Sick Product of a Sick System

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The Faust legend gets yet another retelling in modern post war America with Thomas Mitchell as an honest District Attorney looking for evidence to convict a racketeer. A conviction in this case will propel him to higher office.Into the story walks a gentleman named Nicholas Beal played with intensity by Ray Milland. The account books supposedly destroyed Milland says he can produce and produce them he does. Of course Mitchell is grateful and Milland becomes part of his inner circle.With Mitchell now being talked about for the governorship, Milland incurs the mistrust of all around him including Mitchell's wife Geraldine Wall and the Reverend George MacReady. MacReady who himself has played many a sinister character on the big and small screen knows sinister when he sees it. In fact he's the first to recognize Milland for what he is.When a man's influence doesn't work Milland plants Audrey Totter in Mitchell's circle. This is a whole lot like the way Ray Walston used Gwen Verdon to get at Tab Hunter in Damn Yankees. Only this is far more serious.Ray Milland who before The Lost Weekend played all kinds of light parts was now getting heavier dramatic fare in his career and handling it most successfully. He's probably at his most menacing on the screen in Alias Nick Beal.As for Mitchell for once he didn't die on the screen. Years ago I had a teacher who said that Thomas Mitchell had to have the record for screen deaths in major motion pictures. Although I can think of a few in addition to this one like Stagecoach and It's A Wonderful Life where he lived until the final end credits, I think the man that taught me might have had something. Mitchell is fine as a man desperately trying to do the right thing and having to contend with his own ambitions at the same time.Paramount normally did not go in for noir films, but in this case they produced one with classic satanic overtones. In the end Milland makes a rather interesting confession as the film ends. It explains his attitude and his character. I'd make it a point to check it out.

Unlike a lot of commentators on this site, I found "Alias Nick Beale" to be kind of slow and uninvolving, but that probably just my prejudice against film noir revealing itself. I liked Ray Milland just fine in his role, but the guy who played the "Faust" character dull and uninteresting - probably not the actor's fault, since the character he plays is a self-important blowhard who is willing to take shortcuts to get important reforms done.However, I did like the way the screenplay made things "complicated" for the "hero" as he dealt with more and more unexpected consequences of his initial compromise, and unlike some here, I liked the lead actress' performance as the Jezebel with a heart of gold.There's some heavy-handed and not very convincing sermonizing by a minister that's supposed to serve as the moral center of the film, and I have to say that if that's what we've got for inspiration against the wiles of St. Nick, we're in trouble.Still, I have to give the film credit for some interesting ideas and some good one-liners by "Beale", and a resolution that leaves the hero with something like a 2nd chance.

Ray Milland attempts to tempt Thomas Mitchell, a crusading politician. First Milland gets the goods on a crook Mitchell was trying to get into office, then he helps Mitchell reach for the governor's office. Will Mitchell be able to break free? Milland is perfectly cast as the cocky, seemingly all knowing Beal. From the minute from he steps on screen it's clear he's up to something and Milland milks it for all its worth. I came into the film unaware of who Beal was and it really added to the proceedings since I couldn't be sure if this was the sort of film I thought it was. Even once I realized that yes he really is the devil I couldn't believe it since the role is so well written and the film is so well done that its implication rather than overt explanation (until the end and even that is low key). A solid morality tale excellently acted by a great cast. It's one of Ray Milland's best roles. Worth searching out.

Rarely spotted on TV even by midweek insomniacs, brushed aside even by aficionados of the Hollywood past, Alias Nick Beal is a top-notch movie that puzzlingly languishes in limbo. It's an unusual but successful cross of the supernatural fantasy films popular in the forties – like Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Heaven Can Wait, The Devil and Daniel Webster – with the grittier conflicts of the big-city exposés in film noir.Thomas Mitchell, a progressive and muckraking mayor, won't rest easy until he eradicates corruption from his unnamed town. But incriminating ledgers detailing the graft of a rival political-machine boss have been burned. Mitchell gets a call asking for a mysterious meeting at a waterfront bar, The China Coast Café, where, like a wraith out of the harbor fogs, materializes Ray Milland. Ordering Barbados rum (with its voodooish connotations), he introduces himself as Nick Beal, which seems to be the short Americanization of Beelzebub. He offers Mitchell the pristine ledgers, from which the mayor can nail down a conviction and propel himself to the governor's mansion; trouble is, now he's stuck with the sinister Beal.Unflappable in his suavity, Milland stays pitchfork-perfect in his scheme to strip Mitchell of his honesty and ideals. He enlists the help of bar floozie Audrey Totter, who turns herself into Mitchell's Gal Friday and diverts his affections from his wife (and conscience) Geraldine Wall. And every time Mitchell thinks he's compromised his principles for the last time or struck his final dirty bargain, in slithers Milland with another twist of the knife, a brand-new temptation. Finally elected to the statehouse, Mitchell finds that he's sold his soul to the very forces that he had always fought...Alias Nick Beal has to be, hands down, the most sure-footed movie John Farrow ever directed; he never slips in sustaining its spectral look or precarious tone. Totter, too, excels in a part that tests her range, from a cat-fighter in a sleazy dive through efficient political aide to repentant cat's-paw. This may be her most fetching performance, particularly in her drunken exchange with a bartender: `What time is it?' `You just asked me that.' `I didn't ask you what I just asked you, I asked you what time it is.' Mitchell and Milland can't be faulted at the top of a cast that includes George Macready as a preacher who can't quite place Milland: `Have you ever had your portrait painted?' he gingerly inquires. `Yes – by Rembrandt in 1655," comes the smug retort. (The screenplay is by Jonathan Latimer, who also penned The Glass Key, Nocturne, They Won't Believe Me, Night Has A Thousand Eyes, and The Big Clock.) This morality tale about the seduction and fall of a promising politician echoes themes explored in the same year's All The King's Men but adds a fanciful metaphysical dimension. That may look like a cop-out, a way to avoid tackling the issues realistically, but the metaphysics can be seen as metaphorical – Satan can be a symbol (and as Macready remarks, maybe he knows it's the twentieth century, too). Whatever one's take on The Spirit That Denies, the movie survives triumphantly on its own terms – the splendid and satisfying Alias Nick Beal doesn't deserve the obscurity that has come to enshroud it.