Alias Nick Beal (1949) Fantasy Noir

Directed by John Farrow (The Big Clock, Where Danger Lives, The Unholy Wife).

Written by Jonathan Latimer (The Accused, The Big Clock, Night Has a Thousand Eyes) and Mindret Lord (The Glass Alibi). 

Cinematography by Lionel Lindon (The Blue Dahlia, Quicksand, The Turning Point, Hells Island, The Big Caper), Music by Franz Waxman who gives us a whistling leitmotif for Beal, call it "death whistles the blues". (wink)

The film boasts quite a Noir Vet cast that bring a lot of Noir cinematic memory to the production.

Starring Ray Milland (The Lost Weekend, Ministry of Fear, The Big Clock, Thief, Dial M for Murder) as Nick Beal, Audrey Totter (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Lady In The Lake, The Unsuspected, The High Wall, The Set-Up, Tention, The Sellout, Man In The Dark) as Donna Allen. Thomas Mitchell (Out of the Fog, Moontide, The Dark Mirror) as Joseph Foster.

Ray Milland as Nick Beal

Audrey Totter as Donna Allen

Thomas Mitchell as Joseph Foster

George Macready as Reverend Thomas Garfield

George Macready (My Name Is Julia Ross, Gilda, The Big Clock, Lady Without a Passport) as Reverend Thomas Garfield, Fred Clark (The Unsuspected, Ride The Pink Horse, Cry Of The City, White Heat, Flamingo Road) as Frankie Faulkner, Geraldine Wall (Appointment With Danger, The Filer on Thelma Jordan, Party Girl) as Martha Foster, Henry O'Neill (The Reckless Moment, No Man Of Her Own ) as Judge Ben Hobbs, Darryl Hickman (Leave Her To Heaven, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Set-Up) as Larry Price, and King Donovan (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) as Peter Wolfe.

Fred Clark as Freddie Faulkner

Geraldine Wall as Martha Foster

Supernatural, Sci-Fi and Fantasy based Noir have been around since the beginning of the Classic Film Noir Era. Films like Cat People (1942), The Leopard Man (1943) I Walked with a Zombie (1943),  Repeat Performance (1947), The Amazing Mr. X (1948), Fear in the Night (1947), The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Nightmare (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), all covered roughly the same Supernatural, Sci-Fi and Fantasy territory, there are probably a few more I would take a serious look at being on that Cusp of Noir such as Angel On My Shoulder. 

The Twilight Zone TV series (1959–1964) beautifully explored these Noir tangents in some of its stylistically Noir episodes. Transitional and then Neo Noir films continued it to the present.

Alias Nick Beal is another twist on the Faust Myth like ,say The Devil And Daniel Webster or even Neo Noir Angel Heart for that matter.

Thunder - lightning the opening credits with score borrowing from something we all heard before.

Nick Beal: In every man there's an imperfection. A seed of destruction. You discovered that, Foster , when you traded principals for personal glory. When you sacrificed integrity for power. You discovered that in eight short months climbing to the governor's mansion, from a district attorney's office.  

We cut to a gloomy downpour looking down on the steps of a public building. Umbrellas, like sad bouquets, sprout from a sea of onlookers that has momentarily parted for Joseph Foster. Behind him it slowly closes. A flashbulb goes off taking a snapt shot of Foster and it starts the flashback.

Flashback. 

We cut to the day Joseph Foster exclaims that he'll give his soul to bag big city racketeer Hanson. 

King Donavan seated as Peter Wolfe.

Foster is in conference with mob mouthpiece Frankie Faulkner. Frankie tells Foster that the governorship race is going to be wide open this year and with the right backing "he can win it." Foster tells him he's not interested. 

Frankie also tells Foster that the books, that the bookkeeper who flipped on Hanson, was supposed to bring him, went up in smoke. Frankie sticks it in with telling Foster that he would have brought the evidence but he didn't think Foster would like his office full of ashes.

Afterwards Foster meets with Reverend Thomas Garfield who has another prospect for the Garfield Boys Club Larry Price. 

