The Street With No Name (1948)

WILLIAM KEIGHLEY, OPUS 35

***1/2 1948. Directed by William Keighley. In Center City, Richard Widmark's gang has killed innocent people during its two last hold-ups. FBI agent Gene Cordell is asked by Insp. George A. Briggs to join, undercover, the gang. Half documentary, half thriller, THE STREET WITH NO NAME is a good example of the 20th century Fox style of the period. Richard Widmark easily outshines the pale Mark Stevens in this film whose main scenes are a boxing scene and the final shootout in a deserted manufacture. Recommended. November 9, 2008

street with no name

richard widmark at his BAD BOY SELF. THE INHALER AND EATING APPLE INTIMATING CHARACTER FROM KISS OF DEATH. May 9, 2008

This hymn to the FBI has its moments, thanks to Richard Widmark and some grubby Los Angeles locations

The only Washington bureaucrat I've ever heard of who could strike fear into the hearts of gangsters, suspected Commies and U.S. presidents alike was J. Edgar Hoover. Even when he wasn't wearing a house-dress while cleaning his home, he must have been a fearsome presence. The Street With No Name is, like The House on 92nd Street filmed three years earlier, a semi-documentary hymn to the house that Hoover built, reverently produced by Darryl Zanuck and complete with the equivalent of organ music (a stirringly patriotic dum-de-dum film score) and a heavenly chorus (one of those stentorian voice-overs that Reed Hadley used to do so well). However, unlike The House on 92nd Street, which now seems dated and cringingly naive, The Street With No Name contains elements that hold up fairly well...but you have to get past all that FBI worship, which is difficult to do.

Alec Stiles runs a smart, murderous gang which has moved from numbers to gambling to heists, and along the way has started to kill those who get in its way. Gene Cordell is an FBI agent who is ordered to go undercover, work his way into the gang, earn Stiles' confidence, and then blow the whistle. Stiles is no dummy but Cordell, posing as a tough drifter named George Manley, pulls it off. Life gets dangerous for Cordell when an informer in the police department tips off Stiles. Stiles has to call off a major robbery at the last minute, and then sets out to identify the rat. He doesn't know it's Manley, but he knows it has to be someone in his gang. It all comes together in a tough, murderous shoot-out. Sound a little like House of Bamboo? It should. House of Bamboo, located in Tokyo and with Robert Stack in the Cordell role and Robert Ryan in Stiles' shoes, was based on The Street With No Name.

What's good about The Street With No Name? Mainly, the look of the film. Most of it was shot in grubby Los Angles locations, often at night, with damp streets and harsh lighting. The crummy, second-floor hotels, the sweaty boxing center (you can pay 25-cents and watch two losers pound each other for three rounds), the deserted factory, the night-time ferry building...all look awful, which means they look great. Alec Stiles' wife, played by Barbara Lawrence, is a fine noir dame, full of whiny, petulant sexiness. Two members of Stiles' gang also make an impression, Donald Buka as Shivvy, Stiles' right-hand man who never seems happy and prefers a knife, and Joseph Pevney as Matty, always grinning, who loves blondes and would turn in his own mother. Richard Widmark as Stiles gives the movie its energy. This was Widmark's second movie, a year after creating a vivid Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death. There's a good deal of Udo's menace in Stiles, but Widmark makes him a lot smarter. We'd be negligent if we didn't also give credit to Alec Stiles' nasal inhaler. Stiles has a thing about fresh air and germs; he uses his nasal inhaler the way some children use their fingers.

But then there are the not-so-good things. The movie is constantly interrupted with scenes that show how steadfast and resourceful the FBI is, especially with all their new-fangled technical resources in Washington. Every time we stop to see these FBI resources in action (ordered by Lloyd Nolan, reprising his role as George Briggs from The House on 92nd Street), the movie stops, too. The voice-over and the grandiose FBI music have the same effect. Another major defect is Mark Stevens as Gene Cordell/George Manley. Stevens was a good-looking B-level leading man, but a limited actor without much screen presence. This is, in my view, the same fatal flaw in House of Bamboo when Robert Stack was cast as the good-guy tough guy. Neither actor is believable. They drain tension. Fortunately, Widmark and Ryan by the power of their performances still make the two movies interesting.

I can't think of too many actors who were able to parley creepiness into major leading-man stardom. Widmark, with his skull-like face and easy giggle, is not a guy I would have bet on to be a serious leading man for the next 25 years. It shows, I suppose, that even in Hollywood talent sometimes counts for a lot.

The black-and-white DVD transfer looks just fine. There is a commentary I didn't listen to by James Ursini and Alain Silver, identified as film historians. If you're a noir buff you might want this one, but I'd suggest renting it first.
House of Bamboo (Fox Film Noir)
The House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir)
Kiss of Death (Fox Film Noir) August 18, 2007

Undercover movie may make you hide under the covers

From the moment undercover agent Gene Cordell, alias George Manly (Mark Stevens), drops into the lair of ruthless mob leader Alec Stiles (Richard Widmark), you wonder if he will ever get out alive. Manly's mission is to, while becoming a target for same, infiltrate the gang and discover how suspects are framed, arrested, released and murdered. Widmark plays no clay-pigeon role. He is sharp and hot on the heels of an inside informant and knows what to do when he finds him.

Based purely on reviews of others, THE STREET WITH NO NAME was on my wish list for months. It fulfills a viewer's desire for a suspenseful cops-and-robbers movie in a DRAGNET style narrative. The crime lab investigation techniques have not dated well but I generously offer a 4-star rating (rounded up from 3.5). Just don't compare the technology with modern forensics. If you like mobster movies, sink down in your favorite chair, wait for the fireworks, and wish Manly the best.

Movie quote: "Fresh air nut! You open that window again and I'll throw you out of it." February 25, 2007

Street with no name

Favorable, good movie, like I remembered it. Service prompt, dvd as advertised. February 22, 2007

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