The Long Wait (1954)

The Long Wait is a 1954 Mickey Spillane adaptation but it’s not a Mike Hammer film. Between 1947 and 1952 Spillane wrote half a dozen Mike Hammer books which sold in immense quantities. Spillane went on to be one of the biggest selling novelists in history.

And in 1951 he wrote the noir novel The Long Wait. I haven’t read the novel but apparently several structural changes were needed to make it work as a movie.

The movie opens with a guy getting smashed up when a car plummets down a hillside and bursts into flames. We will later find out that the guy, played by Anthony Quinn, is Johnny McBride. McBride ends up with severe burns to his hands and total amnesia.

He tries to make a new life for himself but he can’t settle down. He’s quick-tempered and brooding. Then he comes across a clue that suggests that he hails from a town named Lyncastle. He heads for Lyncastle in hopes of rediscovering his identity and his past.

This turns out to be a big mistake. Johnny didn’t know he was wanted for murder. He also didn’t know that a big-time racketeer named Servo wanted him dead.

He knows he has to find Vera. He doesn’t remember her but he does know that she was his girl in his old life.

He soon finds himself with way too many blondes in his life (of course some would say you can’t have too many dangerous blondes in your life). Any one of these blondes could be Vera. He doesn’t remember what Vera looked like.

All the blondes seem to like Johnny a lot. Blondes just seem to find him very attractive. Dames in general seem to find him very attractive. Of course Johnny is played by Anthony Quinn, an actor with plenty of charisma and animal magnetism, so we don’t find this too difficult to believe.

Johnny finds out a few things about that murder. He doesn’t know for sure whether he committed the murder or not but he’s starting to have a sneaking suspicion he may have been framed. Lyncastle isn’t quite the idyllic place it seems to be on the surface. Racketeer Servo owns almost the whole town. There’s endemic corruption.

People start shooting at Johnny, which naturally leads him to believe he’s on to something.

The plot is very contrived indeed. I don’t mind that too much. To me film noir is a bit like melodrama. It doesn’t deal with reality, but with a kind of heightened or exaggerated reality. In the world of film noir once fate decides to destroy a man there’s no escape and if some coincidences are needed to bring that about they can be accepted. The plot is contrived but it does come together at the end.

There’s enough in this movie to qualify it as a true film noir. An ambiguous protagonist caught in a web. A whole raft of femmes fatales. An atmosphere of existentialist angst. Corruption. And lots of sexual tension.

And visual style. There are some absolutely superb visual moments in this film, especially in the latter stages. There are some wonderful combinations of inventive staging and noirish lighting (by cinematographer Franz Planer). There are also nicely staged action sequences. The late scene in the abandoned power station is one of the best visual set-pieces in all of film noir. It really is magnificent.

Anthony Quinn has the necessary star quality and the right tough guy vibe. Peggie Castle is truly excellent as Venus, the most glamorous of the blondes. There’s an excellent supporting cast.

Victor Saville does a very very fine job as director. This is a supremely well-crafted movie.

For my money The Long Wait is the best film adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel. Gripping, tightly plotted with some decent suspense, terrific atmosphere and lots of noirness. Very highly recommended.

The Classic Flix Blu-Ray release looks lovely. You get the movie on 4K as well - I have no interest in 4K so I’ll be using the 4K disc as a drinks coaster. But the Blu-Ray does look great. There’s an excellent audio commentary by Max Allan Collins.