I remember seeing DOA for the first time as a kid. It was on the Late, Late Show, a perfect venue for what may be the best of the post-war noirs. As the movie tension mounted, it almost knocked my socks off. After all, how many films in those days ended with a "dead hero" charging around San Francisco, even if he wasn't a cable channel zombie.
Anyhow, don't let those sappy early scenes fool you. They're necessary to set up the contrasting downspiral that ensues. As it happens, Frank Bigelow (O'Brien) may be bored with his accounting job in a quiet little town, along with the prospects of marrying a conventional girl, Paula (Britton), and living out a routine existence there. So, at the first chance there he goes, off to enjoy adventures in the big city, even if only brief ones. And get a load of the available women swarming around his San Francisco hotel. Now that adventure beckons, it's no longer thoughts of Banning or Paula. (But what was musical arranger Tiomkin thinking with those utterly cartoonish wolf whistles, perhaps the movie's only flaw).
So, along with the goodtime gang he's hooked up with, it's off to wild nightspots for the suddenly footloose Bigelow. The trouble is Frank has taken a big step away from the ordered simplicity of his small town and into the unfamiliar world of chaotic city life. And worse, the frenzied chaos of The Fisherman, its strung-out patrons and aggressive atmosphere, clouds the fact that his life will never be the same. In fact, the jazz scene with it's blaring, chaotic close-ups amounts to a superb one-of-a-kind metaphor for the bizarre world the small town accountant has now entered. Just as importantly, it makes anything that happens thereafter seem weirdly possible. As a result, when Frank swallows what turns out to be a deadly neon toxin, it seems perfectly in keeping with this landscape of disorder.
I may be biased, but O'Brien really deserved at least an Oscar nomination for his energetic and nuanced performance, as though Hollywood ever rewarded low-budget B-movies. In fact, I'm ready to enter him in the Olympics, for that 500-yard mad dash down Market Street. What a great natural reaction to the news that he's already a dead man. And filming the sequence with, I suspect, a hidden camera adds a kind of realism to the convoluted remainder of the whodunit.
Another high point is the sequence with the psychotic Chester (Brand). What a great piece of casting. Brand has such distinctive features, which he twists to full effect on the tormented Bigelow. But little does he know that Frank has acquired a peculiar kind of power. After all, what does he need to be afraid of since he's already dead. That scene in the drug store where Chester overplays his hand is another piece of fine filming and staging. I wouldn't be surprised that many in the audience have speculated with what they would do with Frank's kind of power, heavily purchased though it is.
What's so amazing about the movie is how adeptly the theme builds right down to the inevitable climax. We begin with a glimpse of a well-ordered world, but one that quickly descends into the depths of chaos and disorder, as Bigelow travels a nightmare road in pursuit of the where and why of his killer. I take the moral to be a conservative one, something like appreciating the routine and conventional, since it's never certain when an uncaring fate might intervene. After all, Frank really only comes to appreciate Paula and his small town once he's experienced its opposite. It's something that could happen to any of us, since even the most routine act may have unforeseen consequences. That's what's so unsettling about the movie.
Anyway, it's hats off to everyone involved in the making of this memorable noir. It's one of those submerged classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) that surfaced only after a period on late night TV. Frankly, I still sometimes slip it out late at night, and pull up my socks real tight. To me, it's got that kind of staying power.
(In passing—living in LA, I occasionally pass the Bradbury Building and think of the movie. It looks pretty much the same as it did then, but has since acquired a kind of cachet among movie makers. I like to think it's because of the sweaty, underrated Eddie O'Brien and the unforgettable Frank Bigelow.)
