I'm always alone

At New York's train station, Dave ( Wendell Corey ) meets his brother Frankie Madison ( Bert Lancaster ), who has just freed up after 14 years in prison. They take a taxi and, at Frankie's request, drive along Broadway . On the way, Frankie notices that the city looks the same, but Dave replies that this is only an outward impression.

Dave places Frankie in a hotel room and shows off expensive costumes, accessories and other things he bought for him. At breakfast, Frankie tells Dave that he intends to see Noll “Dink” Turner ( Kirk Douglas ), his partner, as soon as possible. Frank knows that while he was in prison, Noll opened the chic Regent club, which gathers high society. Dave is scared by this message, especially because Frankie intends to get his share in the club. Frankie is also outraged that for 14 years Noll, who was his closest partner and comrade, had never visited him in prison and did not even write a single letter.

Leaving Frankie to rest, Dave arrives at the club, where he reports to Noll that Frankie was not satisfied with how he was met. Knoll and his assistant Maurice ( George Rigot ) are concerned about the situation, and are going to fight back in the event of attacks from Frankie. Knoll says that for three years he and Frankie worked together, but all thanks to his ideas. And while Frankie was gone, Noll independently built a completely new business, and this is his business, his club, and if Frankie does not agree with this, Noll will defend him.

In the evening, Frankie arrives at the Regent Club. Club porter Dan ( Mike Mazurki ) recognizes and greets him. Going inside, Frankie meets a popular club singer, Kay Lawrence ( Lizabeth Scott ), who improvises on the piano. Frankie escorted Noll into his office, who was in no hurry to meet him, hoping that he would calm down a little. On the way, Noll meets and kisses Kay, then tells Maurice that he is going to relax and calm Frankie.

Frankie begins a conversation with Noll in an aggressive manner, making it clear how each of them spent the last years - one in prison and the other in a posh club. Knoll is trying to make excuses that if he visited him in prison, he would never have managed to create such a rich club, since meeting with the criminal would ruin his reputation. Further, Noll says that he not only preserved and increased their fortune, but also took care of all the guys who worked with them - Dan, Moxie and Harry, as well as Dave. Frankie claims that Dave used to be on a par with him and Knoll, and now he has no share in the club and works as a simple accountant. Knoll replies that he has repeatedly offered him a share, but he refused. At the request of Frankie, they call Dave, who confirms that he himself refused a stake in the club, as he was used to working under someone else's direction. Then Noll swears his allegiance to the past years, and says that he came up with something for Frankie, but at this moment he is distracted by current affairs, and he asks Frankie to briefly go into the hall and look around.

Knoll decides to use Kay, who will be able to listen to Frankie and soften his aggressive mood. In his office, he is courting the singer, showing her plans for expanding the club, and then offering to go together for a weekend break. Then he persuades Kay to have dinner with Frankie, saying that he should be helped to recover after many years of absence.

Meanwhile, at the club, Frankie meets Mrs. Elix Richardson ( Christine Miller ), a socialite who has a close relationship with Noll. The arrogant Elix runs into Frankie's rude answers, and it all ends up giving her a slap in the face. To prevent a scandal, Knoll immediately approaches them. Elix demands to throw Frankie out of the club. Noll manages to separate them, and he makes an appointment with Elix in his office in a few minutes. Noll then leads Frankie into a separate office for dinner with Kay, and he returns to the hall, where he dances and kisses Elix. She invites him to leave tomorrow night and spend some days alone, and also expresses clearly her desire to marry him.

During dinner, Frankie and Kay talk sweetly and are imbued with sympathy for each other. Frankie says that in 1933 he went to prison, where he spent 14 years. Kay is filled with sympathy for Frankie, and they kiss each other. Frankie then tells Kay that he and Noll were partners and carried illegal whiskey across the Canadian border. Once, after they crossed the border in New York State on a truck with whiskey, they were attacked by a gang that wanted to take away their cargo. The chase began with firing on a deserted night highway. They managed to shoot the driver of the car chasing them, after which the persecution stopped. However, expecting they could be captured, Frankie and Noll decided to split up. Knoll jumped out of the car, and Frankie drove on with the load. Before parting, they agreed that all of their income in the future, regardless of what would happen, they would divide in half. Soon, Frankie's truck is stopped by the police, after which she ends up in jail. But, Frankie believes, their agreement is valid - they are partners who divide everything in half.

