Pretty Good

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The Woman On Pier 13 is what I call one of those blacklist proof films which I'm convinced is why Robert Ryan starred in it. To convince the mastodons on the House Un-American Activities Committee that you are indeed a patriot no matter how many liberal causes you espouse you do a film like this one. Added to that it was made at RKO at that time owned by Howard Hughes. No bigger patriot around than America's number one recluse.This film has Robert Ryan a fast rising union organizer in San Francisco a happily married man to Laraine Day and idol of his brother-in-law John Agar. But he's got a deep dark secret, under his birth name he was a Communist and from what we see Communists are like street gangs, once in never out. Now top party leader Thomas Gomez wants him to make sure the dockworkers strike and tie up Pacific Coast ports. Remember this is made during the Korean War and we don't want our fighting men in Korea to get their supplies.When Ryan falls down on the job it all hits the fan and several cast members die.Since this is a Howard Hughes production you know that there has to be some sex tossed in. Sex kitten Janis Carter who's one shapely Commie sets her cap for Agar. And the females are not left out. William Talman in his feature film debut is a gigolo on call by the party. He's targeting Laraine Day, but Day is on to him and she's looking for him to lead her to Gomez after Ryan goes AWOL. I did love Talman's costume. With that checkered sports jacket and rakish bow tie I guess he represented to Hughes what the well dressed gigolo wears while working. Good thing this wasn't in color or we'd have all gone blind.HUAC must have loved this film, but it really doesn't wear well with age.

Like "pick up on south street" this is an anti-commies movie to the power of ten .This sinister party ,if we are to believe the screenwriters ,is responsible for three murders (plus a failed one) .The gorgeous woman represents fascism with a nice face ,thus a perfect weapon to indoctrinate green horn such as Ryan's brother -in-law (John Agar)Unlike "invasion of the body snatchers" which could also be considered a metaphorical depiction of communism ,"woman on pier 13" has not worn well ;it's impossible to take this story seriously ;a propaganda flick for conducting a witch hunt;a strange part for highly talented Ryan ,known for his liberal ideas .

**SPOILERS** An attempted takeover of the San Francisco docks by the local commies has former Communisty Party card carrying member Brad Collins, Robert Ryan, in the cross-hairs of both his former commie comrades and the police. Collins who was formerly known as Frank Johnson is being blackmailed in him being exposed not only as a former commie but a murderer in the killing of a union shop steward back on the east coast some time ago.After disowning the Communist Party Brad has made it big on the SF docks working his way up from a longshoreman to the vice president of a major west coast shipping company. loved and respected by both labor and management Brad is picked to negotiate a new contract for the dock workers only to have his sordid and sleazy past catch up with him. Contacted by his former commie boss Vanning, Thomas Gomez, Brad is blackmailed to stall negotiations and thus instigate a dock strike that is to last at least two months.That sleazy commie rat Vanning, and his fellow hoodlums, are planning to take over the union and are using Brad as their battering ram, or Trojan Horse, to do it. Brad at first has no choice but to go along with Vannings plans but when his former girlfriend fanatical Communist, under orders of Vanning, Christine Norman (Janis Carter) gets romantically involved with Brad's weak-minded brother-in-law Dan Lowery, John Agar, is when he finally comes to his senses.Turning Dan into a Crypto-Communist and labor provocateur Christine has the young man, who Brad gave a job as a longshoreman, spew the Communist "Power to the Workers" line to his fellow union members without knowing that he's actually doing it. Dan thinks that he's fighting for his fellow workers rights but in fact is leading them, like lemmings, down the path of financial disaster in having them lose both their jobs and benefits when his behind the scenes controllers, Vanning & Co, take over the union.As Brad's wife of one month Nan, Laraine Day, starts to get suspicious of just what he's doing in wrecking the labor negotiations it also becomes clear that her younger brother Dan, after he told her, is madly in love with Christine. Somehow Christine's snide and obnoxious, throwing out hints about her love affair with Brad, actions in both Nan and Brads presence has convinced Nan that she's up to no good and want's Dan to have nothing at all to do with her. It's later when Nan finds out that her husband is being blackmailed by Christian and her boss Vanning that she finally realizes that Dan's life as well as future as a married man is in danger, deadly danger.The film has Brad knowing that his life is ruined, with a murder rap hanging over his head, makes a clean brake with his past as a commie labor leader. Having nothing to lose and everything to gain Brad goes after Vanning and his boys after they kidnapped Nan and murdered his by then enlightened, to what Christine and Vanning were using him for, brother-in-law Dan. Christine herself had by then also realized the wrongs of her ways, in being a die-in-the-wool commie, and not wanting her victim Dan Lowry, whom she fell in love with, pay for them. Christine is soon put on ice, in the city morgue, by a angry and vindictive Vanning who has her thrown out of her high-rise apartment window and then made her murder to look like a suicide.It's now up to Brad to make everything right to correct the many wrongs that he did in creating the mess that he now finds himself in which sets everything up for the final showdown at the local Cummnist headquarters an empty warehouse on the San Francisco docks.Despite the usual anti-Communist hysterics that you would expect to find in a movie like "Woman on Pier 13" or "I Married a Communist" the film didn't put former card carrying Communist Brad Collin/ Frank Johnson in a bad light at all. We were shown that Brad was suckered into joining the Communist Party, like thousands of other young men and women like himself during the Great Depression, with the promise of both a job and security for him and his family. It was also brought out in the movie that Brad was not forced to rat out his fellow Communist members who like himself were nothing but mindless stooges, like Dan Lowry, who had no idea what the Communist Party was planning for the USA and when they realized it dropped their membership cards and left the party. At least the film realized that people can make mistakes , by unknowingly joining subversive organizations, and at the same time not be forced to suffer for them, even after renouncing what they did, for the rest of their lives. This is something that most if not all anti-Communist movies coming out of Hollywood in the 1940's and 1950's sadly overlooked.

The Woman on Pier 13 is what this movie was really called, the I Married a Communist (1949) title did not set well with all of the black list investigations in the early 1950's. This film was not released until 1950. It kept one interested and I feel it was mainly because of character actor Thomas Gomez (1905-1971). He always was an interesting character in his other films like the Sherlock Homes series with Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce. You noticed I don't mention the other actors in this film, it's because Thomas Gomez as Vinning was the STAR.