“Walk Softly, Stranger” (1950) re-teams Joseph Cotten and Valli from “The Third Man” (1949) in a film that is not quite Noir and not quite romance, but which is carried by the dependable understated and nuanced playing of both leads.
Drifter Cotten wanders into an anywhere-in-America factory town and for a minute we might wonder if this is going to be a Van Heflin in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946) sort of adventure. Not quite. We don’t have the snap and sizzle of the true Noir of “Ivers”, but what we do have is a male lead more intriguingly ambiguous. We know Van Heflin is a sharp character right off the bat. But we don’t really know what Joseph Cotten is. Jack Paar, incidentally, has a small role as a co-worker.
Cotten picks out Spring Byington’s house seemingly according to some plan, and tells her a tale of it’s being his boyhood home. A lonely widow whose only son was killed in The War, she trustingly rents him a room in her house. Soon his comfortable teasing of her evolves into a warm almost mother-son relationship, but the thought that she might not be safe with him still lingers.
Mr. Cotten is a gambler and a thief, hiding out from the mob. When his weasel pal played to a self-interested, nervous crescendo by the sinister Paul Stewart shows up with the even badder guys on his tail, the jig is up.
There are some pensive scenes with the lovely Valli as a depressed and bitter invalid after a wild debutante life of cocktails and skiing accidents, and how she becomes drawn to Cotten’s ingratiating bravado about the wheelchair. They fall in love, though we are more certain of her attachment than his, so steady is his reserved guise as a man with many angles, many hands to play, and more than one name.
2 comments:
'The Third Man' and - obviously - 'Citizen Kane' are brilliant, brilliant movies. This one seems interesting. I always thought James Franco (the young goblin dude from the spiderman films) has a similar presence and persona to Joseph Cotton. Maybe thats just me. Any recommednations on top film-noir movies yourself? I reckon Double Indemnity would be in there - what else?
Hi, Simon, and thanks for commenting. We've covered a few film noir movies from time to time. I love film noir, but wouldn't say that I have any particular favorites. There's such a range among them, and many film noir afficionados argue about what particular film is true noir and what isn't. I like variations on a theme, of stretching the boundaries of noir. We covered "Ladies of the Noir" back in March in a three-part series, covering three films: "Blue Gardenia", "Shadow on the Wall", and "Make Haste to Live" which featured women as the protagonists - something unusual in true film noir. You might want to have a look at those.
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