After watching this cinematic abomination, I felt embarrassed for anyone remotely associated with it, down to the Script Girl, Scene Dresser and the Caterer. One of the worst examples of noir as it's a watered-down version of the Genuine Article that makes clumsy, gratuitous use of early Cold War paranoia in a most cartoonish manner.
Because of its weak script and maladroit direction, the performances of several usually competent actors (Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Jack Elam, Cloris Leachman) are either sub par or wasted. Meeker tries to make a go of the Mike Hammer character, but he's too pudgy and soft-looking to be convincing in the role of red-blooded, iron-fisted tough guy. Since the script is so lame, ill-focused and full of extraneous padding, the motivations and actions of his character seem vacant or tentative. His brooding doesn't convey a sense of inner struggle, rather, he comes off as blank-looking and a tad dim. Also, as Hammer has his gun license suspended in the early going of the film, the character without the gat is like Jason Giambi off steroids.
The film does not have enough plot or character development to justify its 100+ minute running time: as perhaps 20 minutes of the picture should have been left on the cutting room floor, the pacing of the movie is sluggish and its narrative management is meandering. There are dozens of very long takes in the film where not much is happening narratively: it seems that the characters are just Doing Things and Killing Time, merely fulfilling the duration requirements of a feature film.
Too many of the film's undercurrents and plot twists are left unexplained. Perhaps this was meant to enhance the intrigue of the piece, maybe this was a tip of the hat to design features of the noir genre, i.e., evanescent and nebulous plot lines, contradictory narrative elements, etc., that add to the mystery of the story and suggest the nature of human reality (that matters don't always tie up at the end into a neat bundle). But I think not: this is just a case of a sloppy, wheezy and ill-managed script not delivering on the responsibility of bringing the audience sufficiently into the loop.
What I found particularly annoying was the insistence on including in the cast ethnic types with bogus foreign accents, jabbering away in an over-the-top fashion. This happens in three instances. Equally annoying was Meeker's/Hammer's habit of drinking out of other people's glasses, taking cigarettes out of other people's pockets, etc.
The handling of the "whatsit" (some sort of vague nuclear material) was pretty hokey, too. Naive and magical treatment of the film's central narrative motivation that was laughable in its implausibility. It was never explained how the Cloris Leachman character got tied up with this atomic intrigue, nor was the justification of crime figures' interest in the black market material. We can make assumptions on the second issue, but the first truly exercises the audience's suspension of disbelief.
Extremely lame ending, too. Hammer, with a slug in him, and Velda waltzing about in the surf while maverick nuclear material merely burns down the beach house. Right. No thought of the ensuing contamination, obviously, by the writers, director and producer of this piece of crap. Also what was truly rich in this regard was the scene at the health club when Hammer opens the box for the first time and is left with a burn on his wrist. No radiation sickness ensues. Right. And just what is that magic box made of that it can contain such virulent material? And the film just kinda ends, somewhat arbitrarily, immediately after the big Hollywood special effects finish. No narrative rundown, no suggestion of what would likely to come next. The incomplete feel to the ending makes one think that maybe they just ran out of film stock at that point.
Also, the women in this flick, excepting Ms. Leachman, are pretty beat up looking. If you're going to have starlets in eye candy, window dressing roles, at least get some babes who look like something. That sweaty actress who played Velda was built like Marcel Marceau and looked like she needed a good bath.
The only positive attributes of this film were technical issues and style points. Some of the scenes were very well composed and shot, there was some good camera movement and the lighting was indeed top notch. The art direction did capture that cheezy mid-1950s feel and the flick was indeed atmospheric, but these are ancillary concerns in relation to the primary purpose of film-making, i.e., storytelling. Loved that 1955 (1954?) Corvette Hammer drove, though...
I saw this film last evening at a theater in downtown Manhattan: most of the audience was laughing out loud at how dreadful this picture is, and there was a palpable sense of relief in the auditorium when it ended.
But all these negatives aren't particularly surprising when you consider who directed this fiasco. Robert Aldrich made a career of writing, directing and producing really lame, stupid, unbelievable and unconvincing films, and this tepid attempt is typical of his third rate oeuvre.
