Act of Violence

Plot synopsis:
After surviving a Nazi POW camp where comrades were murdered by guards during an escape attempt, Frank Enley (Van Heflin), returns home from World War II. The "war hero" is respected for his fine character and good works in the California town of Santa Lisa, where he, his young wife and baby had settled after moving from the East. What his wife does not know is that Frank relocated them in an attempt to escape his past. His nemesis is Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), once his best friend, who also lived through the ordeal, although he was left with a crippled leg. In exchange for food, Frank had alerted the Nazi camp commander to the prisoners' escape plans, thinking wrongly that the men would not be punished. Joe is determined to exact justice on Frank, whose location he has learned from a newspaper story commending Enley for his civic endeavors.
Frank's wife Edith (Janet Leigh) is completely in the dark about his past, while Joe's girlfriend Ann Sturgess (Phyllis Thaxter) knows everything about her man, but cannot dissuade him from his passion to set past wrongs right by seeing Frank dead. Frank must confront the truth that he is a coward, not a hero.
Doggedly pursued by Joe, who stalks Frank's family at their house, Frank goes into hiding, leaving his confused wife behind. At a trade convention in Los Angeles, Frank enlists a past-her-prime prostitute, Pat (Mary Astor), who introduces him to a shady lawyer and a hitman, Johnny (Berry Kroeger). Frank lures Joe into meeting him at the Santa Lisa train station, where the hitman plans to drive up and kill Joe, the gunshot muffled by the noise of the train.
After waking from a drunken binge, Frank regrets the deal and tries to warn Joe at the station. Johnny is already waiting with a gun, but before he can complete the job Frank jumps in front of the shot. Although wounded, Frank manages to grab Johnny as he speeds off in his car, causing it to crash into a lamppost. Both Johnny and Frank are killed. Joe, realizing what Frank has done, kneels by his old captain and tells the officers that he will be the one to tell Frank's wife.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
In "The Search" he made use of a ruined Berlin to tell the story of a very young concentration camp survivor - a young boy separated from his mother - using the ruins as a metaphor for the many ruined lives.In "Act of Violence" Zinnemann returns to the aftermath of war - this time telling of two prisoner-of-war camp survivors, one of whom was a Nazi collaborator, the other one a vengeful fellow prisoner who takes it upon himself to track down and kill his former friend.
Cinematographer Robert Surtees makes great use of Los Angeles' seedier parts of town - I was reminded of how his son Bruce Surtees made similar effective use of San Francisco in "Dirty Harry" - this is noir at its best, not only in cinematic terms, but with those "only come out at night" characters you expect in a top notch thriller.Mary Astor is most effective as the barfly (couldn't make her a prostitute, though it is more than obvious) - and after her performance in the garish "Desert Fury" it's nice to see her in black-and-white again.
His calm, rational demeanor puts him in a different class of predator - he's good at what he does and he's used to doing it, like Alan Ladd's character in "This Gun For Hire" we can be sure that when committing murder, he feels "Fine, just fine."Janet Leigh appears as Heflin's wife - it's an early turn for her, and while it is a most stereotypically written "wifey" role, she invests it with all that she has, but the ending is such that we have to wonder just how she will react.
The tension is almost unbearable, all done through editing and camerawork and not one line of dialogue.Zinnemann would continue to look at war's effects on those who came home in "The Men" as well as "Teresa" and in "Hatful Of Rain" - the man may be the most unheralded of classic film directors, but his resume includes Oscar winners such as "High Noon" and "A Man For All Seasons" as well as such nailbiters as this film and the original "Day of the Jackal.".
(After helping to launch the cycle with her spectacular turn as Brigid O'Shaugnessey in The Maltese Falcon, Astor appeared in disappointingly few film noir; her expert performance here makes one wonder why, why, why?)  Though the script opts for a strange and bitter "redemptive" ending, the acrid taste of Act of Violence lingers long..
Quite frankly this could be another classic Hollywood film noir, as it takes place in 1940's Los Angeles, and includes many famous landmarks, like the extinct "Angel's Flight."Janet Leigh, in her fifth film, gives a fine performance as Heflin's concerned wife, and Mary Astor is a real delight as the woman who befriends Heflin in his state of panic.This would make an excellent remake today, if done in the style of "L.A. Confidential."  Catch this film sometime if you can.
