Whistle Stop (1946)

Whistle Stop is a 1946 film noir starring George Raft and Ava Gardner.

Mary (Ava Gardner) arrives back in her home town. Ashbury is a small town with the railway station being its only valid reason for existence. Throughout the movie we hear train whistles in the background. Trains play a vital part in the story. This is not a train thriller in the sense of taking place on a train but the railroad is always a presence.

Mary had gone to Chicago in search of glamour, excitement and money. She found those things and she found disillusionment.

She has returned to see Kenny (George Raft). Kenny is a rudderless loser but she has always loved him. Kenny has never been motivated to find a job although he can always summon up the motivation to find a card game or a beer joint. Maybe he wouldn’t have turned out to be such a loser if Mary had stayed. Or maybe he would have. Maybe Mary just couldn’t see a future with him.

There’s a complication, in the person of Lew Lentz (Tom Conway). Lew is a rich businessman. He’s not a mobster but we get the impression that his business methods are ruthless and may be at times just a tad ethically slippery. Lew has always wanted Mary. Given that Kenny and Lew both love Mary it’s hardly surprising that the two men are at daggers drawn.

Another complication is Gitlo (Victor McLaglen). He’s Kenny’s buddy but he works for Lew. Lew knows something about Gitlo which gives him a hold over the man. Gitlo hates and resents Lew, but he grovels to him.

Kenny is convinced that Mary would choose him over Lew if only he had lots of money. Lew has lots of money. He carries large amounts of money on the train to Detroit. It would not be difficult to rob him. Kenny is a loser but he’s not a criminal. But he is tempted. He wants Mary so badly.

So we have a classic film noir setup, with Kenny as the potentially easily manipulated schmuck, the typical noir protagonist. And with Mary as the classic femme fatale.

And that’s why so many people misunderstand this movie and are unable to appreciate it. They want to view it through a noir lens. They forget that nobody in Hollywood in 1946 had the remotest idea what film noir was so they were not conscious of the need to follow the conventions of a genre that did not exist. The makers of this movie were making a movie that combines crime thriller and melodrama elements. The fact that it happens to contain so many of what are now seen as essential noir ingredients does not imply that is is is film noir. It can be seen as conforming to some of the modern expectations of noir, but not all of them. It also conforms to some of the conventions of melodrama.

Director Léonide Moguy and screenwriter Philip Yordan knew what they were doing, but what they were trying to do was not necessarily what modern critics would have liked them to do.

Every online review I’ve read complains that Mary’s motivations for leaving Chicago remain unexplained. I can only assume that these reviewers are used to modern Hollywood spoon-feeding them. They need everything explained in detail, with diagrams. Her reasons are obvious, and are made obvious. She had been a kept woman, and she grew tired of feeling like a whore.

The same reviewers complain that Lew’s motivations for hating Kenny are unclear. They are perfectly clear. He wants Mary. He knows that Mary feels an incredibly strong sexual attraction to Kenny. Lew might be able to buy Mary but she will never want him with that aching desperate sexual need she feels for Kenny. That’s a blindingly obvious motivation.

I’m a huge George Raft fan and he is excellent here. It’s a typical effective low-key George Raft performance. There’s some self-pity in Kenny, some bitterness and plenty of jealousy. But he has settled into a loser pattern of life.

Tom Conway as Lew is fine. He makes Lew sinister but without making him a straightforward villain. Victor McLaglen is quite effective in getting across Gitlo’s simmering resentment, the resentment of a coward.

Ava Gardner gives the standout performance. Mary is a complex woman. She seems to be a femme fatale but we can’t be sure.

Raft and Gardner have no trouble convincing us that for all their doubts and hesitations and conflicts Kenny and Mary just can’t stop wanting each other.

You can see early on where the story is going, but that isn’t where it’s really going. You can see early on what the character arcs are going to be for all the players in this dramas, but the script has some surprises for us.

I liked Whistle Stop a lot. Just try to approach it without getting too locked-in to genre expectations. Highly recommended.