to venture outside the studio and make extensive use of real locations, something that adds greatly to the realism of the story, whilst allowing for the inclusion of some spectacular action sequences.  

In true film noir fashion, the plot ultimately becomes so horrendously convoluted that it becomes impossible to follow all of its many twists and turns, but this does not matter.  The film’s narrative complexity is really no more than a device to heighten the tension and lure us further and further into the chaotic universe of the main character as he uses what little time he has left to solve the mystery of his impending death and take his revenge.  The metaphor of a fly being drawn inexorably in towards the heart of spider’s web fits most classic film noir thrillers, but it is particularly apt for this one, the spider being not a human adversary, but death itself.   
    
Edmond O’Brien brings both poignancy and harrowing conviction to his portrayal of Bigelow, a humdrum accountant who, with a healthy dose of film noir irony, discovers a sudden new lease of life when he knows that his days, or rather his hours, are numbered.  (The irony is that before he was poisoned, Bigelow’s existence had been a living death, lacking meaning and direction.)   O’Brien’s bravura performance energises the film and intensifies its frenetic pace in the last thirty minutes or so as the narrative accelerates towards its fantastic denouement.  The only other stand-out performance is provided by Neville Brand, who is spine-chilling as the psychopathic henchman with a nice line in sadistic banter.  Don’t be put off by the bland 1988 remake.  The original D.O.A. is a stylish masterpiece of film noir intrigue, beautifully crafted and as slick and intense as any film which the genre has ever produced.

© James Travers 2010

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