Four years after America's victory, it was still daring to admit that not all of our boys behaved honorably overseas, and that our prosperity might rest on corrupt foundations.Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a perfect image of postwar success, a war hero with a thriving business, a nice house in the suburbs, a beautiful wife and a young son.
Fred Zinneman keeps the suspense mounting through taut, spare direction: no excessive music or flashy visuals or extraneous flourishes, just a relentless focus on the collision courses of the main characters, who include Frank's wife (the girlish, gorgeous Janet Leigh) and Parkson's girlfriend (Phyllis Thaxter), who doesn't want her man to be a murderer.What would you do if you were starving, literally fighting for survival, and you had a chance to save yourself?
It stars Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, and Janet Leigh, with support coming from Mary Astor, Phyllis Thaxter & Berry Kroeger.
Robert Surtees photographs it from various California locations and Bronislau Kaper provides the music that is conducted by André Previn.An Embittered former POW (Ryan) is hell bent on revenge against his former commanding officer (Heflin) who betrayed his men's planned escape attempt from a Nazi prison camp.Superior film noir piece that is not only boasting a taut, intelligent and suspenseful story to work from, but also a collective group of film makers on tip top form.
While Astor almost steals the film from the guys as a brassy woman of the bars and streets who takes Heflin in off the now dangerous avenues and alleyways.Smart, pangy and dripping with noir style, Act Of Violence has so much going for it, and equally as much to say.
Enley (Van Heflin at his best) escaping from his demons, not just limping Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) or bad boy Johnny (Berry Kroeger), through a vacant tunnel screaming at the top of his lungs, "Don't do it, Joe...Don't...." Or the scenes of Joe running down oppressive stairways to get away from the specters that haunt him.
Recompense comes only at the end of the film, not a closing that most would want or expect in a Hollywood film of the day, but the required one for the theme of the story.The entire cast of "Act of Violence" is first rate, giving performances worthy of recognition, but veteran actress Mary Astor as the lost soul, Pat, who takes an ambivalent attitude toward Frank, runs away with the show.
A purported war-hero lives in terror of being revealed as having informed on fellow POW's, and by the time his traumatized accuser, Robert Ryan, has closed in to take vengeance, the punishment seems almost secondary to Van Heflin's self-torment.
His direction and Robert Surtees' excellent B&W photography make this taut story even more watchable.VAN HEFLIN goes on a fishing trip and finds himself being shadowed by a man he knows wants to kill him--a man who knows about his past when they were both soldiers and imprisoned in a German prison camp during World War II.
That's all the wrap-up on the story I'll give here.There's a final twist at the end, but the whole film is absorbing and well worth your time with Heflin, especially, giving one of his most intense performances and Mary Astor doing a vivid job in a small role..
Taut direction and great performances from the entire cast make this a true classic.In one of his best roles, Van Heflin convincingly portrays a WW2 veteran who has rebuilt his life as a civic leader in small town America.
It could refer to Robert Ryan's desire to kill Van Heflin or it could equally refer to the act of violence that Heflin was responsible for when a number of his men, during the war, were murdered by the Nazis after he betrayed them.
Heflin now lives a life of almost desperate respectability in a small Californian town with wife Janet Leigh and it's to there that Ryan tracks him down.This is a morally complex film that was never the success it deserved to be.
Beautiful and talented Janet Leigh, aged only 21, is the adoring wife of Van Heflin, who delivers one of his finest performances as a man whose past has caught up with him in the most menacing way possible: as Robert Ryan with a gun in his hand deciding that van Heflin must pay for what he did when they were in the Nazi prison camp together.
Certainly this film, in which every frame is perfect, the script is well-honed, and the editing and construction without flaw, together with its spectacular performances (Mary Astor harrowingly convincing as a prostitute!) and Robert Ryan at his most grimly determined and menacing, where we come to realize that his need for vengeance is purely idealistic and not personal, shows clearly what a master Fred Zinnemann already was.