Franky goes to the bar, where he is waiting for his old friend Nick Palestro ( Mark Lawrence ), whom Frankie specially invited to meet. Nick has established his own used car business and exists on his own. Frankie asks him something to help.

In the director’s office, Kay tells Noll that under their old contract, Frankie counts on half of what belongs to his partner. However, at the moment when Noll says that there will never be such people as Frankie in this club, Frankie opens the door and hears these words. Frankie pounced on Noll and Kay, claiming that they want to trick him. Knoll offers to approach the issue in a businesslike way, and invites Dave with all legal and accounting papers. Among them is a document according to which the partnership between Frankie and Noll concerned only their then-club “Four Kings”. During his stay in prison, Frankie signed a waiver of partnership with Noll on all other projects, when Dave assured him that this paper does not mean anything. Knoll explains that their former club, in which they were partners, was burned out, and he had to create a new business from scratch. According to Dave’s calculations, Frankie owes $ 2,912 per cent, which is half the property of the “Four Kings”. Frankie breaks the check for this amount, and pounces on Noll, saying that he spent two 14 years of his life for them, and is now left with nothing. He hits Noll in the teeth and, slamming the door, leaves. Left alone with Noll, Kay accuses him of using it in the dark in order to extract information from Frankie. Frankie calls Nick on the phone and send 5-6 reliable guys to his hotel.

During Kay's vocal performance, Elix informs her gentleman that she is getting married on Sunday. For an encore, Alexis asks Kay to sing the song "I lost my man." Realizing her request as a mockery, annoyed Kay leaves the stage. In the kitchen, she finds Noll and demands that he give an answer if he is really going to marry Elix. Knoll confirms this, but, according to him, he loves only Kay. He says that he does it only for the sake of business, since such a marriage will ensure the club's prosperity. Kay expresses his indignation at the immoral methods of Noll's work and announces his dismissal from the club. Knoll realizes that Kay has sided with Frankie.

Kay comes to Frankie at the hotel to talk to him. She apologizes for helping Noll, but now she realized that all that really worries him is his club. She reports that since Noll is about to marry Elix, she feels free. Nick comes with three members of the old gang, and it becomes clear that Frankie planned to raid Noll's club with their help. After a brief discussion of the conditions of the attack, Frankie sets them up for an evening meeting at the club. After the bandits left, Kay says that she likes him too much so that she can approve of what he wants to do and does not want to support his plan.

In the evening, at the club during the next performance of Kay, Frankie and the whole gang gather. They go into Noll’s office, which has already been warned about everything and wants to deal with them once and for all. Frankie claims that he wants to get what belongs to him, and if necessary, even ready to kill Noll for this. Then he invites Dave to deal with accounting documents and find out what belongs to whom. He explains to Frankie that Regent is not the Four Kings, it’s a big business dealing with Dan & Brad Street banks, lawyers and ratings. Knoll says: “The world has passed you. In the 1920s you were great, in the 1930s you could still be rebuilt, but today you are finished. ” Threatening his armed people, Frankie demands that Noll immediately give him half of all the property. Under pressure and threats, Noll agrees, but says that technically this is not so simple. At the request of Noll, Dave explains that the Regent club is owned by three companies whose capitals are intertwined. Frankie clarifies whether Noll is the full owner of the club. Dave answers that yes, but he does not have the right to resolve a number of issues without the consent of the boards of directors of the shareholder companies. The charter and organizational structure of the club are such that no one has the right to even know the size of shares owned by Noll in the parent companies without the unanimous consent of the respective boards of directors.