Darryl Hickman as Larry Price 2nd from left.

Then while discussing the days events with Garfield, Price and his wife, Foster tells his wife that Hanson outmaneuvered him. Foster states that "he'd give his soul to nail him". Immediately a boy comes in with a message for him. 

It says:

If you want to nail Hanson drop around to the China Coast at 8:00 tonight.

The Rev remarks prophetically "it's almost as if he heard you." yea, it's a cute trick that Farrow repeats lol.

Farrow does it again at the China Coast. 

A dark foggy night. 

Beal appears out of the fog.

Beal, dressed impeccably, makes an entrance through the back door of the bar. The only problem is there's nothing but bay "out there," as the  barkeep remarks to a patron. 

The barkeep tells his customer to go back on the dock and see. He reports back that there's no dory just basically nothin' "out there."

Beal sits at a table and orders two drinks a ginger ale and a Barbados. The bartender tells him he doesn't have a Barbados. Beal tells him he better look again and he finds it. 

Foster comes in at eight sharp and Beal calls him over. When Beal asks him what he'd like to drink. He replies a ginger ale just as the barkeeper is putting it on the table for him.

When the barkeep starts to say "That'll be... Beal cuts him off replying "one dollar" while holding up a Morgan dollar coin. 

Beal brings Foster to a cannery where he reveals the supposedly burnt books to Foster. Foster takes them wins his case against Hanson and sends him to jail.

When Beal begins to prod Foster into running for governor his wife Martha begins to run interference. Beal recruits "the other woman"  Donna Allen a B-girl / hooker who cruises the China Coast for johns.

We first see hard boiled Donna strutting her stuff in the Gate. 

She zeros in and grabs the hand of a john making chummy with a dark haired harlot. He's nonchalantly lighting her smoke with his lighter. Donna keeps the flame burning, pulls the hand with the lighter towards her and lights her own cigarette with a hard drag.

She exhales that smoke forcefully in a plume, a visual smoke pie in the face of the other gal, Nice! 

Donna does this very cooly all in one motion and she continues on a sinuous tack towards the booze. 

There, bellying up to the bar, Donna hijacks a full drink in a shot glass, She knocks it back and down the hatch in one motion. 

She gets called out on it by another fat blonde whore. Donna calls her "Piano Legs" and "Piano Legs" flings her drink in Donnas face. Donna dives onto her like a wild cat and they both tip over. We get a hair pulling contest with them rolling around on the floor. Hey it's the "floor show" for the Coast since everybody in the crowd seems to be enjoying the spectacle. 

The barkeep pulls Donna off Piano Legs and drags her out of the bar. 

Barkeep: Scram and stay scrammed.

He sails her forcibly out into the dark street where she trips and flops down on her face. Fog horns punctuate the gloom.

Donna stands up in the street and walks over to a lamppost and sits down on the curb beside it. 

She turns her head to look back at the bar she was just thrown out of and when she turns back Beal is suddenly right in front of her. 

Donna:  How bout giving a lady a hand? 

Nick Beal:  Sure. 

Beal doesn't give her his hand. Donna pulls herself back up on her feet and goes into hooker mode.

Donna:  You alone honey?

"I'm looking for Donna Allen"

"Well that's me."

Nick Beal: I'm looking for Donna Allen?

Donna: Well that's me.

Nick Beal: I know. 

Donna: Wha-da-ya-want?

Nick Beal: A woman.,,,  Quite beautiful.

"Wha-da-ya-want?"

"A woman."

Donna smiles but frowns a bit as Beal continues.

Nick Beal: Wearing sapphires, silk, sable. 

Donna: Hey wah-da-ya talking about? Give with the gag? You a cop? 

Nick Beal: Why don't you come along and find out?

Beal starts walking away.

Donna: You sure got a different line mister. 

Donna follows Beal into the fog. They end up after an elevator ride is a swanky apartment with what looks like Salvador Dali inspired wall decor. 

