... which is disappointing since this is allegedly a film noir. It starts off with a bang - literally - as small time collection racket hood Bruno Felkin (Richard Conte) shoots and kills Marty Prince. Then he does an odd thing. Bruno calls the police to say that Marty has just been murdered. Why? He is going to run to his girlfriend Connie's (Shelley Winters) place, be there in seven minutes, and thus have an alibi for the murder. The reasoning behind this being that Bruno had a motive to kill Prince so the police will come looking for him pretty much out of the gate. But Connie isn't at home, and her building is the kind you need to be "buzzed" into by a resident. Bruno didn't think this out very well ahead of time, did he?
So now he's on the run and there are roadblocks on every avenue leading out of San Francisco. The police could do these things 70 years ago when there was a murder a month. So Bruno hides out on a fishing boat. When he is discovered by the owner, Hamill Linder (Charles Bickford), Bruno claims to be a salesman who was walking by, got overpoweringly sleepy, fell asleep aboard the vessel, and only woke up once they were at sea.
So now this film transitions into something like Captains Courageous where the bad guy ( not that bad in Courageous!) finds honest hard work and the father figure he never had at sea. But it is not all smooth sailing, because Hamill has his own problems. Primarily his problem is that his son is a hood in the making, and he is not nearly as smooth or smart as he thinks that he is.
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Detective Kelsey is investigating this murder and looking for Bruno, all the while spouting dialogue that sounds like it was written for Detective Frank Drebin of Police Squad, but sounding obnoxious versus having Drebin's clueless adorable presence. Shelley Winters doesn't have lots of screen time as Bruno's cynical girlfriend, but she makes that time count.
There are a couple of goofs/odd things going on. For one, that door buzzer, a key plot point, disappears after Bruno is foiled by the thing as people wander effortlessly into Connie's building and right up to her door. Also, there is a group of perpetually drunk fishermen on the wharf, to what end I have no idea. Fishermen are a hard working lot and don't have time for such loitering.
On the bright side, there are lots of good shots of mid 20th century San Francisco to the point I'm surprised Eddie Muller, film noir aficionado and native of that city, hasn't had this one restored for old times sake. There are also lots of shots of what working on a fishing boat at that time looked like without it turning into a documentary.
I'd mildly recommend this one if only for the performances from Bickford, Conte, and Winters. Just realize going in that it is much too sentimental for a noir.