Dave’s message raises Frankie’s rage, he grabs Dave’s breasts and pushes, and then scatters all the working papers in the office. After that, Frankie orders his guys to seize the club by force, but no one obeys his orders. Noll repeats to Frankie that the old days are behind, and he is left with them. It turns out that Nick and his guys are on the side of Noll. Nick explains to Frankie that he and his family have an interest in the club, and therefore he will not conflict with Knoll. In a rage, Frankie begins to tear office documents, then Noll calls Dan bouncer. Frankie accuses Dave of betraying and deceiving him, and is approaching, threatening to kill him, but at that moment Dan pounced on Frankie and pacifies him. While he searches Frankie, Knoll says that the only way Frank can be tempted is to beat him. And he will beat him every time until he understands his place.

Then Dan, with two helpers, pulls Frankie out of the club into the back yard, and there they brutally beat him. Knoll orders Dave to tidy up the papers, but he does not listen to him and leaves the office. Maurice also believes that Noll overdid it, but Noll reminds him to take up his duties. After the beating, Dave comes to his wounded brother, thrown near the garbage containers. Dave picks it up, and soon they have just run out to their last performance at the Kay Club. Dave asks Kay to take Frankie to his hotel room, and he promises to come to him later. Kay decides to take Frankie to her home, where she can give him first aid.

Dave comes to Knoll with the threat of destroying the entire club management system and publicizing information about illegal financial frauds, which are known only to both of them. Despite Knoll’s attempts to blackmail Dave with checks that he once faked, Dave replies that he takes the side of his brother and is ready to do anything to help him. Leaving Noll, Dave tries to reach Frankie's number, but the phone does not answer. When Dave goes outside, one of Dink's henchmen tracks him down and kills him. Meanwhile, at home, Kay, carefully treating his wounds, is trying to regain Frankie's crushed faith in himself. The next morning, Frankie comes out to the table after being healthy and morally stronger.

In the morning, the cops begin an investigation into Dave's murder. At the club, they find out that Frankie threatened to kill him last night. Dan says that Frankie was so brutal that he had to use force, and Knoll confirms that Dave cheated on Frankie. Police put Frankie on the wanted list. After leaving the house on the street, Frankie and Kay see how a police car drives up to their house with a siren. Meanwhile, fresh newspapers went on sale, with a portrait of Frankie on the front page, and the text says that he is wanted by the police for killing his brother. Frankie understands that Dave was killed on Noll's order, as Dave promised to publicize illegal financial fraud. Frankie decides to expose Noll and make him confess everything. To do this, they are going to head to him after the club closes home, taking the car in Nick’s garage.

In the evening, when Frankie and Kay drive up to the door of Noll's house, they suddenly open, and Noll comes out with a gun in his hand, inviting them to go inside. Frankie tells Noll: "If in accounting you are stronger than me, then in how to deal with weapons, I am stronger." He goes on to say that if Noll tries to turn him in to the police, then Frankie will tell him everything about the financial fraud at the club. Kay adds that if Noll kills Frankie, then he will have to kill her too, since she is Frankie's alibi. Sowing a moment of doubt at Noll, Frankie knocks a floor lamp off the table, plunging the room into the darkness, and together with Kay falls to the floor. Knoll starts firing, but takes a few shots past. When Kay distracts Noll's attention on himself, Frankie pounces on him from behind and takes the gun away.

Threatening with weapons, Frankie puts Noll into the car, and they and Kay come to the club. Frankie demands to open the safe, then asks him to count 2912 dollars. Taking the money, he forces Noll to admit that Dave was killed on his behalf. Then, threatening to lock him up in the fridge overnight, Frankie demands that Noll write a written confession. Kay, meanwhile, is calling the police from another room.

When the detective arrives about to arrest Frankie, he gives him the written confession of Noll. Knoll claims that he wrote a confession under the threat of a weapon, but it turns out that in Frankie’s pocket was not a gun, but a ballpoint pen. Noll is being taken away by the police. Asking permission to drink goodbye, Noll walks to the bar, from where he snatches out the gun hidden there. Threatening the cops with weapons, he leaves to crack down on Frankie. In the meantime, Frankie tells Kay that he threw the gun away at Noll’s house, as he vowed never to use the gun again. When Noll sees Frankie and shoots him, two popping cops kill Noll on the spot.

