Guilty witness

Former New York Police Detective Max Sørzdej ( Zachary Scott ) was forced to quit his job two years ago after newspapers wrote about how he shot a suspect in a drunken state. Max began to drink even more, and soon for this reason his marriage with Georgia ( Fay Emerson ) broke up. In the end, Max got a detective in a cheap port hotel, which belongs to his familiar, elderly and untidy Smithy ( Mary Boland ) with connections in the criminal world. One evening, Georgia arrives at the hotel, where he awakens the dead drunk Max, informing him that their young son Jeff has disappeared. She says that yesterday, her brother Fred Mays, who has been living with her for about a year, went somewhere on behalf of their neighbor Dr. Elder ( Jed Prouty ), whom he sometimes works for. Fred took Jeff with him, and since then no one has seen them. Asked by Max why she hadn’t contacted the police, Georgia replied that Dr. Elder had frighteningly warned her that it was better not to do this, without telling where he had sent Fred. Within an hour, Max tidies himself up, and then finds out from Smithy that Dr. Elder is known as a dark businessman from Pennsylvania. Max comes to Dr. Elder, who meets him with a gun in his hands, believing that he was sent by Mr. Varkas. Seeing that Max is suffering from a severe hangover and without weapons, Elder concludes that it was not Varkas who sent him. Max notices a piece of paper at the doctor’s desk that marks a meeting with a certain St. Paul in the near future. Without explaining where he sent Fred, Elder gives Max a drink of whiskey , and after a few glasses the former detective faints. Max wakes up in the cell of the police station, where he is informed that they picked him up on the street fourteen hours ago. The head of the murder department and his old friend, captain Tonetti ( Sam Levin ) tells Max that Elder was shot from a close range in the face and Max was detained on suspicion of this murder. Georgia arriving soon provides an alibi to her ex-husband. Although Tonetti understands that the alibi is false, he lets go of Max, realizing that he has higher motivation and therefore more chances to find a son than the police. Max finds out from Smitty that Otto Varkas ( J. Edward Bromberg ), whom Elder was so afraid of, is the leader of a large gang of jewelry smugglers who owns warehouses in Brooklyn .

In the warehouse, Max is trying to get from Varkas where to find Fred and Jeff, promising in return not to report to the police that Elder was a member of his gang. In response, Varkas gives Max a tip to a hired killer named Stitch Oliveira (Elliott Sullivan), who had just arrived in New York from Boston , offering Max $ 1,000 to capture Oliveira. Varkas claims that St. Paul is very dangerous, and if Max finds Oliveira, he will get to St. Paul. In the reception of Varkas, Max meets Angel ( Kay Medford ), a friend of Varkas, who makes an appointment with the detective in the evening at one of the bars. Max comes to Georgia, who tells him that she saw Angel from Elder, and also that Fred borrowed money from Elder, which he spent on some girl. Then Max enters Elder’s office, where he finds a diamond bag hidden in an ashtray. At the bar, Max meets with Angel, who claims that she is not Varkas’s girlfriend, but his business partner. Seeing Max's diamond, she says that he is part of a smuggled consignment of jewelry that Fred was supposed to deliver to Elder, but hid with them. According to her, now Fred is in a safe place, but Jeff is not with him. When Fred refused to tell her where the jewelry was, Angel decided to hand it over to Varkas, agreeing to split the profit from the sale of the jewelry with him in half. Claiming that Varkas will kill both of them, Max convinces Angel to take him to Fred, whom she turns out to be hiding in her apartment, two blocks from the bar. When they enter her house and climb the stairs, the two Varkas gangsters chasing them shoot Max, wounding him in the arm, Angel runs away, and Fred is kidnapped. When he reached Georgia’s apartment, Max said he was just around the corner from Fred. While Georgia is bandaging Max's wound, he starts drinking again. According to Max, Fred was wounded and kidnapped by the bandits of Varkas. Then Max calls Smitty to get him a weapon, and then goes to Varkas’s warehouse, where he discovers that Varkas is dead and his people fled. On the floor, Max finds a pack of rare-brand cigarettes that he bought from Smithy at the hotel.

