The Narrow Margin
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Movie Reviews of The Narrow Margin
Movie Review: Terror in a train!
Summary: 5 Stars
If we depict the three phases of this genre, we can note the first one spans from 1941 (The maltesse falcon)to 1945, the second from 1946 to 1949 and finally from 1950 to the present. Well, this absorbing noir is one of the most relevant peaks of the late period.
The narrow margin is the loftiest entries of Richard Fleisher (the son of Max Fleisher, the creator in cartoons of the popular feature "Popeye, the sailor" a talented but uneven director who bet with this striking project and made one the most reminded Noir of the middle Fifties.
Sam Carter published an absorbing essay about the Noir films (actually out of print) and remarked that Fleisher was a true specialist of the violence. This is a train-movie. A police must convoy a gangster's widow against his will to a trial in which she will have to testify. But meanwhile they must dodge hit-men who will try against all the odds to silence her. The claustrophobic atmosphere and the action sequences into this train are first rate and will give you maxim tension.
Don't miss it.
Movie Review: Windsor & McGraw: 2 Film Noir Hall-Of-Famers
Summary: 5 Stars
This was the "original" Narrow Margin and, like its 1990 re-make it is excellent. This is one of those rare cases in which both the old and the new versions are top-notch......good stuff!
In fact, it's interesting to compare the two versions. In this film, there is a very unique twist as the end concerning the woman being brought to Los Angeles. It was clever.
That woman in this 1952 version also is played by perhaps the "First Lady Of Noir:" Marie Windsor. She had the best lines in the film and is outstanding at playing the tough-talking moll of this genre. (See Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" to fully appreciate more of Windsor's work.)
The film noir tough-guy male equivalent of her also stars in this film, that being Charles McGraw. Few guys ever looked and sounded better in noirs than McGraw. He and Windor were born to play in 'B' crime movies!
The short length of this film makes it a good one to watch anytime.
Movie Review: A tight, taut, thriller,better than The Lady Vanishes.
Summary: 5 Stars
The director of Narrow Margin, Richard Fleicher, kept it simple. He didn't go for laughs. To us, 55 years out, some of the lines are humorous but that wasn't the intent. Two cops travel to Chicago from Los Angeles to pick-up the widow of a mobster in great danger to testify. One of them never makes it back to the train station. There will be hit-men on the train, that much is certain. Later, there is a twist & it's a good one. The hit-men don't know what the widow (Marie Windsor) looks like & the surviving cop (Charles McGraw) doesn't know what the assassins look like. But that's not the twist. They make themsleves known to him & offer a lucative bribe to turn the widow over to them. He refuses & the game is on as he evades the hit-men keeping the widow secluded in a private compartment. You know they will make a move but how & when keeps this movie rolling half-way accross the country to LA. It's a great noir, B-movie on a train & you can't get much better than that.Movie Review: Cliches aside, this is just the ticket for drama
Summary: 5 Stars
B movies are often thin on star quality, filled with cliche story lines and cheap one liners and made on the cheap. This film is all of that BUT it has a simple and effective storyline that allows everything else to fall in line and create a riviting film. AT 70 minutes, there isn't a lot of time fluff - this movie gets with it and for a very few moments stays on track, figurativly and literally.
The story is that cop has to escort a dame (lower case, of course) so she can make it to California and turn states evidence against her dead husbands "Business associates" Marie Windsor plays the broad as cheap as a bottle of Night Train, a regular charmer, but not too bright. The cop? He's got a job to do and wouldn't you know it: the train is lousy with hit men, an ice queen blonde and mouthy kid. The movie has a surprise twist ending.
This is a GREAT Flick that doesn't demand much, but delivers the goods when it reaches the end of the line.
Movie Review: Who will cry for Sarah?
Summary: 5 Stars
I am embarrassed and ashamed that I, The Queen, had not seen this excellent noir before. I am also thrilled to learn that there are still undiscovered (to me) gems out there!! Two detectives are assigned to protect the wife of a mobster during her travel to LA, in order to provide the police with her husband's list of co-conspirators. The detectives wonder what kind of woman would marry a mobster? Well they find out, and how! Marie Windsor shows them the meanest, nastiest most shrewish woman this side of Ann Savage's Vera. As a counterpoint, Jacqueline White provides the bland and boring Mrs Sinclair with...bland boringness. The movie moves right along with unexpected action right up front, and it doesn't let up right until the ending. Clever plot twists and interesting, high style B&W photography keep the interest levels high. Definitely a keeper! The Queen commands you to attend to this often overlooked noir thriller.