Frank Enley (Van Heflin) lives a Norman Rockwell life with his wife Edith (Janet Leigh) and baby.
Fred Zinneman directed this and apparently it was forgotten and impossible to find for decades but I can whole heartedly recommend it to anybody who love "film noir" genre - instead of being just another, nice old black and white movie, this turned out to be such a good, strong thriller that I ended up fully alert and awake until the very end.
Zinneman weaves excellent story where the all American good guy is haunted by some mysterious limping man but as the movie progresses we suddenly realize that roles are changing and viewer can't help but start questioning some really important moral issues here - contrary to simply passive watching, we started to THINK " hey, who is really a bad guy here?" - there is not much to talk about female characters here (wives and girlfriends are terribly one-dimensional in their "goodness" and meekness) until in the second part of the movie story proceeds into a criminal underworld where we meet elderly, tired prostitute played by brilliant Mary Astor (previously known for her elegance and aristocratic poise) who almost steals the whole movie with her realistic, powerful acting.
I think that Act Of Violence could have worked just as well if they had played each other's parts.MGM was a studio that did not do noir films very often, but in this case with Fred Zinnemann directing they did this one very well.
I'll also mention Berry Kroeger, who plays the hit-man Johnnie, and was clearly cast as a face to fit the part, yet he does a pretty good acting job as well.One thing that does link these darker MGM post-war flicks with the studio's lighter upbeat fare is a kind of melodramatic overstatement, which is great in the right place but harms a picture like Act of Violence.
Ryan co-stars in the film as "Joe Parkson." and plays a familiar role - the embittered villain, This time he's stalking an old army sergeant-friend, vowing to kill him for past deeds when they were both prisoners of war in World War II.
Van Heflin plays "Frank Enley," the guy with the guilty past whom Ryan is stalking.
Enley's side of the story is a little different because his intentions were to save those men but he, himself, as doubts about his own motives as years have forced him to reelect on that time.Nonetheless, trying to stop both guys from killing themselves are their woman: Janet Leigh playing Enley's wife and Phyllis Thaxter playing Parkson's longtime girlfriend.
"Act of Violence" from 1948, directed by Fred Zinnemann, is a strong noir starring Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, and Mary Astor.Ryan is Joe Parkson, a man disabled in World War II who wants revenge against his old commanding officer, Frank Enley (Heflin).
But he's carrying a dark secret, and Joe knows it.Excellent acting is the strength here, with Heflin giving a fantastic performance of man who slowly disintegrates, and Ryan in a familiar role as a killer.
Van Heflin's post-war suburban bliss with wife Janet Leigh is ended by the grim and dogged determination of pursuer Robert Ryan.
A surprisingly frank and morally complex film noir released immediately post-WWII.Van Heflin plays a man who ratted out some fellow soldiers in a Nazi POW camp; Robert Ryan is one of the survivors who comes to seek vengeance on Heflin after they've all returned to the States and have spent time rebuilding their lives.
But the women in the film make quite an impression, and no wonder given that two of them are played by Janet Leigh (as Heflin's wife) and Mary Astor (as a world-weary good-time gal who takes Heflin under her protective wing).
You soon realized that Frank held himself as guilty as Joe did by his not only turning his fellow US airmen in but also,and this really hit home with Frank, receiving and accepting food from his German captures for doing it.Afride for his wife Edith and young son Frank checks out of Santa Lisa to L.A at a contractor convention to draw Joe away from his family but the guilt that had been building up inside of him, about his actions in the prison camp, was slowly getting the best of Frank.
Frank ( Van Heflin) and Joe (Robert Ryan) were in WW II together, in a prison camp..
Van Heflin is Frank Enley, a World War II veteran who has survived and been decorated with honors, while nearly all his comrades died in a Nazi prison camp.
Frank Enley (Van Heflin) has gained social respectability in his post-war community, but his background as an officer in a Nazi pow camp appears to be tainted by some messy details.
On the other hand, Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) has achieved none of this prominence, and he is disabled from the war both physically and mentally, determined to cross the entire continent to avenge the harm that he believes Enley caused to him and the other members of their captured unit in the German pow camp.In a sense, Joe is the personification of Frank's conscience as he pursues him, disrupting Frank's successful, picture book life in sunny southern California.
