Rent Cornered (1945)

Post-war Thriller. - Cornered review by Steve

This is chiefly of interest because it begins a short cycle of films about combat veterans who return to Europe to chase up loose ends related to their WWII experiences. They are primarily Americans, but in this case Dick Powell plays a Canadian pilot who revisits to the ruins of France to investigate the death of his wife in the Resistance.

And then onto Buenos Aires to chase up the remnants of a fascist group planning a second act for the fatherland. A year earlier, Edward Dmytryk directed the superior Murder, My Sweet which was a success and this is made in its image with most of the same personnel. Powell basically repeats his performance as Philip Marlowe.

John Paxton returns to script the nervy one-liners and Harry Wild to duplicate the film noir photography. Adrian Scott again produces. While the intrigue looks like a lot of McGuffin, most of the crew and some of the cast were soon in front of HUAC accused of 'premature anti-fascism, so the content actually meant something to them.

There's a big speech towards the end about the threat from Nazi survivors in South America, but Hollywood wasn't concerned. This sort of espionage was rewritten for Communists and Dmytryk and Scott ended up in jail. The labyrinthine plot never really engages, but we get an insight into the psychology of WWII survivors, and the Hollywood left.