A Dali-esque wall in a dream apartment.

Donna: Whoa what a place. [spinning around to face Beal] Yours?

Nick Beal: No

Donna: Looks like a dames apartment. 

Nick Beal: That's right.

Donna: Who?

Nick Beal: You

Donna: Me? Excuse me while I die laughing. 

The phone rings, Beal tells her to answer it. It's packages. Beal tells donna to have them sent up. 

After Donna hangs up she questions Beal.

Donna: Hey what's the deal and who's this girl?

Nick Beal: A girl's thats just had some bad luck.

Donna: It sure must of changed.

Nick Beal: I'll tell you about it. Good family, two years of college, and tried the New York Stage, only she got fouled up. An Actor named Boyden, "Boisy" she called him. Only it turned out he forgot to tell her he was married. One night they had a fight and he fell down some stairs. Accident they called it. 

Donna looks at Beal and then turns and walks over to the door.

Nick Beal: Where you going?

Donna: Getting out of here.

Donna opening the door is greeted by the bellhop carrying the packages. He asks "where do you want me to put them miss?" Beal tells him "on the couch." After he tips the bellhop, and he goes out of the room, Donna confronts Beal.

Donna: Look where did you hear about Boisy from?

Nick Beal: New York

Donna: You a friend?

Nick Beal: I met him once. October 14th 1944. 

That's the night he was killed.

Nick Beal: That's right.

Beal walks over to the couch and opens a box that reveals a cigarette case with sapphires. Donna follows.

Donna: What's that?

Nick Beal: A cigarette case and lighter to match. Look at them.

Donna: Sapphires.

Nick Beal: That's what I said [Beal holding up a white dress] Silk. [Beal lifts out a fur] Sable.

Beal makes her put on the sable. Donna asks him "What I gotta do murder?" Beal answers "just the opposite, reform work." 

"What I gotta do murder?"

We next see Donna wearing the sable with white gloves and a hat to match writing out a check in Fosters presence for two hundred and fifty for the boys club.

She smiles flirtingly at Foster and asks him if she could fix his tie for him, adding in that he should get some ties with some color instead of this somber one. 

It really goes Noirsville after Foster takes Donna's bait and starts listening more to her than to his wife. Then he gets confronted by Hanson's bookkeeper, who tells Foster that he really did burn Hansons books, and that he must have gotten a fake set. 

"I really did burn the books."

He's afraid for his life because Hanson thinks he ratted. He asks Foster for a couple of thousand to get out of town and they set up a meeting for 10:00AM the next day. 

While Foster is contemplating all this, the bookkeeper takes ones of Fosters tobacco pipes while he's not looking and slips it in his pocket as per directions from Nick Beal. 

Stealing one of Foster's pipes

Later that night when the bookkeeper meets with Nick Beal, at China Coast again, to get his payoff for dropping in on Foster, Beal lures him out of the bar to a secluded spot and dispatches him,

All we hear is a scream and a splash into the bay. The last main player in the film is Dr. Garfield the reverend who is sure he's seen Beal around someplace.

"I've seen you someplace before."

At this point we are about a third of the way into the film.

Noirsville

More Dali-esque walls

If you know the Faust story this will predictably play out. Good against Evil, etc., etc. 

Audrey is just great in her hardboiled "lady of the evening' persona. When she goes quasi legit to lure Mitchell she looks a little too austier and less interesting  Milland plays his role to perfection with a reptilian like aura and a chilling thousand yard stare. 

There's a sequence in the boys club where Dr. Garfield is reading a bible passage and Beal is in effect being cast out. He is using both his hands on the railing propelling himself with all appendages like a lizard creeping for the safety of darkness out of a sudden light. 

Thomas Mitchell carries himself well and George Macready will be an eye opener if all you ever remember him for is Gilda. 

The best part of the film is the initial set up and the introduction of the characters once that is accomplished it you know how it ends. Oh, and for anyone familiar with the Dark Shadows TV Series you just know the writers homaged this film with their warlock character Nicholas Blair 7/10