Dead Reckoning: John Cromwell

For the past few days I've tried to figure out how to properly express my feelings towards John Cromwell's Dead Reckoning. Overall, it's a fairly mediocre film noir with decent performances by Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott. But something about the film was making my brain itch. Then it hit me: Dead Reckoning copies many character traits and plot points from John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941). Hear me out: after his best friend is mysteriously murdered, Humphrey Bogart dives into a world of deception and violence to bring his killer to justice. During his investigation he keeps running into a beautiful femme fatale who may or may not have something to do with his best friend's death. He then learns the terrible truth behind the femme fatale's relationship to the murder. The film ends with him sacrificing her love in the name of his higher ideals concerning justice. Only whereas The Maltese Falcon involves private eyes, Dead Reckoning centers on two American paratroopers (one played by Bogart) who are called to Washington in order to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross for their actions in World War Two. However, Bogart's friend runs away before he can receive his awards. Bogart follows him to a small town where he finds him burned to death in a car. It turns out he was involved in a scandalous relationship with a rich man and his oh-so-beautiful wife. I will admit that it was fascinating to see The Maltese Falcon's San Francisco replaced with Dead Reckoning's more nondescript small city as a hotbed of vice and murder. After all, the idea of small-town America being corrupted in the post-war years would become one of the most important themes of film noir. But the film is just going through the motions. Everything that Dead Reckoning does was done ten times better in The Maltese Falcon. I know that it isn't fair to base an opinion of one film on how it compares with a classic. But in this case, the comparison summarizes my odd dissatisfaction with Dead Reckoning.

6/10