Lying to appear honest: Murder My Sweet, Johnny O'Clock, Cry Danger (Dick Powell and Film Noir)

Intense Emotions and Emotional reactivity promote more happiness. Researchers R. J. Klein and colleagues, in a paper in the June 2023 issue of Emotion, reached a surprising conclusion: More intense emotional responses, even negative emotions, are linked to happiness and better mental health. Happy people, compared to those with a mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression), are better able to adapt because they experience emotional reactions that are appropriate for the stimulus—avoidance when facing unpleasant or threatening stimuli, and approach when facing pleasurable stimuli. Specifically, the goal was to investigate “behavioral phenomena that could link higher levels of emotional flexibility to higher levels of well-being.” The researchers’ predictions were “rooted in the idea that emotional reactions exist because they motivate solutions to problems from our evolutionary past.” Another study conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of California Los Angeles was published recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Lying to appear honest. Believe it or not, people lie in order to maintain a good, honest reputation -- even if it hurts them to do so, or means they lose money. "Many people care greatly about their reputation and how they will be judged by others, and a concern about appearing honest may outweigh our desire to actually be honest," explains Shoham Choshen-Hillel, senior lecturer at the School of Business Administration and Center for the Study of Rationality. "Our findings suggest that when people obtain extremely favorable outcomes, they anticipate other people's suspicious reactions and prefer lying and appearing honest over telling the truth and appearing as privileged." Source: www.apa.org

As played by Dick Powell, and drawn by Robert Rossen in a screenplay based on a story by co-producer Milton Holmes, the titular character keeps abreast of the criminal nonsense going on around him. Be it dealing with a surly cigar-smoking homicide inspector (Lee J Cobb), standing his ground and refusing to take lip from a crooked cop (Jim Bannon), condescending to his casino’s senior partner (Thomas Gomez), meting out justice to a disloyal personal assistant (John Kellogg), rejecting the advances of a former lover (Ellen Drew) or surviving an assassination attempt – no task is too daunting for this noirish anti-hero. Johnny O’Clock’s unwavering nerve, which has not gone unnoticed in some critical circles, with US filmmaker and cinema historian Jim Hemphill – on the audio commentary included with Powerhouse Films’ Blu-ray issue of the movie – conceding this crime opus does indeed diverge from  classic noir archetypes.

Variety magazine gave the film kudos in 1947: "This is a smart whodunit, with attention to scripting, casting and camerawork lifting it above the average.The film has suspense, and certain quick touches of humor to add flavor. Ace performances by Dick Powell, as a gambling house overseer, and Evelyn Keyes as the conflicted blonde also up the rating. Dialog is terse and topical, avoiding the sentimental, phoney touch. Unusual camera angles come along now and then to heighten interest and arrest the eye. Strong teamplay by Robert Rossen, doubling as director-scripter, and Milton Holmes, original writer and associate producer, also aids in making this a smooth production." 

Richard Brody from The New Yorker noted: "This terse and taut film noir is centered on the romantic and professional conflicts of the title character, the criminal mastermind (played by Dick Powell) behind a posh illegal casino. The film’s writer and director, Robert Rossen, sets up a multidimensional chess game, for mortal stakes, between Johnny, his boss (Thomas Gomez), his boss’s wife (Ellen Drew), a cagey police inspector (Lee J. Cobb), and a scuffling actress (Evelyn Keyes) whose sister (Nina Foch) worked at the casino and dated a corrupt detective. The caustically epigrammatic script, the cast’s suavely controlled gestures of love and menace, and Rossen’s thrillingly restrained and stylishly assertive images (as well as his political conscience) make this pugnacious yet intricate spectacle a hidden classic of the genre." 

“Dick Powell doesn’t play Johnny with a lot of insecurities – he’s pretty confident, and that goes a little against the grain of film noir as it’s typically understood,” he notes. Additionally, Jim Hemphill highlights the fact the late US screenwriter/producer Carl Macek didn’t see the Rossen movie as being strictly noir when he wrote: “The film is emotionally detached, and the character played by Dick Powell was not obviously vulnerable. It is through a sense of the protagonist’s weaknesses that most films of this nature approach the noir classification. But Johnny O’Clock is not privy to this important attitude, although the motivations of several characters are not clearly defined. This becomes apparent early in the movie when O’Clock catches the cheating roulette dealer Fleming (Matty Fain) but, for practical reasons, lets him keep his job. 

He also acts as a confidant to hat check girl Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch), who is romantically tangled up with the corrupt policeman Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon) – a relationship which essentially sets the whole thing in motion. There’s the moment when it is revealed the traitorous Charlie, thinking he has helped orchestrate the assassination of Johnny O’Clock, and employs a Lugar as his weapon of choice. Being a German side arm, one can arguably reach the conclusion his treachery is akin to that of the Nazis during the Second World War, suggesting – for American civilised society at least – the enemy is not the home grown underworld, but in fact remains fascist Europe.” —"Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style" (1999) by Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward

Edgar Chaput (contributor to the British Film Institute): Johnny O’Clock benefits from fine low-key B&W cinematography by Burnett Guffey, a true noir stylist. Although Guffey would later excel in the more realistic lighting of the 1950s, he and director Rossen manage a moody tone even inside the bright cafes and swank sitting rooms. Evelyn Keyes never looked lovelier and Ellen Drew is irresistibly seductive. Nina Foch’s role is much smaller, yet she still makes a sympathetic impression. Suave and unflappable, Dick Powell’s Johnny does daily business with the city’s crooks. He knows better than to be totally honest with anyone. Catching one of his croupiers stealing money, Johnny keeps him on with the reasoning that the next man hired might be smarter with his thievery. Johnny’s personal assistant Charlie (John Kellogg) is an ex-con who otherwise wouldn’t have a job.

