Rent Railroaded! (1947)

A Knife in the Crust - Railroaded! review by CH

“I don't want to hear what you've got to say! You've got a lot of crust!” So declares Jane Randolph to a detective (Hugh Beaumont) as he steps in and tries to turn her when it becomes plain that her beauty salon is the front for the murderous gambling racket which is the mainspring of Railroaded! (1947).

The film's dialogue is as dark as its seventy-minute setting. Jonathon Green's matchless dictionaries of slang reveal that crust, in this sense of nerve, dates from 1900 American colleges. There is much crust to the film's characters as Jane Randolph joins those (including the police) who try to pin murder upon Sheila Ryan's brother, who, when accused of stealing $5000, is asked what he spent it on and replies in exasperation, “the first thousand on bubblegum and the rest on beer.”

Written by John Higgins from a story by Gertrude Walker (both had noir credentials), it was brought to the screen in fine style by director Anthony Mann. Manny Farber referred to Mann's “inhumanity to man, in which cold mortal intentness is the trademark effect... The films of this tin-can de Sade have a Germanic rigor, caterpillar intimacy, and an original dictionary of ways to punish the human body. Mann has done interesting work with scissors, a cigarette lighter, and steam, but his most bizarre effect takes place in a taxidermist's shop. By intricate manipulation of athletes' bodies, Mann tries to ram the eyes of his combatants on the horns of a stuffed deer stuck on the wall”.

None of this takes place in Railroaded! We find here, though, that beauty is certainly no defence against a loaded gun, but all that is capped by a brawl in which two women combatants out-do that celebrated instance of Destry Rides Again. It's small wonder that a smart apartment's sofa does not collapse with the final push.

Terrific stuff, and if it does not find a place among 1001 movies to see before you die, it should certainly be high in the list for that eternal cinema upon a cloud the other side of St. Peter's Gate. Better, though, to sneak it in this side of Paradise.

Routine B Movie - Railroaded! review by AS

The DVD print is poor and noisy. The film is routine and except for the look and feel I wouldn't class it as a film noir.

Terrific - Railroaded! review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Anthony Mann’s cracking hard boiled noir has Randolph as Clara who runs a beauty salon with a numbers racket in the back shop. She and her boyfriend Duke (Ireland) conspire to set up a fake robbery to rip off their boss but it goes wrong and Duke’s partner and a cop both get shot. Duke gets his dying partner to set up innocent boy Steve to take the wrap and the cops are convinced they have their man. His sister Rosie (Ryan) sets out to prove his innocence with a sympathetic cop begining to come round to the same conclusion. Rosie embarks on a very dangerous cat and mouse game with Duke to uncover the truth. On the one hand it’s the old Wrong Man story but it’s a solid cast - Ireland is a very menacing heavy with Randolph as the hard as nails broad who cracks under the pressure and Ryan is excellent risking her own life to save her brother. A razor sharp script and some terrific noir lighting and it achieves all this is a sprightly 72 minutes…..4/5