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Not all film noir roads lead back to 1950's D.O.A., but I'm willing to bet that a good chunk of them do. Though its overall form can be attributed back to the Sam Spade novels and movies, D.O.A. nevertheless gets a healthy amount of credit for helping establish those elements all so familiar to the film noir genre these days. I'll admit that for its time, the flick certainly had an impressive premise. But the trouble with D.O.A. is that while it's memorable for its story alone, what's done with it is nothing less than a ho-hum mixture of the mundane and the gimmicky.
Neville Brand, left, Michael Ross, right and Edmond O'Brien © United Artists
Seeking a little break from his girlfriend (Pamela Britton), accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) is heading off to San Francisco for a week's worth of rest and relaxation. From flirting with beauties at a jazz club to partying with businessmen, Frank's vacation is set for some smooth sailing -- that is, until he wakes up not feeling quite right. But a trip to the doctor reveals that it's not an upset stomach that Frank is suffering from but rather "luminous poisoning"; in the last twelve hours, his system has absorbed a poison for which there is no antidote, leaving Frank with mere days to live. Suspecting that it has something to do with a man he never knew having attempted to contact him recently, Frank launches head-first into finding out who poisoned him and why, a dead man walking frantically trying to solve his own impending murder.
I have the sneaking suspicion that D.O.A. was made just so someone could say the line, "You've been murdered!" The film does have one of those ideas behind it that's too difficult to keep away from (one that was taken and amped-up big-time for last year's actioner Crank), but unfortunately, D.O.A. doesn't do much to take the story terribly further than its clever hook. In fact, the film ends up hammering its premise into our heads more than anything, by way of repetitive dialogue like the line above. When the time does come to expand the story, the audience is left with a pretty dull mystery that's really not much of a mystery. The plot is a series of unexciting plot turns (how riveting can a movie been when the story hinges on a bill of sale?) that aimlessly follow one another until the running time cuts them off. When D.O.A. does solve the mystery of who poisoned Frank, it's not so much a case of "Hey, it was him!" as it is one of "Hey, who was that?" D.O.A. drowns its characters in a sea of red herrings that eventually make the killer's revelation arrive with a whimper more than a bang.
It also doesn't help that *SPOILER ALERT* Frank's fate really is a foregone conclusion; he's told he's going to die almost right off the bat, and die he does right at the end. It might be just me, but it's a little hard to become absorbed by a man's quest for justice when not only is his investigation like a pale retread of a Mike Hammer adventure, but you know that he's still gonna die anyway. The best way to handle a story like this is like what Crank ended up doing; instead of focusing on the mystery of who poisoned the lead, concentrate on the trouble he stirs up during his investigation and keep the plot kicking that way. Still, D.O.A. isn't a total lost cause. O'Brien (who resembles a pudgy Desi Arnaz) does an alright job as Bigelow, Britton does well as the significant other who has no idea what grave danger her boyfriend is in, and in the obligatory role of a bad guy's even more psychotic henchman, Neville Brand comes packing with about ten tons of creepy.
But despite a classic premise and some solid acting, D.O.A. still emerges as a film that's all bark and no bite, not exactly dead on arrival but not quite out of the Grim Reaper's grasp.
Director: Rudolph Maté
Writers: Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton, William Ching, Neville Brand, Henry Hart
Rating: No MPAA Rating (fine for young adults)
Classic Movie Guide Rating: 2 out 5 stars
Run Time: 83 minutes
Studio: United Artists
Format: Black and white, full-frame
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