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Customer Reviews of Cornered

A tough little spy film of unusual emotional intensity.
Heartily recommended. From the very first scenes of Cornered, you know Dick Powell means business. He grinds his teeth as he collects his pay for military service in WW2, then is told he must wait to get a passport to re-enter France. Cut to Powell in a boat off the French shore. He stands, wraps a Luger in plastic, shoves it into his coat, then sinks his boat and swims to land.

Why? We come to find out that his French war bride of 20 days was killed by a Vichy officer, who since died himself. But Powell ain't buying it, and follows his cold trail all the way to Buenos Aires, where exists a dangerous underground full of Nazis and collaborators scheming to rise again.

This film is rather unusual in that it makes the point Powell doesn't really have all the answers. He knows he may be going about things wrong, but he doesn't much care. He's not smug like Cagney, not smart like Bogart, and he has no legal authority. All he has is his instinctive, righteous anger. Hence the title: he fights like a wounded, cornered animal.

Many of the filmmakers, including director Dmytryk, were blacklisted later on, and there is indeed a definite tinge of, shall we say, pink, to the proceedings. And the subtle, flawed argument put forth blames a percieved moral laziness in capitalism as much as it blames fascists for fascism's rise. But ignore all that rot; the diatribes and revelations come mostly in a talky finale where the killer is revealed before Powell finally gets his chance to knock the schweinhundt on his axis. The majority of the film traces Powell all over an exotic city in an uncertain time.

Well-acted, well-scripted and well-directed, maybe 10 minutes overlong, the film manges never to lag, even in the static scenes. While not really suspenseful per se, Cornered still grabs the viewer with sympathy and quiet intensity and perhaps even a bit of vicarious blood lust. Powell intimidates who he must, wines and dines who he must, avoids frame-ups, tricks people with phony documents, shadows duplicitous femmes, and endures numerous sappings, all in order to get his man.

One great scene involves him telling a drop-dead gorgeous dame of his wife: his undying love is clear even as he describes her crooked teeth and how she was too skinny. And when he eventually turns down- even mocks- the babe's sultry invitations, it becomes clear: Powell is on a mission, and until it is completed, he is untouchable.

A noteworthy Post-war achievement. Not as well-known or highly-regarded as The Third Man or Notorious, but roughly similar to each, and for my money it is better than either, in its own small way.

Other assorted comments:
RKO programmers like this one are revered (at least by me) for their great dialogue. And there is a bit of that in this film, too. But it is largely of a different type than Out of the Past or The Big Sleep; more fluent and less slangy. Politely hard-boiled, if you will.

Dick Powell was (and remains) a very under-rated performer. His films of the 40's and early 50's are great because he went out of his way to undo his softer image formed in 30's musicals. See this film and Cry Danger, then compare them to Gold Diggers of 1933 and Blessed Event. Apart from his vaguely frog-like appearance around the mouth, you'll hardly believe they're the same guy.