Undertow (1949)

Undertow (1949) is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII and it’s a real surprise - it’s just about the only movie in any of these sets that is actually slightly film noirish. Don’t get me wrong. These sets include lots of fine movies that are very much worth seeing but most have no connections whatsoever to actual film noir.

Undertow is an early directorial effort by William Castle, later to become legendary for his imaginative promotional gimmicks for his low-budget horror films.

Tony Reagan (Scott Brady) has just been demobilised from the army. He seems like a pretty nice guy. At a casino in Reno he meets a rather sweet young lady schoolteacher, Ann McKnight (Peggy Dow). Ann seems like the sort of girl who’s waiting for Mr Right to come along, and she seems to think that Tony might qualify. Tony however is not interested - he’s heading to Chicago to marry his sweetheart Sally Lee (Dorothy Hart).

There’s nothing more than harmless flirtation between Tony and Ann.

We now learn that seven years earlier Tony had left Chicago under a cloud. He had been involved in organised crime and had run foul of Big Jim Lee. This could be a problem now - Big Jim is Sally Lee’s uncle.

Tony finds himself framed for murder and he has a minor gunshot wound. He needs to hide out for a while but the cops have all his old friends under surveillance. Then he remembers the cute lady schoolteacher. She lives in Chicago. She is keen to help. She just knows that Tony could never have murdered anybody. He’s not her man but she’ll stand by him anyway.

The biggest problem with this movie is that we don’t really feel that the odds are stacked against Tony. He’s in a jam but he has people on his side and we figure he’ll be OK. The movie also reveals a bit too much information too early.

Tony does qualify to some extent as a noir protagonist. There’s some moral ambiguity to him. He’s been a bad boy in the past but he’s tried to keep out of trouble since. He’s a basically decent guy in danger of being drawn into the noir nightmare world.

There is also a femme fatale of a sort, but not enough is done with the character.

For me film noir should take place in a rather hostile world - an unforgiving world in which a guy makes one mistake or gets one bad break and he’s doomed. The world of Undertow is a bit too ordered and fair. It doesn’t feel particularly like the world of film noir.

The bad guys are all that sinister. The femme fatale does some femme fatale stuff but she’s not all that seductive and she doesn’t have the full-blown evil spider woman vibe.

There’s also not much in the way of genuine noir visual style (although there is some).

Watching it today this movie seems like it has the ingredients for a film noir but they’re not sufficiently exploited. But of course nobody in 1949 was consciously trying to make film noir. Castle was just trying to make a crime thriller.

Judged in that light he does a very competent job.

The acting is solid but none of the main players has real star presence or charisma.

A few more nasty plot twists would have been nice but there’s nothing particularly wrong with Undertow. It’s only marginally film noir and it’s no masterpiece but it’s an enjoyable enough B-movie and it’s worth a look.

Kino Lorber have provided a very pleasing transfer.