Suspecting that Fred could be transported to the Smithy hotel, the heavily drunk Max returns to the hotel and goes around all the rooms in search of Fred. Having then come to Smitty, Max gradually begins to realize that she was the only one whom he notified of his trip to Varkas, and who could tell the killer where to remove Varkas. In addition, Varkas’s body left a mark from a blow with a cane similar to that used by Smitty. After that, Max realizes that Smitty is St. Paul, whom both Elder and Varkas were so afraid of. She says that she really planned the theft of jewelry, and when Fred disappeared, sent Max to find Fred and lead her to the jewelry. She believed that the money from the sale of jewelry would be enough for her rich life until the end of her days. Max makes Smithy show where Fred is. As it turns out, he is in serious condition in the next room, but Max manages to find out the address of the guesthouse where Jeff is being held. Smitty is trying to persuade Max to work with him, but he refuses and calls the police. Some time later, happy Max and Georgia take Jeff out of the guesthouse.

Director and producer Joseph Lerner, for his film career spanning the period from 1949 to 1957, directed six feature films, the most significant of which were the film Noir Treasury Agent (1949) and Guilty Witness (1950), as well as the sports comedy “ Mr. Universe ”(1951) ^[1] .

Zachary Scott is best known for his roles in numerous noir films, including “The Mask of Dimitrios ” (1944), “ Mildred Pierce ” (1945), “ Danger Signal ” (1945), “ Merciless ” (1948), “ The Way of the Flamingo ” (1949) and “ Born to be bad ” (1950) ^[2] .

Faye Emerson played her most prominent roles in the noir films Lady Gangster (1942), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Signal of Danger (1945), Nobody Is Forever (1946), and also in the military drama " Hotel Berlin " (1944) and the melodrama " The very thought of you " (1944) ^[3] . It was the fourth and final joint film of Scott and Emerson and in fact her last movie role. In the 1950s, Emerson made a successful television career as the host of several television shows, including The Wonderful City of Faye Emerson (1951-52, 42 episodes). The last time she appeared on the TV screen in 1961.

As the movie historian Bruce Eder points out, “the film is based on the 1949 book of the same name by Wade Miller (the pseudonym of two authors - Bill Miller and Robert Wade), in which they represent their character, former police detective Max Searzday, who later appeared as a private detective in five novels ” ^[4] .

Arthur Lyons notes that this film has become "the most famous noir of the film company Film Classics , which soon after its release ceased to exist" ^[5] .

Rating film criticism

After the film was released, film critic Bosley Krauser praised him in the New York Times by writing that “compared to the stream of Hollywood melodramas, this little film made in New York looks like a pretty decent job,” which distinguishes “strange disturbing slow rhythm and a lot of dirty atmosphere. " The critic points out that he confidently conveys "that slow, sultry and sweaty cruelty that is the norm for this type of film." At the same time, “camera work forms a difficult mood”, and “action is good in places, in particular, the chase in the subway”. Krauser summarizes his opinion with the words: “We do not want to say that the film is something special, but for those who want to see an inexpensive melodrama, this film will offer some strong points” ^[6] .

Modern film historian Bob Porfirio believes that the film is a bit "spoiled by budgetary constraints, which leads to excessive reliance on verbal reasoning, which further complicates the understanding of an extremely confusing plot, as well as a large amount of uninteresting filming, despite the use of nature in New York" . However, the strength of the picture lies in the fact that "thanks to full-scale shooting, the film manages to show the world inhabited by losers" ^[7] . Spencer Selby called the picture “a low-grade detective thriller,” which “is riddled with impressive pictures of the life of the city bottom” ^[8] , and, according to Denis Schwartz, “this low-budget film is burdened with a weak plot and poorly filmed.” He “talks about all kinds of losers - drunkards, hypochondriacs , smugglers and deceivers”, but “in history itself there is practically nothing to grab” ^[9] . On the other hand, Bruce Eder praised the film as "a strangely exciting, very atmospheric film noir." Although the film “did not completely satisfy” the critic, nevertheless, he was impressed by the “unusual cast and strange, confusing story, which to a large part is shown through the hangover fog of the main character." In addition, the film offers "the magnificent use of New York's nature both visually and dramatically, including the scene in the subway tunnel" ^[4] .