Beyond its depiction of two American veterans who were forced to endure brutal experiences during World War II, this is also a story about the state of our nation at the time and its determination to resume a sense of normalcy after enduring a very painful, even traumatizing, global conflict that inflicted huge, human costs on millions of Americans and millions more throughout the world.The cast is excellent, especially Heflin as the tormented central character, and Mary Astor in an uncharacteristic role as an impoverished prostitute who Frank accidentally meets in a sleazy bar while attempting to flee frantically from Parkson and his own, cloudy past.
Fred Zinnemann directed this post-WWII thriller that stars Robert Ryan as Joe Parkson, an embittered and determined WWII veteran who is stalking seemingly respectable and successful family man Frank Enley(played by Van Heflin) who has a dark secret from his past when he was the commanding officer in the German POW camp that he shared with Parkson and his group.
That man is Frank, played by Van Heflin, who, in contrast to Joe, has made a new and good life for himself in the postwar world.
Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) is a disabled war veteran who calls at Frank's house and learns from his wife Edith (Janet Leigh) that Frank is away on a fishing trip.
Their story which initially appears to be a simple conflict between good and evil is gradually revealed to be something more complex and disturbing.Fred Zinnemann's direction and Robert Surtees' cinematography are both excellent and combine effectively to unveil the different aspects of Frank and Joe's characters and also to convey all the associated tension and anxiety that they feel throughout."Act Of Violence" certainly grows from its deceptively straightforward looking introduction into an absorbing tale of some substance and profundity..
Van Heflin is a WWII vet living the post-war dream with wife Janet Leigh until old army buddy Robert Ryan shows up with an ax to grind.
What really went on during the war for these two men and how each acted at the time sets a off a chain of events that has Heflin on the run, Ryan in pursuit and Leigh in a panic.
At first we do not know the reason for his quest.Cut to the Los Angelis suburb of San Rita where Frank Enley (Van Heflin), his pretty young wife Edith (Janet Leigh) and their young son are enjoying the good life.
The supporting cast is strong, and Zinnemann and company just get right into the action, saving all of the credits for the end, which would have been a real rarity in this era.Van Heflin plays Frank Enley, a successful building contractor who finds that he is being relentlessly pursued by one of his old war comrades, Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan).
Heflin and Ryan are both compulsively watchable, the young and gorgeous Leigh is a joy, Holmes and Kroeger are great fun to watch, and Astor is fantastic and a real standout among the cast.For those people who love this genre and also like a bit of action to go with it, "Act of Violence" is a satisfying bit of entertainment.Eight out of 10..
Act of Violence- From director Howard Zinneman(High Noon , From Here To Eternity) we get the story of 2 World War II veterans that have some unresolved issues.Robert Ryan is determined to find Van Heflin.Van Heflin has settled back into civilian life with a family,job and respect of the community-Robert Ryan has traveled cross country to confront Van Heflin.Oodles of suspense,great camera shots and an insistent score ramp up the tension in this superb noir dealing with the after effects of the war.Mary Astor is perfect as a down on her luck lady of the evening that befriends one of the characters during the second act.Look for a young Janet Leigh in her sixth movie.The scholarly commentary track is by Drew Casper.
He's heading to California, where he intends to murder Frank R Enley, a WW2 veteran and one time prisoner of war.The film's entire first act feels very much like the introduction to "The Terminator" (or the 1946 noir "The Killers").
Act of Violence **1/2 He Had Plenty of Film Time to Do Him In. A limping Robert Ryan is out to get Van Heflin since the latter betrayed his fellow men to the Nazis in a prisoner of war camp during World War 11.My main problem with the film is that Ryan had plenty of opportunities to blow Heflin away but did not.
Ryan plays his usual embittered self in this film noir production of 1948.Janet Leigh co-stars as Heflin's wife.
What makes Act of Violence interesting is the performances of the two leads, Van Heflin and Robert Ryan.
Directed by Fred Zinnemann, this thrilling drama stars Van Heflin as a man who finds himself being pursued by another (Robert Ryan) from his past.