Johnny makes a strong contrast with his partner Marchettis, an unschooled brute frustrated that he can’t hold on to Nelle, his trophy wife. Given his poor standing with the police, Johnny is surprised that the intelligent and caring Nancy should choose to stick with him. Women have been trouble for O’Clock’s in the past, but now Nancy might help him find a future. The faults hinge on an unresolved ending, and the story lacks content to explore certain aspects that help build the characters' background, forgoing other equally important elements that would make the final product a more unified whole. At first, John and Nancy seem to cross paths for the wrong reasons, and, true to film noir tropes, the temptation to try to remain together only seems to worsen their lot, but the chemistry between the two has that the viewer will want to see them spend more time with one another. 

Their heads say one thing, their hearts another, the end game of which can easily alter their lives forever. It is a case where the blame lays squarely at the feet of the writer-director. For a filmmaker who would be nominated for Best Director by the Academy only 2 years later, Rossen’s effort in Johnny O’Clock is short on morality or sentimentality of sorts. There’s a dependence on convoluted plotting which seems more than a little arbitrary, which prevents the characters from taking on much autonomous dramatic life. On the other hand, the actors should be spared any of the blame. Co-stars Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes are superb separately and together onscreen, which is thankfully most of the time once the latter enters into the fray. Dick Powell, no stranger to playing cool cats who can use words like whips, is exceptional. It may even be among his best performances despite the occasionally lackluster script. Source: friday-film-noir/johnny-oclock

Considered by many critics to be the definitive detective film noir, director Edward Dmytryk’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel Murder, My Sweet stars Dick Powell as tough hard-cracking private eye Philip Marlowe. ‘I felt Powell was quite nervous at the start of photography,’ said director Edward Dmytryk, who came up with some notions on how the star’s self-confidence could be boosted. ‘One was to involve him in the technical aspects of the film, some of which were unique. I would ask him to look through the camera while it captured the motions.’ Dick Powell observed a few of these test run-throughs, which would later serve Powell when he became a director himself. 

Dmytryk rated Powell as ‘the best of all the Philip Marlowes,’ and although not impartial he made a good case for his star – who would later be followed by Humphrey Bogart’s work on The Big Sleep. ‘Spade was tough,’ noted Dmytryk, ‘and that’s what was wrong with Bogey doing Marlowe. He made him Spade.’ Dmytryk saw Marlowe as ‘kind of an Eagle Scout in the wrong business. I think Eagle Scouts are good, and that’s exactly what I patterned him on.’ Aware of his lack of social grace, ‘Marlowe tries to make up for it by getting all the goddamned merit badges he can possibly get and getting all the things off his chest to prove he’s a superior man.’ Dmytryk also saw Marlowe as ‘a very American character,’ duty-bound to continue with the case because he has accepted money and given his word. ‘Even though it’s a couple of hundred bucks and no more than that. It’s not ten thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars, but it's his job.’ 

Philip Marlowe: I don’t know which side anybody’s on. Helen Grayle: It’s a long story and not pretty. Philip Marlowe: I got lots of time and I’m not squeamish. Time magazine considered Murder, My Sweet: ‘as good a piece of mystery thriller as the famous Double Indemnity,’ in a review on 14 December 1944. ‘In some ways it is more likeable, for although it is far less tidy, it is more rigorous and more resourcefully photographed. In addition, Dick Powell is a surprise as the hard-boiled copper. His portrayal of Philip Marlowe is potent and convincing.’ No wonder Powell claimed Marlowe as his favorite role. —"Film Noir: A Critical Guide To 1940s & 1950s Hollywood Noir" (2016) by Eddie Robson 

"I confess that Dick Powell has become one of my favorite film noir actors. His performance in Cry Danger (1951) is no less impressive than his turn as Philip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet. Powell had the audacity to pivot from light-weight song-and-dance man to tough but likable film noir protagonist, and he nails it in this noir thriller. Rocky Malloy (Dick Powell), an ex-con who was sentenced to life for a crime he didn’t commit, is released from prison after a one-legged retired Marine named Delong (Richard Erdman) provides him an alibi. A fake alibi, prompted by sheer greed, as Delong hopes Rocky will share the spoils of the robbery he allegedly committed—$100,000 of spoils. Since Rocky really is innocent, he has no spoils to share after his five-year stint in prison. Furthermore, Rocky hopes to find out who framed him. Along with the location shooting and great casting, the film is notable for its snappy dialogue." —"I Found it at the Movies: Film Noir Reviews" (2015) by Debbi Mack