Having testified at the police station, Frankie and Kay go out on New York night to start a new life together.

• Burt Lancaster - Frankie Madison
• Lizabeth Scott - Kay Lawrence
• Wendell Corey - Dave
• Kirk Douglas - Knoll Dink Turner
• Christine Miller - Mrs. Richardson
• George Rigot - Maurice
• Mark Lawrence - Nick Palestro
• Mike Mazurki - Dan, a doorman nightclub

The producer of the film, Hal Wallis , headed the production department of Warner Brothers Studios in 1933–44, after which he became an independent producer associated with Paramount Pictures . As a producer, Wallis twice received the Irving Talberg Award as the best producer twice in 1939 and 1944, and was also three times nominated for an Oscar for the films Tattooed Rose (1955), as well as the historical dramas Becket (1964) and The Thousand the days of Anna ”(1969) ^[2] .

Wallis was the producer of many significant noir and crime films, including Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Runaway Convict (1932), Petrified Forest (1936), Recognition (1937), Labeled Woman ( 1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Roaring Twenties (1939), Letter (1940), High Sierra (1941), Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) , “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers ” (1946) and “ Sorry, Wrong Number ” (1948) ^[3] .

Until 1945, director Byron Haskin was a cameraman and was developing special effects for Warner Brothers , which earned him four Oscar nominations for the films The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Sea Hawk (1940), and Sea Wolf "(1941) and" Desperate Journey "(1942) ^[4] . In 1945, becoming an independent producer, Wallis invited Haskin (with whom he worked on 46 films with Warner Studios in 1935–44) to his company, offering him the post of director. Their first joint film (and Haskin's first film as a director) was "I'm Always Alone" (1948). In this picture, Haskin “demonstrating the visual and staging style that will become the trademark of his best works, such as Too Late for Tears (1949), War of the Worlds (1953), Naked Jungle (1954), Robinson Crusoe on Mars “(1964) and films of the series Beyond the Possible (1963–64)” ^[5] .

The film brought together a great cast, many of the actors at that moment were just beginning their careers, and subsequently became the stars of Hollywood cinema. Among them are Bert Lancaster , Kirk Douglas , Lisabeth Scott , Wendell Corey , as well as supporting actors Mark Lawrence and Mike Mazurki . Many films with their participation were produced by Wallis, and subsequently often these actors played in various combinations together.

At the beginning of his career, Bert Lancaster played in a series of significant films noir , among them “The Killers ” (1946), “ Brute Force ” (1947), “ Fury of the Desert ” (1947, the film was produced by Wallis, and among the actors Scott and Corey ), “ Sorry, the number was wrong ” (1948, with Corey), “ Wipe the blood off my hands with kisses ” (1948) and “ Criss-cross ” (1949) ^[6] . In 1961, Lancaster was awarded an Oscar for best actor in the movie " Elmer Gantry " (1960), in addition, he was nominated three more times for an Oscar for his roles in the films " From Now and Forevermore " (1953), " A Bird Lover from Alcatraz "(1962) and Atlantic City (1980) ^[7] .

Kirk Douglas also began his career in the noir genre, playing in the films Martha Ivers Strange Love (1946) and From the Past (1947), he also played in such memorable paintings of the genre as Champion (1949), Ace up the sleeve "(1951) and" Detective story "(1951) ^[8] . Douglas was thrice nominated for an Oscar for leading roles in the films Champion (1949), Angry and Beautiful (1952) and Thirst for Life (1956) ^[9] .

“I'm Always Alone” - the first of six joint films of Lancaster and Douglas (and even seven, if you count the television movie “ Victory at Entebbe ” in 1976) ^[5] .

Lizabeth Scott was one of the brightest stars in the noir genre; she played in such memorable films as Martha Ivers ’s Strange Love (1946, with Douglas), Calculate After Death (1947), Desert Fury (1947, with Lancaster and Corey), The Trap (1948), Too Late for Tears (1949), The Dark City (1950) and Racket (1951) ^[10] . Wendell Corey played prominent roles in the films Noir Rage of the Desert (1947), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948, with Lancaster), The Accused (1949), Thelma Jordon 's Case (1950), Half-Acre of Hell "(1954) and" The Big Knife "(1955) ^[11] .

