A WW2 vet (John Payne) returns to Los Angeles from a rehab hospital in San Francisco to try to recoup his past after losing his memory during the war as a result of shrapnel that is too embedded in his brain to remove. This being a film noir, his past turns out to have been mostly spent on the other side of the law but is now atoned for in the audiences' eyes as he fought bravely enough in the war to have been awarded a Silver Star. However to the authorities in LA, it's a different story. A couple of LA detectives recognize him as someone they knew from before the war as he is departing the train station as he arrives back in LA and whisk him away to headquarters where no one believes his amnesia story or his medals, giving him his first hints as to who he is and was. He goes from being ex-soldier Eddie Rice to the underworld Eddie Riccardi, and the film explores which of these two possibilities he will end up as. The Riccardi character was involved before he went away to war with crime boss Vince Alexander who is played by Sonny Tufts. Payne is decidedly better than decent but Tufts seems downright impressive, especially at the beginning when he's having someone beaten up and then killed by two of his goons. The relationship between Payne's and Tuft's characters gets revealed as well as that of the relationship with night club singer Nina Martin (Ellen Drew). Directed by Robert Florey (Danger Signal), the pace is excellent, and the photography by John Alton captures some memorable scenes of near total darkness with nothing but the characters' outlines to be made out.
Review of The Crooked Way