Creative Team Evaluation

The story told in the film, according to Krauser, is "average, for a film of this type means that it is obvious, contrived and superficial, which inevitably makes it also boring." It refers to “a desperate search for the kidnapped child by his father, a drunkard and a former cop”, who “in the course of the investigation goes to several unpleasant jewelry smugglers, the owner of a port hotel, a criminal doctor and an indefinite number of thugs. In short, neither history nor its characters are neither exalted nor capable of teaching anything ” ^[6] .

Eder pays attention to the camera work, which “even during the daytime shoots is harsh and dark, reflecting the look at what is happening panicking drunk alcoholic.” At the same time, “many street shoots look like newsreels, creating amazing credibility, and violence always comes in unusual perspectives, not allowing us to learn more than Sørzdei can perceive in the state in which he is at any given moment” ^[4] .

Evaluation by the actor of the game

In his review, Krauser praised the "literate acting of Zachary Scott , Faye Emerson , Mary Boland , J. Edward Bromberg , Kay Medford and Sam Levine ." In his opinion, “Scott plays a tormented stalker with genuine energy, Emerson is very sweet in the role of his frightened decent ex-wife, Boland, who is known as a comedic actress, colorful plays a scruffy old hag, and Medford correctly creates the image of a breaking and crappy prostitute” ^{[6 ]} .

Porfirio describes Max by Scott as "a private detective and an alcoholic who has fallen below the level who is forced to act, but is constantly returning to the bottle." The film expert also singled out Bromberg’s play, which in the role of Varkas creates a mentally unhealthy image of a “hypochondriac with half-gone eyelids”. And finally, “Mary Boland, who has become fat and vulgar, brings touchingness and sadness to her image of the main villain who deceived the smugglers in order to spend her own old age in comfort” ^[7] . According to Schwartz, "the main asset of the film is the play of Scott in the role of a thirsty drunkard." At the same time, the critic believes that although the actor “plays to the limit”, nevertheless, he does not manage to “even get closer to saving this uninteresting noir melodrama from its mediocrity” ^[9] .

Eder concluded that “Scott is ideal as a drinking, tormented Max, offering a game several levels deeper than his playing in Flamingo's Way a year earlier - he not only looks completely down, but he seems really ready to tear himself apart from the inside” . In addition, the critic notes the usually glamorous Emerson, who “simplified her appearance by absolutely convincingly playing the role of a pretty attractive housewife and single mother,” Bromberg, who “in his last role betrays a memorable and convincing game in the role of an evil gangster with a sick heart,” as well as Levin, who “finds himself in his place as captain Tonetti.” Borland, in the opinion of Eder, “re-plays in the role of the owner of the hotel, which is much closer to the criminal plan than Searsday thinks.” Eder also draws attention to the fact that “among the supporting actors, several persons will become more famous in the next 10-15 years, among them Kay Medford as a woman of easy virtue and big ambitions, and Harry Landers as one of the thugs” ^{[ 4]} . Keeney also drew attention to Kay Medford as an easy-going girl, Bromberg as a hypochondriac gangster and Sam Levine as Scott's former boss in the police department. At the same time, according to the critic, “veteran noir Scott is disappointing in the role of the former former cop, and Boland, who was known for comedy roles in the 1930s, was unsuccessfully taken for the role of the dashing boss Scott” ^[10] .

• Alain Silver (Editor), Elizabeth Ward (Editor). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition . - Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1992 .-- ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 .
• Spencer Selby. Dark City: The Film Noir . - Jeffeson, NC: McFarland & Co Inc, 1997 .-- ISBN 978-0-7864-0478-0 .
• Michael F. Keaney. Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959 . - Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2003. - ISBN 978-0-7864-1547-2 .
• Arthur Lyons. Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir . - Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000 .-- ISBN 978-0-3068-0996-5 .

• Guilty Witness on IMDb Website  
• Guilty witness on Allmovie website  
• American Cinema Institute Guilty Witness
• Guilty Witness Turner Classic Movies