Christine Miller played supporting roles in the Noir Fury Noir (1947, with Lancaster, Scott and Corey), “ Sorry, Wrong Number ” (1948, with Lancaster), “ It 's Too Late for Tears ” (1949, with Scott), and “ Shadow on the wall ”(1950) ^[12] . Mark Lawrence played prominent supporting roles in many noirs, the most significant of which are Weapon for hire (1942), Occasion at the Oaks Bow (1943), Reef Largo (1948), Mosaic (1949) and “ Asphalt Jungle ” (1950) ^[13] . Mike Mazurki was remembered for his roles in the films Noir “ This Murder, My Darling ” (1944), “ Avenue of Nightmares ” (1947), “ Night and the City ” (1950) and “The Dark City ” (1950) ^[14] .

As film critic Chris Fujiwara wrote, “the film began its life as a play by Theodore Reeves entitled“ Beggars Come to the City ”. Producer Hal Wallis bought the rights to the adaptation of this play shortly before the performance was released on Broadway in October 1945. The performance failed, but Wallis spent a whole year working on a project that was originally called Dead End, and then got its current name. ” ^[5]

Wallis chose Byron Haskin as the director, who decided to start his directorial career after completing an eight-year contract with Warner Brothers, where he worked in the special effects department ^[5] .

“Wallis decided to use this film as a training ground for talented young actors with whom he has contracted,” including Bert Lancaster and Kirk Douglas ^[5] . Smaller roles were assigned to Wendell Corey (who, like Douglas, who had recently been cast by Wallis from the New York scene), Willis’s new discovery (later blacklisted) by Mickey Knox , and Christine Miller , “whom Wallis it seems he was preparing for star status, which she, however, never reached ” ^[5] .

The creators and actors of the film subsequently actively shared their impressions of working on it.

Byron Haskin recalled that “the story was difficult to develop and set. Charles Schnee, whom Wallis hired to write the script, was not particularly able to help. ” It ended up with Haskin "himself rewriting the script during the filming process" ^[5] .

In particular, he wrote about Haskin Fujivar's directorial work: “Having a brilliant understanding of the technical aspects of cinema, Haskin had to master a lot more about how to work with actors.“ I tried too much with Douglas, ”Haskin admitted,“ I told him that the guy he plays is a real monster, a man without fear. Kirk fell in love with such a concept of the role that he even wrote me a letter wishing I put all his subsequent films. "Fujiwara notes that" Douglas accepted the Haskin concept sl SHKOM literally, and behaved on set a little too coolly. Even when Frankie (played by Lancaster ) threatens to hang it on the hook for meat, he blithely walks around the room, but had to stop Frankie from using weapons. "According to Fujiwara," Heskin He coped well with Lancaster, but thought that he was "so full of energy that it was difficult to tame him. Both Douglas and Lancaster were unstoppable. If I turned my back on them for a minute, they would start to go overboard on the set. A complete overabundance and excessiveness "" ^[5] .

“Kirk Douglas, in his 1988 autobiography,“ The Junk's Son, ”wrote that while working on the film, he and Lancaster“ talked to each other just like we do now: we argued, we fought, we talked, we put up. Somehow everything worked out. ”Lancaster, who seemed to be more ironic about their relationship, said:“ Kirk must be the first to admit that he is a complex person, then I agree to be second ” ^[5] .

Christine Miller in one of the interviews said that Wallis planned to remove her in the main role and even did her tests with Lancaster, and this “was a wonderful test. But then Lizabeth Scott decided that she wanted this role, and Lizabeth got everything she wanted from Hal Wallis! So I got a supporting role! ”Douglas later recalled that Scott’s relationship with Wallis created well-known problems at work:“ Very often she sat in his office for a long time, came out with teary eyes, and after that it was difficult to work with her for of the day ” ^[5] .