Truly Dreadful Film

Strong and Moving!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

MGM Produced Only a Few Crime or Film Noir Movies that were Above Average. Their Heart just wasn't in it and didn't Even Try Much Until the Post War Audiences were Paying More Attention to those Reality Based Movies and Rewarded the Grit and Edgy Films with Box Office Success. The Uppity Studio was Now On Board. Sort of.They Relegated Second Units and Hack Directors, Less than Premium Actors and Writers and Provided Them All with Low Production Values and Reluctantly Joined in on the Opportunity to Make Money. Most of Their Efforts were Unsurprisingly Average or Worse.In this Crime Procedural Walter Pidgeon and Barry Sullivan do Their Best to Elevate the Thin Storyline with some Gravitas. it does Raise this One Slightly Above Average with some Surprising Twists. But the Production Suffers from a Rushed Schedule. One Example where the Movie could have An Added Bonus of Realism with a Heart Stopping Scene would be to Film the Death of a Major Character that was Sudden and Powerful Involving a Hit and Run by Truck. These Pedestrian in a Hurry Movie Makers Chose to let that Action and Drama Occur Offscreen.Overall it is Definitely Worth a Watch for its Story of Corruption and Crime Unfolding in Front of a Good Hearted and Naive Lawyer that Finds His World View Collapsing All Around Him. The Way He Deals with it is Interesting and a Bit Different for this Type of Thing.

MGM made some excellent film noir. People are surprised but it turned out some excellent and very dark ones, notably "The People Against O'Hara." This bears certain plot similarities to that Spencer Tracy movie. However, it is unfortunately not a very good MGM noir.Walter Pigeon, not one of my favorite actors, turns in a decent performance. Ann Harding, who could be exasperatingly grand in her 1930s RKO starring vehicles, has a small part as his wife. She's fine, though.Keefe Brasselle as the young hotshot Pigeon defends is not up to the task. He doesn't ring remotely true as a sleazy kid on the take for whatever he can get and loving what he does get.Barry Sullivan is one of the staples of the best of noir, however, and he is in his usual fine form as the district attorney who goes up against Pigeon in court. The movie, which seems to have needed it, has a voice-over narration by Sullivan. (I say it may have needed it because he speaks right over characters we see moving their mouths and acting out scenes.) It's rather predictable. Pigeon's Biblical recitation is interesting and casts the movie in a light that suggests it could have been much better than it is.

Hopelessly hamstrung by the requirements of the Production Code, The Unknown Man is a rather nasty piece of filmmaking, when you come down to it. Walter Pidgeon is fine as the defense lawyer who mistakenly frees a young killer, played with fresh faced ineptitude by Keefe Braselle, but the machinations set into motion by Pidgeon's fatal encounter with the slimy Crime Commission bigwig, played brilliantly by Eduard Franz, are hopelessly unrealistic. That leads some to conclude this is an entry in the noir cycle, but it plays more like a police procedural, with police captain Barry Sullivan successfully sniffing out the truth. Besides Franz and Pidgeon, the acting highlights are provided by Konstantin Shayne as an elderly shopkeeper victimized by shakedown men. Ultimately, though, The Unknown Man is a lesson in Old Testament justice, with murderers and their victims filling in as Sunday School sermon illustrations. If you can get over the moralizing, however, this is a decent minor picture.

An excellent film on all counts, and especially on the side of the script. The little I have seen of Walter Pidgeon has convinced me that this man must have been in his time a great and imposing actor ! You are kept on tenterhooks throughout the film right up till the end. In addition, Pidgeon's voice was magnificent and deep, you just don't hear voices like that now. Unfortunately not available on video anywhere like so many of the great old films. Let us hope this situation will be remedied in the coming years !