The Cahiers critics loved him - to Truffaut he was 'the passionate discovery of the 'young critics'.. an auteur in our sense of the word', to Godard 'If the cinema no longer existed, Nicholas Ray alone gives the impression of being capable of reinventing it, and what is more, of wanting to'. Certainly we seem on familiar ground of a man (a marginalised character from society, as his heroes are) struggling with his own violence (In a Lonely Place, Rebel without a Cause), here a burned out cop (Robert Ryan), a Dirty Harry prototype who beats confessions out of low-lives he finds disgusting. These New York scenes are made with a nimble energy achieved through fast camera moves and editing, and even at times what looks like a hand held camera in the car. There's sometimes a crudeness of the 'mise en scène or - if I were to be shocking about it - of framing or the way shots are put together ... far from wishing to excuse it, you must love this lack of artifice..you must recognise the youthful exaggeration of a cinema that is dear to us, where all is sacrificed to expression..to the sharpness of a reflex or a look' (Rivette).
The mood changes when Ryan is sent upstate to help track down the killer of a young girl, accompanied by her father (Ward Bond), finds empathy with killer's sister, blind Ida Lupino.
(Love the moment where the father is so intent on his prey he doesn't even stop to check Ryan is OK after car accident.) Lots of POV from car is welcome.
Written by A.I. Bezzerides (Kiss Me Deadly) and Ray, from Gerald Butler novel 'Mad with Much Heart', with a sensational score by Bernard Herrmann several years before the Hitchcocks; shot by George Diskant for RKO. A real discovery.
(Quotes from the Frenchmen - 'Cahiers du Cinéma, ed. Jim Hillier, 1985.)
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